Taiwan said Wednesday it wasn't willing to play money games with rival China to keep diplomatic relations with Grenada, and wouldn't give in to what it called extortion-like behavior by the leader of its Caribbean ally. China and Taiwan regularly accuse each other of "dollar diplomacy" as both pour money into some of the world's smallest and poorest countries to win official recognition. Grenada is one of just 27 African and Latin American nations that recognize Taiwan diplomatically instead of China. China and Taiwan split during civil war in 1949, but China insists that self-ruled Taiwan is a part of its territory and demands that diplomatic partners not maintain formal ties with Taiwan. In a speech Monday, Grenadian Prime Minister Keith Mitchell hinted he might sever ties with Taiwan in favor of relations with China, where he visited last week, accusing Taipei of failing to take its relations with the Caribbean country seriously. Taiwan's foreign ministry compared his actions to extortion. "We can see that Prime Minister Mitchell thinks he is rather smart. He can run between both sides and take China's promises...to put pressure on Taiwan," said ministry spokesman Michel Ching-long Lu. But Lu said Mitchell's methods wouldn't work. "Sorry, we will not play dollar diplomacy games with China, and we really will not accept this kind of extortion-like behavior," Lu told reporters. Mitchell announced he had negotiated a hurricane relief deal during his visit to China, but he refused to disclose details, saying the agreement had yet to be formally signed. Mitchell's complaints came despite Taiwan's offer of almost 322 million New Taiwan dollars (US$10 million) to help the country recover from Hurricane Ivan, which devastated the Caribbean country in September. Taiwan has also offered US$40 million to help Grenada rebuild its cricket stadium. Reprinted from yahoo.com/AP