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Yu Shyi-kun sets off for 11-day trip to Latin America

Premier Yu Shyi-kun is set to embark on an 11-day trip to visit four of Taiwan's diplomatic allies in Central America today and is due back on Aug. 15.

Yu is scheduled to lead a 60-person delegation that will include government officials, business and cultural leaders and the media to Haiti, Panama, Costa Rica and Belize.

The delegation will have a two-day stopover in New York en route to Haiti and a one-day stopover in Los Angeles on the return trip.

During an exclusive interview with the Taipei Times and its sister paper, the Chinese-language Liberty Times, on Saturday, Yu said that Central America is one of Taiwan's important diplomatic regions.

"Of the 33 countries in Latin America, 14 of them have diplomatic relations with us," he said. "The mission of the journey is to show our utmost concern for them and offer our humanitarian assistance."

Billed as culture-oriented, the 11-day journey is Yu's first official visit since he took office on Feb. 1.

It is also part of Taiwan's effort to consolidate relationships with its diplomatic allies, especially following the recent defection of Nauru.

Taiwan broke its 22-year-old diplomatic ties with Nauru on July 23 after the tiny South Pacific island state established formal relations with China.

China offered US$60 million in financial aid and US$77 million in debt relief to the country, which has a population of just under 12,000.

During a one-hour interview with Spanish-language news agency Agencia EFE on Friday, Yu said government humanitarian aid is different from "dollar diplomacy."

"There's a difference between offering food or medical aid to a needy country and offering a lump-sum of funds to a country without knowing or caring where or how the money is spent," he said.

"The ROC government will never do such a thing as dollar diplomacy," he said "The agricultural and medical aid offered to its diplomatic allies is not dollar diplomacy nor [is aid] given to any particular individual."

Yu added that the government will continue to live up to its duty as a member of the international community and make good on its promise to provide foreign aid to its diplomatic allies in Central America.

"While the UN recommends that the amount of foreign aid a country offers should be worth 0.7 percent of the country's GDP, Taiwan's foreign aid accounts for just 0.14 percent of its GDP," he said. "It's obvious that the government's spending on foreign aid is insufficient."

Yu is scheduled to take China Airlines CI-012 to New York at 4:15pm today.

He will meet with Taiwanese-American community leaders and high-tech industry representatives as well as US think tanks.

In addition to Yu's wife, accompanying the premier are several government officials including Government Information Office Director-General Arthur Iap (葉國興), Chairwoman of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission Chang Fu-mei (張富美), Chairwoman of the Council for Cultural Affairs Tchen Yu-hsiu (陳郁秀) and Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Steve Chen (陳瑞隆).
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