The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday slammed claims that Taiwan would become a “land of rapists” if Indian migrant workers are allowed into the nation and said they were attempts by foreign forces to intervene in Taiwan’s affairs.
Minister of Labor Hsu Ming-chun (許銘春) on Monday last week confirmed that Taiwan and India are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding before the end of this year on recruiting Indian migrant workers to Taiwan.
Since then, Taiwanese social media platforms have been inundated with inflammatory and derogative posts about the plan, MOFA said on Facebook, adding that such messages were misleading and harmed Taiwan’s international image.
Photo: screen grab from a Ministry of Foreign Affairs livestream
They also undermine efforts to promote warming Taiwan-India ties, it said.
MOFA is to meet with the India Taipei Association to clarify the misunderstanding, Department of East Asia and Pacific Affairs Deputy Director-General Chen Chuin-chi (陳俊吉) said.
Taiwan is a multiethnic country that respects human rights and is resolutely against discrimination or biased views against specific groups, MOFA said.
It urged the public to recognize cognitive warfare tactics and refrain from posting or forwarding false or misleading information.
It said that it hoped Indians who are part of the Milk Tea Alliance would not believe that the posts originated from Taiwan.
The Milk Tea Alliance started out as an online war of words between netizens supporting and criticizing China’s actions and policies and has grown multinational.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
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