President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said her government would continue to bolster Taiwan’s defenses, because “when Taiwan gets stronger ... the world becomes a safer place.”
Tsai made the remarks in a prerecorded address screened yesterday at an event hosted by the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations (WFTA) and European Federation of Taiwanese Associations (EFTA) in Vilnius.
Taiwan and Lithuania have representative offices in each other’s capitals, and both countries have in recent years collaborated on a number of programs in many sectors, she said.
Photo: image taken a video on the Presidential Office Web site
“It is not just in Lithuania, as Taiwan has become a keyword all over the world,” as world leaders have this year stressed the importance of safeguarding peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, including at a US-Japan summit, a Japan-UK summit, the G7 summit and the Trilateral Leaders’ Summit between the US, Japan and South Korea at Camp David last month, Tsai said.
“When Taiwan gets stronger, becoming more secure, then the world becomes a safer place,” she said.
The world is facing expansionism by authoritarian regimes, and Taiwan would push for reforms in national defense, she added.
“We have incorporated a civilian defense system into Taiwan’s armed forces ... to bolster Taiwan’s resilience to safeguard our nation,” she said.
The WFTA is heading into its 49th year, while the EFTA has been in existence for more than 50 years, Tsai said, congratulating the two overseas Taiwanese organizations on jointly hosting the annual conference in Lithuania’s capital.
The conference included discussions with Taiwan’s Kuma Academy, a civic organization that aims to educate and train civil defense volunteers.
Tsai also took the opportunity to invite overseas Taiwanese to visit Taiwan and see for themselves how the nation is developing and its new infrastructure projects.
“Taiwan is always making progress,” she said, touting the nation’s semiconductor, precision machinery and information technology sectors.
Tsai concluded by thanking overseas Taiwanese communities for undertaking foreign affairs initiatives to deepen the links with the public and private sectors in many countries.
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