The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday confirmed that the number and scale of its overseas diplomatic missions would be reduced, citing the need to reallocate available resources to meet the nation’s strategic and diplomatic needs.
The ministry said it would disband fewer than 10 of its embassies and overseas missions to allocate resources for President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) “new southbound policy,” Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維) said at a legislative session on Tuesday.
When asked about it on Wednesday, Lee said the decision was “informed by concerns over costs and strategic effect,” in addition to the needs of the “new southbound policy,” adding that the number of overseas missions the ministry has is “excessive.”
The decision to reduce in the number of diplomatic missions was made after careful deliberation, he said, adding that the ministry would consider its options before committing to closing missions and embassies.
The ministry said the reduction in the number and scale of diplomatic missions is being made in light of concerns over diplomatic strategy, fiscal constraints and limits on the resources available to the ministry, with the goal of maximizing the impact of each overseas mission.
The nation’s 117 diplomatic missions have been panned by pundits as bloated and many offices are said to be lacking in efficiency or a reason for existing.
Pragmatism is necessary when conducting diplomacy, former foreign minister Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) said.
Ou said he supports the idea of closing representative offices that do not contribute to promoting the nation’s diplomacy.
Taiwan is a mid-sized nation and “it does not make sense” that the number of its overseas representative offices surpasses those of some larger nations, he added.
Ou said that many of Taiwan’s representative offices only exist to provide consular services to expatriates living there and do little in the way of diplomatic work.
However, some diplomats have voiced opposition to the planned reductions.
A senior foreign affairs official said there is “no problem” with the number of representative offices.
The issue lies in the leadership of some of them, he said, adding that some representatives make no effort to improve Taiwan’s relations with their host nation.
The ministry should carry out reform to better train the heads of its overseas representative offices instead of reducing the number of missions, the official said, adding that there are increasing opportunities for international cooperation in public health, aviation safety and food safety.
As early as 2012, lawmakers and Control Yuan members had accused the ministry of establishing overseas missions that served no purpose or were underperforming.
The Chinese-language United Daily News reported that the Tripoli mission in Libya is virtually deserted, the Yokohama mission in Japan has few assigned tasks and the only service provided by the Frankfurt-am-Main mission in Germany is greeting Taiwanese officials who visit the city.
“We can easily do away with 30 missions,” the newspaper quoted an unnamed high-ranking foreign ministry official as saying.
Taiwan is to commence mass production of the Tien Kung (天弓, “Sky Bow”) III, IV and V missiles by the second quarter of this year if the legislature approves the government’s NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.78 billion) special defense budget, an official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said that the advanced systems are expected to provide crucial capabilities against ballistic and cruise missiles for the proposed “T-Dome,” an advanced, multi-layered air defense network. The Tien Kung III is an air defense missile with a maximum interception altitude of 35km. The Tien Kung IV and V
The disruption of 941 flights in and out of Taiwan due to China’s large-scale military exercises was no accident, but rather the result of a “quasi-blockade” used to simulate creating the air and sea routes needed for an amphibious landing, a military expert said. The disruptions occurred on Tuesday and lasted about 10 hours as China conducted live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said the exercises affected 857 international flights and 84 domestic flights, affecting more than 100,000 travelers. Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the government-sponsored Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the air
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
A strong continental cold air mass is to bring pollutants to Taiwan from tomorrow, the Ministry of Environment said today, as it issued an “orange” air quality alert for most of the country. All of Taiwan except for Hualien and Taitung counties is to be under an “orange” air quality alert tomorrow, indicating air quality that is unhealthy for sensitive groups. In China, areas from Shandong to Shanghai have been enveloped in haze since Saturday, the ministry said in a news release. Yesterday, hourly concentrations of PM2.5 in these areas ranged from 65 to 160 micrograms per cubic meter (mg/m³), and pollutants were
RSS