Taiwan must become a more active player in resolving global challenges such as poverty and gender discrimination, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday, adding that future foreign aid projects should be conducted in a transparent manner to shake off the nation’s “checkbook diplomacy” image.
Speaking at the offices of the International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF), a body affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ma said that future foreign aid projects must have “proper goals, legitimate procedures and effective execution.”
The nation’s diplomacy, he said, must send the message that Taiwan has an “honorable and clean” government.
“I often joke with ambassadors that they can say the incumbent Taiwanese president is different. Due process and clean government are very important to him,” he said, adding that as a developed nation, every penny spent by the government must be closely scrutinized.
Citing a report in the Financial Times last week that alleged Beijing paid US$1.3 billion to buy Costa Rica’s loyalty last year, Ma said such negative news is a discredit to both Beijing and Taipei and serves as a reminder that Taiwan must handle its foreign aid projects cautiously to ensure its resources are spent in a proper and magnanimous manner.
Ma said Taiwan should express its gratitude for all the humanitarian aid it received between 1950 and 1965 by giving back to the international community, recalling a time when he stood in line at a church to receive bread and butter donated by other countries.
Currently, Taiwan’s donates 0.142 percent of its overall GDP in foreign aid, a figure that Ma said he hopes to increase to 0.7 percent, the amount the UN recommends.
ICDF Secretary-General Chen Lien-gene (陳連軍) said in a report that since its inception in 1996, the ICDF has provided humanitarian aid and technical assistance to more than 30 countries.
To date, the ICDF has dispatched 410 health workers to 19 countries to provide medical services. The ICDF also offers various training courses in Taiwan for foreign personnel in subjects such as management, agriculture and aquaculture techniques, environmental protection and media studies, the report said.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
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