The Presidential Office on Tuesday approved a set of guidelines for the “new southbound policy,” an important part of Taiwan’s overall strategy to promote trade and economic ties with other nations.
The guidelines were adopted in a meeting on foreign trade strategy convened by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
Other participants included Premier Lin Chuan (林全), Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chang Hsiao-yueh (張小月), Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維) and National Development Council Minister Chen Tain-jy (陳添枝).
The guidelines state that the long-term goals of the “new southbound policy” are to promote Taiwan’s economic, technological and cultural connections with Southeast Asia, South Asia, Australia and New Zealand to allow for the sharing of resources, talent and markets, Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) said.
The policy is also aimed at creating a new cooperation model based on mutual benefits and joint prosperity and establishing an extensive mechanism for negotiations and dialogue to facilitate consensus-building and to resolve differences, Huang said.
In the short and medium term, the policy is to promote and expand two-way exchanges on investment, tourism, culture and human resources; encourage Taiwanese companies to expand their footprints southward; and expand multilateral and bilateral negotiations and dialogue, he said.
On the policy’s standard for action, he said the government would work to define Taiwan’s future role in regional development in the hopes of making it an innovator and service provider.
The government is also to push for regional connections in the areas of soft power, supply chains, regional markets and people-to-people contact, he said.
In addition, the government is to train more people; promote multilateral and bilateral cooperation; take an active part in international cooperation; improve the mechanism for negotiations and dialogue; and improve friendly interaction and cooperation across the Taiwan Strait, Huang said.
He said Taiwan and China shoulder a major responsibility for regional peace and development and share many common interests.
Given that they enjoy different advantages in establishing economic partnerships with their neighbors, the two sides would be able to reinforce their strengths if they cooperate with each other, he said, adding that the government has not ruled out negotiating the issue with Beijing.
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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