Taiwan must become a more active player in resolving global challenges such as poverty and gender discrimination, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday, adding that future foreign aid projects should be conducted in a transparent manner to shake off the nation’s “checkbook diplomacy” image.
Speaking at the offices of the International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF), a body affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ma said that future foreign aid projects must have “proper goals, legitimate procedures and effective execution.”
The nation’s diplomacy, he said, must send the message that Taiwan has an “honorable and clean” government.
“I often joke with ambassadors that they can say the incumbent Taiwanese president is different. Due process and clean government are very important to him,” he said, adding that as a developed nation, every penny spent by the government must be closely scrutinized.
Citing a report in the Financial Times last week that alleged Beijing paid US$1.3 billion to buy Costa Rica’s loyalty last year, Ma said such negative news is a discredit to both Beijing and Taipei and serves as a reminder that Taiwan must handle its foreign aid projects cautiously to ensure its resources are spent in a proper and magnanimous manner.
Ma said Taiwan should express its gratitude for all the humanitarian aid it received between 1950 and 1965 by giving back to the international community, recalling a time when he stood in line at a church to receive bread and butter donated by other countries.
Currently, Taiwan’s donates 0.142 percent of its overall GDP in foreign aid, a figure that Ma said he hopes to increase to 0.7 percent, the amount the UN recommends.
ICDF Secretary-General Chen Lien-gene (陳連軍) said in a report that since its inception in 1996, the ICDF has provided humanitarian aid and technical assistance to more than 30 countries.
To date, the ICDF has dispatched 410 health workers to 19 countries to provide medical services. The ICDF also offers various training courses in Taiwan for foreign personnel in subjects such as management, agriculture and aquaculture techniques, environmental protection and media studies, the report said.
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
CHANGES: After-school tutoring periods, extracurricular activities during vacations or after-school study periods must not be used to teach new material, the ministry said The Ministry of Education yesterday announced new rules that would ban giving tests to most elementary and junior-high school students during morning study and afternoon rest periods. The amendments to regulations governing public education at elementary schools and junior high schools are to be implemented on Aug. 1. The revised rules stipulate that schools are forbidden to use after-school tutoring periods, extracurricular activities during summer or winter vacation or after-school study periods to teach new course material. In addition, schools would be prohibited from giving tests or exams to students in grades one to eight during morning study and afternoon break periods, the
AMENDMENT: Contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau must be reported, and failure to comply could result in a prison sentence, the proposal stated The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday voted against a proposed bill by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers that would require elected officials to seek approval before visiting China. DPP Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) proposed amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), stipulate that contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau should be reported, while failure to comply would be punishable by prison sentences of up to three years, alongside a fine of NT$10 million (US$309,041). Fifty-six voted with the TPP in opposition