President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) as they took part in the opening of a two-day Pacific Women Leaders’ Coalition Conference in Majuro, with each nation contributing US$1 million to establish a Microloan Revolving Fund for Women Founding Businesses.
Tsai arrived in the Marshall Islands earlier in the day from Nauru on the third and final leg of her visit to three Pacific allies, and was greeted by Heine at Marshall Islands International Airport.
The revolving fund would provide necessary money and equipment for women in the Marshall Islands, Tsai said.
Photo: CNA
“A country’s stability and prosperity are directly tied to the number of women who are financially independent,” Tsai said.
A joint committee made up of representatives from the two governments would be established once Taiwan’s funding has been deposited, and would discuss application procedures and qualifications, a Taiwanese government source said.
In her speech to the conference, Tsai highlighted Taiwan’s efforts and achievements in the promotion of gender equality.
Photo: CNA
Taiwan has always been supportive of women’s independence, Tsai said, citing as an example Taiwan’s efforts with the US in 2016 to set up the APEC Women and the Economy Sub-Fund.
The process of creating a successful business would bring women great satisfaction and confidence, Tsai said, adding that true gender equality comes from confidence in oneself.
The similarity of having women in core positions of family in Taiwan and Austronesia, as well as women making up the majority of representatives from Pacific nations to Taiwan, shows that the Pacific region is becoming more open and accepting in terms of gender cultures, she said.
Photo: CNA
Tsai and Heine became the first female presidents of their nations in elections in 2016.
Meanwhile, regarding media commentary that Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) visit to China was improving his city’s economy while she was increasing the nation’s expenditures with her travels, Tsai said that just as other nations helped Taiwan’s economy take off, “we too must do our international duty as a democratic nation to take care of other less-developed countries.”
Most Taiwanese would agree with her that taking care of other nations was not a waste of money, she said.
As for Han’s meeting with the Taiwan Affairs Office Director Liu Jieyi (劉結一) and the directors of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong and Macau, Tsai said that such matters were the Mainland Affairs Council’s responsibility.
Han is on a five-day visit to Xiamen, China, and reportedly plans to sign deals with the city on agricultural and fishery products.
Mayors often visit other countries to promote local produce, but the point is whether an individual’s actions abroad have hurt the public’s expectations on national sovereignty and dignity, Tsai said, in an apparent reference to Han refraining from mentioning the Republic of China when meeting with Liu and only saying that he was a believer of Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) Three Principles of the People after Liu left.
Politicians have the responsibility to stand their ground and express their beliefs, especially those elected to office by the people, Tsai said.
Compared with Han’s trip, “on a certain level” Taiwan has been elevated from a local level of cross-strait affairs to a regional one, “an Indo-Pacific Taiwan” level, she said.
Such changes would allow more Taiwanese to understand that Taiwan has a significant role to play in the Indo-Pacific region, she added.
Additional reporting by CNA
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift