On Taiwan’s 109th Double Ten National Day celebration, President Tsai wants Beijing to heed Taipei’s voice and jointly facilitate reconciliation and peaceful dialogue, which she hopes will ‘surely resolve’ regional tension
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New Delhi: Two days after her Foreign Minister Joseph Wu tells China to ‘Get Lost’, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in her address to the island nation on National Day attempted to tone down the aggressive exchange of words with Beijing. In her speech on the occasion on the country’s 109th Double Ten National Day, Tsai voiced that Taiwan wants to have a ‘meaningful dialogue’ with China on an equal basis. Her extension of an olive branch comes after the Chinese military, for the past several weeks, infiltrated inside Taiwanese air and maritime limits – flexing its hardware to intensify tensions between the two.
“As long as the Beijing authorities are willing to resolve antagonisms and improve cross-strait relations, while parity and dignity are maintained, we are willing to work together to facilitate meaningful dialogue,” Tsai said on Saturday.
Tsai, while terming the situation in the Taiwan Strait as ‘quite tense’, cited the disputes in the South China Sea, a China-India border conflict, and Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong, as ‘big challenge’ to democracy and peace in the region. “If Beijing can heed Taiwan’s voice and jointly facilitate reconciliation and peaceful dialogue, regional tension can surely be resolved,” Tsai added.
First-part of the speech was focused on pandemic relief and Taiwan’s triumphant fight against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). “We did not lock down our cities, or close down our schools. With pandemic control measures in place, we were one of the few countries in the world to still play professional baseball, and hold major arts and cultural events. We also showed impressive national strength by sending pandemic prevention supplies to countries around the globe,” Tsai said.
The Taiwanese President also outlined three strategies in her efforts to bolster Taipei’s domestic economy. She claimed that her government has also geared up for economic development in the post-pandemic era while referring to the six core strategic industries she announced a couple of months ago.
“First of all, at a time when global supply chains have been in a process of restructuring, Taiwan will fully take part in the reorganization. The rapid dismantling and realignment of global supply chains are now irreversible, and Taiwanese businesses around the world are moving toward segmented markets, production base migration, and reshoring to invest in Taiwan at an ever-faster pace,” Tsai said while adding that Taipei will link all of these related policies and programs while integrating government and private sector resources with cross-department capabilities to achieve full and comprehensive participation in the realignment process, making the island nation an indispensable force in global supply chains.
“Secondly, we will transform itself into a hub for international capital, talent, and digital technology, adding the efforts for such an upgrade is critical for Taiwan to participate in the global supply chain reorganization. We will continue to deepen reforms and eliminate obstacles to create an environment and legal structure to attract international capital and talent,” Tsai said. She even highlighted Taiwan’s plan to actively cultivate domestic industrial talent through international exchanges, industry-academia cooperation, and a bilingual nation policy.
“Third, the government will do its best to reach a balance between economic and social development to get rid of possible risks caused by unbalanced development as well as likely repercussions resulting from a massive increase in capital supply,” Tsai expressed.
She underscored that her administration will continue to pursue the ‘Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program,’ which covers a wide range of aspects, including rail transport construction, water improvement, digital development, urban and rural development, child care environment improvement, and food safety improvement.
According to Tsai, under the government’s policy which started in January 2019 to provide incentives to encourage Taiwanese investors with overseas operations to return home for investments, firms have pledged to invest more than NT$1 trillion in Taiwan. The Taiwanese President said an additional NT$100 billion are expected to come in, while many multinational companies planning to pour funds into Taiwan as well.
