More than half a century after the US phased out its economic assistance to Taiwan, the head of the US federal government aid agency yesterday encouraged Taiwan to become a provider of development assistance across the world.
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Rajiv Shah singled out three areas in which the US and Taiwan could work together to help create a safe and prosperous world for all the people: humanitarian assistance, food security and health.
The US would like to engage in expanded and more effective cooperation with Taiwan in delivering humanitarian assistance, eliminating hunger and child malnutrition, and investing in healthcare to reduce infectious diseases.
Photo: CNA
Leading the efforts of more than 8,000 professionals in 80 missions around the world after he was sworn in two years ago, Shah was invited by the American Institute in Taiwan to deliver a speech at the “American Footprints in Taiwan” exhibition yesterday.
In his speech, he cited a number of cases of Taiwan’s transformation from a country receiving aid from the US to a partner with the US in development cooperation.
The assistance the US offered to Taiwan and South Korea in the Cold War cost less than 1 percent of its budget, but “have paid tremendous dividends,” he said.
“Our development cooperation [with Taiwan] has evolved. We no longer provide traditional development assistance to the country. Instead, we have an active conversation about how we might work together,” he said.
Shah referred to the situation in a refugee camp on the Kenya-Somalia border to highlight the importance of international cooperation in development.
“Designed 20 years ago for about 80,000 people, today, nearly half a million refugees live in this environment. The drought in the Horn of Africa affected more than 1.3 million people, who have experienced hunger and deprivation for the last four months. Most of the world barely notices that more than 30,000 children under the age of five have died of hunger or hunger-related diseases,” he said.
More than 960 million people worldwide go to bed hungry every night, Shah said, but he added that it would be possible to reduce this number to close to 200 million “if we double development investment with real policy reform.”
A problem that had to be addressed in policy reform was to examine domestic policies as well as international standards and norms for trade, so as to achieve development results, Shah said.
“Over the last 50 or 60 years, people who led development agencies had not necessarily done as much as they should to have a voice and have a seat at the table to discuss issues like global and bilateral trade negotiations,” he said.
US President Barack Obama’s administration has tried to correct that, “but we were open-eyed about how difficult the challenge is. The next trade and development round [of talks] will be conducted in just a few weeks in Geneva, and we will put a lot of development issues on the table there,” he said.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
SHARED VALUES: The US, Taiwan and other allies hope to maintain the cross-strait ‘status quo’ to foster regional prosperity and growth, the former US vice president said Former US vice president Mike Pence yesterday vowed to continue to support US-Taiwan relations, and to defend the security and interests of both countries and the free world. At a meeting with President William Lai (賴清德) at the Presidential Office in Taipei, Pence said that the US and Taiwan enjoy strong and continued friendship based on the shared values of freedom, the rule of law and respect for human rights. Such foundations exceed limitations imposed by geography and culture, said Pence, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time. The US and Taiwan have shared interests, and Americans are increasingly concerned about China’s
RSS