The US and Taiwan yesterday launched a new bilateral education initiative that American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Brent Christensen said was aimed at expanding access to Mandarin and English-language instruction and safeguarding academic freedom.
At a ceremony at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taipei for the US-Taiwan Education Initiative, Christensen said that it would “highlight Taiwan’s important role in providing Chinese-language instruction to Americans and to people around the world, and seeks to expand Taiwan’s influence in this area.”
As part of the initiative, the AIT and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding on international education cooperation that focuses on language education.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The memorandum is expected to remain in effect for five years, with the possibility of an extension, the AIT said.
The two sides have agreed to enhance and to expand their existing educational exchange programs, Christensen said, adding that once regular travel resumes following the COVID-19 pandemic, more Americans would be able to teach and study in Taiwan, and vice versa.
The initiative is “set against the backdrop of two distinct, but related trends,” he said.
These trends were the closure of Confucius Institutes by universities around the world over their role in China-led “censorship and malign influence campaigns,” and Taiwan’s increased commitment to English-language education.
Despite Confucius Institutes in the US closing, there continues to be a strong interest among American and international students in learning Mandarin, Christensen said, adding that Taiwan “can and should play a key role.”
The US is also eager to help provide English-language instruction to support Taiwan’s goal of becoming bilingual by 2030, he said.
Christensen said that the two trends were “rooted in the same principle: Young people should be able to pursue academic and professional opportunities in an environment free from coercion and censorship.”
The new initiative would provide a platform for the US and Taiwan to expand their cooperation in the pursuit of their shared interests and values, he said.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said that it was “particularly meaningful” for Taiwan to strengthen bilingual education cooperation with the US at a time “when academic freedom and freedom of speech in the US and other countries are being invaded by certain political forces.”
Wu described the initiative as a “starting point for comprehensive educational cooperation” between the two nations.
Taiwan is the seventh-largest source of international students in the US, with more than 23,000 Taiwanese enrolled in colleges and universities, Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a video message to the ceremony.
“Taiwan is also becoming an increasingly attractive destination for American students studying abroad,” she said, adding that the number of American students in Taiwan grew by more than 48 percent last year.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan
RSS