Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday brushed off criticism about his recent trips abroad and defended his municipal achievements.
Hau last night embarked on a 13-day visit to the US, Nicaragua and Panama on a city diplomacy tour. He will attend the 55th Sister Cities International Annual Conference in Arlington, Virginia, and visit Washington to meet US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart — who is also the leader of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus — as well as the mayor of Washington and city councilors.
Hau is also scheduled to visit two sister cities — Managua and Panama City — and to meet Nicaraguan Vice President Jaime Morales Carazo and Panama City Mayor Bosco Vallarino before returning to Taipei on March 13.
Photo: CNA
The 13-day visit is Hau’s second overseas trip since he began his second term on Dec. 25 last year.
He visited Hong Kong and Singapore to inspect public housing projects from Sunday through Thursday last week.
“We have different goals on each inspection tour, and we will promote city diplomacy and exchange ideas with sister cities during this trip to the US and Central America,” Hau said at Taipei City Hall.
Besides strengthening ties with sister cities, Hau said he would promote Taipei’s “world-class” projects during his tour, including city-wide free wireless service, garbage recycling and urban renewal development.
“I didn’t make many foreign visits during my first term, and certain media outlets accused me of ignoring city diplomacy. Now that I’m putting more efforts into promoting Taipei to the international community, they accuse me of taking too many overseas trips,” he said.
During his first term, Hau visited Australia and Singapore in 2007 to inspect water management facilities and attended the World Expo in Shanghai last year.
Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Wang Shih-chien (王世堅) has accused Hau of ignoring municipal issues and said the city government should devote its efforts to developing and improving the city, including road-resurfacing, as well as addressing public concerns, such as a recent outbreak of seasonal flu.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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