Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) jumped to the defense of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday after reporters questioned the propriety of Ma giving a Solomon Islands tribal chief a state-of-the-art smartphone as a gift during his visit last week to the South Pacific nation.
Chief Stanley Tapeva raised about 1,000 Solomon Islands dollars (US$120) in donations for victims of Typhoon Morakot, then spent hours in a boat and on foot traveling the 38km to the capital Honiara from his home in Kava, Isabel Province, to deliver the money.
Ma gave him the phone as a gesture of appreciation for all his hard work.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
In a press conference detailing the government’s achievements during Ma’s state visit to the nation’s six Pacific allies, Yang showed reporters copies of English letters written by Tapeva to the press and Ma.
Yang said Tapeva was considered an intellectual in his country, and the chief knew a lot about cellphones.
Tapeva had written a letter to Taiwanese journalists saying that he had been using a cellphone for three years and that he owned three phones. Ma said Tapeva had thanked him in the letter for giving him the gift because he could use it to contact his sons, Taiwan’s technical mission and the Ministry of Agriculture, which has an office in Honiara.
Yang called the press conference after local reporters and legislators criticized the president for giving the chief a 3G HTC smartphone.
Media reports had questioned the appropriateness of the gift, suggesting it disregarded the needs of the chief and the mobile communications infrastructure of the islands.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Justin Chou (周守訓), a member of the Foreign and National Defense Committee, said the gift did not meet the needs of people of that country and that the government needed to review the decision to choose the cellphone as a gift.
However, Yang said the president “understood” the reason why the ministry chose the cellphone as a gift and considered the gift “appropriate.”
To prove that the chief knew how to use cellphones, Yang dialed one of the numbers during the press conference. Someone answered the phone, but did not identify himself and the call was cut off shortly afterwards because of bad reception.
Yang said reporters who wished to call the chief should wait until May because the Pacific nation is upgrading its international phone lines.
Ma also defended the gift of the phone yesterday.
“Even I don’t know how to use that phone,” Ma said. “It’s the latest model.”
“The Solomon Islands is not an underdeveloped country and Chief Stanley is not an uneducated man. In fact, he has had training in Australia and Kaohsiung,” Ma said. “He even told me that he felt like a minister because the cellphones I gave out were usually reserved for ministers.”
Ma said that when he was little, he went to a church in Wanhua to collect powdered milk, butter and old clothes donated by other countries. Now that Taiwan has become better off, it is time to pay back the generosity of the international community, he said.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to