Jaushieh Joseph Wu
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Republic of China (Taiwan)
November 30, 2021
(As Prepared for Delivery)
Good morning!
I am delighted to be speaking at this symposium on the Taiwan-US Education Initiative: Forming Global Partnerships in Education. First of all, I would like to thank the American Institute in Taiwan for cohosting this meaningful event.
Education cooperation between Taiwan and the United States can be traced back to the launch of the Fulbright program in Taiwan in 1957. Since then, our relationship has deepened through robust bilateral exchanges and has been reinforced by our shared values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights. Last December, we launched the “Taiwan –US Education Initiative”, aimed at building a more comprehensive partnership on language education. On its first anniversary, we are very happy to see that cooperation has grown through various programs. More scholarship recipients have been funded by the US State Department to study in Taiwan. And with MOFA's support, 11 Mandarin education projects between universities in Taiwan and the United States have been launched.
Besides education, Taiwan-US relations have seen tremendous progress in all domains. For example, the U.S. administration has reiterated its rock-solid support for Taiwan on many different occasions and donated 4 million vaccines to help us fight the pandemic. On the economic and trade front, we resumed the TIFA talks in June. And just a week ago, we concluded the second annual Taiwan-US Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue (EPPD) to further advance our economic cooperation.
Indeed, our relations with the United States have transformed into a global partnership. This is best exemplified by the “Global Cooperation and Training Framework” (GCTF). Since the GCTF was established in 2015, we have utilized Taiwan's strengths and expertise to address global issues of mutual concern and to assist countries in building up capacity to deal with such challenges. We are very proud that Japan and Australia have joined as full partners of the GCTF. This demonstrates Taiwan's ability to work with like-minded countries and contribute to the international community.
The strong and close ties between Taiwan and the United States are rooted in people-to-people connections. Education cooperation is the best way to bridge our cultures and societies and build partnerships across a full spectrum of areas. With that in mind, I would like to express my deep appreciation to Director Oudkirk and her creative and dedicated team at AIT for their great work on the initiative over the past year.
I am delighted to see representatives from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom here with us today. Base on the successful experience of the GCTF, I believe that today's symposium will serve as a starting point for future education partnerships.
Last but not least, I would like to thank National Chung Cheng University for supporting the symposium and making it possible. I wish every success to today's event and hope you all have a fruitful meeting. Thank you!