President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Thursday was named among the 50 most influential people in the world by Bloomberg News.
In an introduction titled “Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s COVID Crusher,” the US-based media company said that Taiwan had gone more than 200 days without recording a locally transmitted case of COVID-19.
That success could be attributed to the quick response of Tsai’s administration, which instituted “one of the world’s most effective pandemic response protocols,” Bloomberg News said.
Photo courtesy of the Presidential Office, via CNA
Even before Tsai’s re-election on Jan. 11, the government was already responding to early reports of the virus, “preparing to close borders, impose travel restrictions, and set up rigorous contact tracing and quarantine protocols,” it said.
Taiwan also benefited from the widespread use of masks, based on its experience with a deadly SARS outbreak in 2003, the article said.
As a result, Taiwan, with a population of 23 million people, has had just over 600 COVID-19 cases and seven deaths, it said.
Because of its effective response, “Taiwan will likely be among the few economies to experience growth this year, with officials in August forecasting gross domestic product to expand 1.56 percent,” the article said.
However, it said that Taiwan must remain vigilant in light of an increase in its number of imported cases in the past few weeks.
The unranked Bloomberg 50 list, now in its fourth edition, recognizes influential figures in fields such as business, entertainment, finance, politics, science and technology.
This year’s list also included Citigroup chief executive officer Jane Fraser, Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, US singer-songwriter Billie Eilish, and US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci.
Separately, Tsai on Thursday received the International Pioneer Award from the American Legislative Exchange Council for her “extraordinary international leadership and her strong commitment to free markets.”
The award was presented during the States and Nation Policy Summit, held virtually this year by the council due to the pandemic.
In a speech delivered via video, Tsai said that she would continue to preserve and defend Taiwan’s democracy, freedoms and way of life, while never stopping to seek a peaceful and stable cross-Taiwan Strait relationship.
The council, which is the largest organization of US state legislature members, says that the International Pioneer Award is presented to leaders on the international stage whose careers exemplify a commitment to free markets and limited government principles, and to those who have exhibited a steadfast dedication to serving the causes of freedom in their own countries and abroad.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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