Taiwan is still talking with the WHO about donating US$1 million to help fight Ebola, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) told lawmakers yesterday.
The legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee met to review Ministry of Foreign Affairs efforts and government policy in the wake of the loss of two diplomatic allies, the Dominican Republic and Burkina Faso.
Asked by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tsai Shih-ying (蔡適應) about the government’s offer to donate US$1 million to the fight against Ebola, Wu said officials are still communicating with the WHO and are not sure if the donation would be accepted.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
“Taiwan donated US$1 million to the WHO in 2014, which initially refused [the money], but later accepted it because it was donated through the US’ CDC Foundation,” he said.
The foundation is an independent nonprofit organization created by the US Congress to coordinate private funding and resources in support of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s health protection work.
When Tsai asked if the government had received a receipt for the donation and to whom it was addressed, Department of International Organizations Director-General Michael Hsu (徐佩勇) of the ministry said the receipt was addressed to the foundation.
By donating to the WHO, Taiwan can show that it is capable and willing to join the fight against Ebola, Wu said.
“This would be an opportunity to build cooperation with the organization, show other countries Taiwan’s willingness to help and to become involved in the fight against the virus,” he said.
The WHO secretariat has been very unfriendly to Taiwan, and over the past two years China has donated US$7 million to the organization, so making a donation to it through other nations would not make it acknowledge Taiwan’s contributions, Tsai said.
Donating to Doctors Without Borders or another organization might be better, the lawmaker said.
When Tsai asked if Eswatini, Taiwan’s sole remaining African ally, might establish ties with China given Beijing’s increasing pressure on the nation’s diplomatic allies, Wu said Eswatini’s ambassador had made it clear that his nation “disdains [Chinese] Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments.”
Wang on Saturday said he hoped all African countries would appear in a “family photograph” to be taken at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing in September.
“The king of Eswatini will soon visit Taiwan and he will attend the graduation ceremony of his son. The visit will speak to the deep bond between Taiwan and Eswatini,” Wu said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) said the ministry should stop providing financial aid to the nation’s diplomatic allies because too many of them have decided to sever ties as soon as they receive such benefits.
Taxpayers’ money would be better spent on domestic infrastructure, she said, adding: “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has become the ministry of severed ties.”
Wu said he could not accept that suggestion.
Ma should “show some sympathy” to ministry officials who have been fighting a “gory” diplomatic battle for their nation, Wu said.
Taiwan over the past two years has improved its relations with the US and the EU, he said.
The US has passed a number of Taiwan-friendly acts and allowed the nation’s representative to the US to work in the US Department of State for the first time, while Taiwan also held its first human rights consultations with the EU, he said.
“We will never give in — never, never, never,” Wu said, paraphrasing then-British prime minister Winston Churchill’s speech at Harrow School on Oct. 29, 1941.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
RSS