President Lai Ching-te met with a delegation led by former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, Aug. 22 and thanked her for her strong support for Taiwan, and for publicly calling on the democratic community to stand together to prevent expanding authoritarianism from jeopardizing global peace and stability.
Haley attended the 2024 Ketagalan Forum: Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue, where she delivered a keynote speech, Aug. 21. In his remarks, Lai said the people of Taiwan deeply felt the warmth of Haley’s friendship and her strong support for Taiwan.
Lai thanked Haley for her recognition of Taiwan’s success in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic and for her proposal that Taiwan should not be excluded from the World Health Organization and other international institutions. Additionally, he expressed gratitude for Haley’s suggestion that the U.S. should sign a free trade agreement with Taiwan to help prevent suppression and isolation by China and lend added strength to resist threats.
In conclusion, the president said that Taiwan will reinforce its national defense capabilities and economic resilience to stand together with other democracies and jointly maintain stability across the Taiwan Strait.
In response, Haley looked forward to strengthening the partnership between Taiwan and the U.S. across the board while advocating the importance of democracy to the international community.
Also on Aug. 22, President Lai met with international participants from the Ketagalan Forum and thanked them for attending, demonstrating collective strength and resolve to further entrench democracy. He noted that the forum focused on the Taiwan Strait and the global security order, discussing gray-zone tactics that posed challenges to democracy and represented major challenges they jointly faced.
Lai emphasized that the advice and experience shared at the forum was of great assistance to Taiwan and that the country had been intensifying economic cooperation with Europe and New Southbound Policy countries, while working closely with Australia, Japan and the U.S. to expand the scope of Global Cooperation and Training Framework, which recently has admitted a new partner, Canada, he noted.
Convenor of the Centre for Research on Strategic and Security Issues Pankaj Saran then delivered remarks in which he commended the president’s clear vision for the future of Taiwan. He further noted that the Forum is a respected platform for regional security and strategic issues which brings together democratic nations, who have consensus on the importance of respecting mutual concerns, peaceful coexistence, and adhering to international law and a rules-based international order. (POC-E)
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