Congratulations from foreign governments poured in after Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party won Saturday’s presidential election by a landslide.
The White House offered its congratulations to the president-elect and said the US “maintain[s] a profound interest in the continuation of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
“The United States congratulates Dr. Tsai Ing-wen on her victory in Taiwan’s presidential election. We also congratulate the people of Taiwan for once again demonstrating the strength of their robust democratic system,” White House National Security Council spokesman Myles Caggins said.
Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida on Saturday wrote on the ministry Web site that Taiwan is an important partner and friend to Japan and they share fundamental values, have close economic relations and engage in personnel exchanges.
“Based on maintaining non-official and pragmatic relations with Taiwan, the Japanese government hopes the bilateral cooperation and exchanges can be deepened,” Kishida wrote.
The European Parliament Taiwan Friendship Group also issued a statement to congratulate Tsai on her election.
“The outcome of the election shows that Taiwan has become a mature and stable democracy which respects multiparty pluralist democracy,” it said.
Philippine representative in Taiwan Antonio Basilio congratulated Tsai in a statement yesterday and expressed hope that bilateral ties will advance to boost peace and stability in the region.
Nauruan President Baron Waqa also sent a congratulatory message to Tsai yesterday, saying Nauru looks forward to further improving bilateral ties and expressed gratitude for the assistance that Taiwan has provided to his nation.
A Singaporean Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman congratulated Tsai, saying, “as a longstanding friend, Singapore looks forward to maintaining our close relations and cooperation with Taiwan based on our consistent ‘one China’ policy.”
“Singapore supports the peaceful development of cross-strait relations. We hope that both sides will build on the hard-earned achievements over the last few years and continue to engage in dialogue and mutually-beneficial cooperation for the benefit of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait,” the spokesman said.
OVERHAUL NEEDED: The government should improve its agricultural processing capabilities and expand to new markets to limit its reliance on China, an expert said China’s ban on Taiwanese pineapples was “unsurprising,” and Taiwan should have years ago altered its produce export strategies and target customers, experts said. China on Friday abruptly suspended imports of pineapples from Taiwan, saying that it had on multiple occasions discovered “harmful biological entities” on the fruit. Calling it an “unfriendly” move, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said that 99.79 percent of the pineapples sent to China since last year have met China’s import standards. Chiao Chun (焦鈞), the author of Fruits and Politics — A Recollection of Cross-strait Agricultural Interaction Over the Past Decade (水果政治學：兩岸農業交流十年回顧與展望), said that China’s announcement is clearly targeting
The Council of Agriculture yesterday signed a Taiwan-Australia Agricultural Cooperation Implementation clause to open a new export market for the nation’s pineapple crop. The clause is an addition to existing cooperation measures, it said. China on Friday last week abruptly announced that it would suspend pineapple imports from Taiwan starting on Monday, on grounds that it had on multiple occasions discovered “harmful organisms” in shipments of the fruit. The public and private sectors have since joined hands to purchase the local fruit to help the nation’s pineapple farmers. Canberra has requested that all pineapples for export to Australia have their crown buds removed,
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