By Shyh-Fen Chung, President of the Taiwanese Association of Tampa Bay
While nations in the world are acting together to generate the common good as the 77th United Nations General Assembly has taken place between September the 13th to the 27th, this year, Taiwan was not invited to take part in the event.
As a Taiwanese expatriate, the frustration I had from Taiwan’s exclusion is explicable, however, the logic preventing Taiwan from contributing to the world is incomprehensible.
Taiwan is the 22nd largest economy in the world and ranked 16th in global trade. Taiwan has also nurtured a robust capitalist investment and business environment and supports freedom and democracy.
Taiwan’s helping hand has also reached out to facilitate countries from different parts of the world such as Latin America, the Indo-Pacific, and Africa in disaster relief, education programs, disease prevention, technology improvement, etc.
When the Covid-19 pandemic started devastating societies worldwide in 2020, resulting in a tremendous demand for masks, Taiwan stepped in and donated millions of surgical masks to countries around the world, including the United States.
Taking all the examples above into consideration of what Taiwan has done to assist other countries in need, one can easily conclude: that Taiwan’s inclusion in the United Nations system benefits the world as a whole.
Indeed, the world deserves a better future, and a UN system with Taiwan – lays out the picture of a brighter future we envision.
