Douglas

TAIPEI, Taiwan (CMC):

Prime Minister Dr Denzil Douglas yesterday defended his country's diplomatic relationship with Taiwan as the twin-island federation opened a new embassy here.

Douglas, who is on an official visit to Taiwan that China regards as a renegade province, said that the relationship is based on his administration's "desire for our advancement".

Policies and programmes

"It means therefore that we look very critically at our friends, our neighbours and we determine as a result of a very hard look at the policies and the programmes and the achievement of those countries as to what we will want to emulate for ourselves."

Douglas, who is leading a six-member delegation here, said that his island is a very small, developing country which has "very limited resources".

"We do not have any minerals. We only have our people and so we are embarked upon a policy and programme of developing our people as a means of ensuring that St. Kitts and Nevis can make its own impact on the rest of the world," Douglas said.

He said Taiwan stepped forward 25 years ago as the first nation to recognise diplomatically the newly independent St. Kitts and Nevis.

Since then the relationship has developed, strengthened and expanded, especially in the area of technical cooperation.

"Taiwan, therefore, became our trusted allies in this regard. We are certain that the transformation experiment will succeed with friends like Taiwan available to us," he said noting that his administration was also well aware of the threat by Beijing to Taipei's existence.

"I believe that in every aspect of life there will be challenges ... we are not oblivious to it, we are very much conscious of it, he said.