Jason Yuan, Secretary-General of the National Security Council,
Joseph Shih, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Dr. Vocke, Executive Director of Fulbright Taiwan,
Director Marut of the American Institute in Taiwan,
and, most importantly, Fulbrighters from Taiwan, mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao,
Welcome to Taiwan, Republic of China!
This may be the first trip for many of you. I certainly hope this will not be your last trip. And, in addition to the city you're in, Taipei, I hope you could go around and see the rest of Taiwan, and enjoy the very rich cultural life of this country. By the way, this place, this is called the 市長官邸. Mayor's Lodge. Truly, my residence -- when I was Taipei mayor. My predecessor decided on this use, but it was only after I became mayor that we were successful in transforming this residence into the Mayor's Lodge, a public place, and actually had an operator from outside. So, I am very glad to come back to -- quote, unquote -- my former residence.
You have actually come here at an interesting time, because Taiwan used to be one of the two "flashpoints" -- the "hot spots" -- of East Asia, the other one being the Korean Peninsula, or North Korea. Now, Taiwan ceases to be a flashpoint, and North Korea continues to be one after the termination of the Korean War, 60 years later. Actually, as you can see, in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, everybody sees real opportunities for some sort of conflict. But, across the Taiwan Strait, the only thing you see is peace and prosperity.
So, I just want to tell you that the two great powers, mainland China and the United States, are very happy to see what the situation is today across the Taiwan Strait. And yet, you only know too well, the US and mainland China would not start a war over the tiny Diaoyutai Islets, but if the cross-strait relationship is not handled right, the chances of conflict between the two great superpowers over Taiwan is not unlikely, or at least, it was not unlikely in the past. But now, it's something of the past.
So Taiwan, and the Taiwan Strait, remain a place that is calm and peaceful. But Taiwan used to be considered a troublemaker in this part of the world. But that is no longer so. And most importantly, in the past, Taiwan sometimes was a silent bystander. But now, it has decided not only not to be a troublemaker, but it wants to be a peacemaker. This is a very important step we took when I came to office four and a half years ago.
And this is also the reason why I put forward the "East China Sea Peace Initiative" in August last year, even before the Japanese government announced its plan to nationalize the group of small islets in the East China Sea. I think it is in everybody's interest to solve the territorial dispute through peaceful means. I strongly believe that national sovereignty cannot be divided, but natural resources can be shared. There is plenty of precedence in international relations and international law that countries having territorial claims come to agreement on shared resources. The best example is the North Sea, in Europe. I think there is no reason why we can't duplicate the North Sea precedent and try to exploit the resources underneath the sea in East Asia, where they had lain for over 40 years. The claimant countries in the East China Sea are thirsty for oil and other resources, so I think it is really a waste of time to argue over the territorial sovereignty instead of trying to work out a formula to exploit the living and non-living resources.
We understand why Japan wants to nationalize the Diaoyutai Islets. And we also understand why mainland China was so furious about it -- making some concessions on this issue could certainly hurt their nationalistic feelings. But it is really time for all the claimants, including Taiwan, to take concrete steps to peacefully resolve the differences. And I also want to let you know that if we go ahead and do that, we could just shelve the territorial dispute and start to negotiate on the possibility of exploiting the resources. My idea is that all the claimants should not escalate the confrontation, but should engage each other in three sets of bilateral talks -- between mainland China and Japan, Japan and Taiwan, and Taiwan and mainland China -- for the first phase of negotiations. And then, if there are concrete results, they could move forward to one negotiation process between all three parties, thereby creating the possibility of a peaceful solution of the dispute.
I keep reminding our friends in Japan and in mainland China -- my idea is about shelving territorial disputes, not shelving territory or sovereignty. You don't have to shelve your sovereignty. You could keep your territorial claim intact by shelving the dispute, because that is just what we call "provisional measures," which is also allowed under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention.
What we're trying to do is make it so that, in this part of the world, peace is the paramount value that all the parties should observe. Taiwan plays an important role, and has clear advantages. We are located right in the middle of East Asia. Korea could describe itself as being located in the center of Northeast Asia. Singapore could describe itself as being located in the center of Southeast Asia. But only Taiwan can claim to be located in the center of East Asia, because it's just a matter of fact. And many people here speak fluent English and Japanese, so they have this advantage to play this very special role.
But, you know, most people weren't used to Taiwan playing such a visible role in the past, because usually we have been asked to keep silent. Or, we have been asked, "don't speak, you just listen to what people say to you." But, you see, Taiwan should stand up and let other people know that we could and will be playing a part in trying to achieve a peaceful settlement of the dispute in this part of the world.
One of the reasons for that is, we have already improved relations with the Chinese mainland, with Japan, and with the United States in the last four and a half years. As you know, we were engaged with the mainland in a very bloody civil war more than 60 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of people got killed. But, beginning four and a half years ago, we started to resume the interrupted talks with the mainland. And in the last four and a half years we have been able to conclude 18 agreements with the other side of the Taiwan Strait.
I'll just give you an example. Before I came to office, there were no commercial scheduled flights between Taiwan and the mainland. There were sporadic charter flights at the time of special festivals. But in July of 2008 we started commercial flights. Now, there are 616 commercial flights per week. This is almost a revolution in air traffic between the two sides. At one time, there were roughly less than 20,000 visitors from mainland China each year, but last year there were 2.85 million, and the total number so far has reached over 7 million. I just mentioned to AIT Director Marut, and I told him that each year there are at least 13,000 exchange students coming from the mainland to study on our campuses, and roughly 1,800 registered full-time students. We want those numbers to go higher. For the coming fall, we will accept more formal students and exchange students. In addition to that, we've also added a new category -- technical college graduates from mainland China can come to Taiwan to study for two years and get a university degree for vocational education. We're trying to encourage young people from the two sides to make friends at a much earlier stage of their lives so that we could pave the way to long-term peace and stability.
In addition to that, we have also enlarged economic and other intercourse with the Chinese mainland. We concluded an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement in 2010, and that has helped us to change the actual landscape of economic integration in this part of the world. And we will continue to do that in the future. It will be much to your surprise that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait concluded an agreement for mutual judicial assistance in a joint effort to combat crime. For cross-strait crimes, when fugitives flee to Southeast Asia, the two sides can send their police officers to those specific countries to interrogate the fugitives and take them back to mainland China or Taiwan by sending our own aircraft to do that. This was really unthinkable when I first took office. The reason we've been able to do this is that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are willing to solve the differences with peaceful means.
And our relationship with Japan is also the best in the 40 years since we severed diplomatic relations. We first started an agreement to let young people to get together -- we call it a working holiday agreement. It allows for people from age 18 to 30 to go to each other's country and stay for a year to work and to do whatever they want. And we also set up a new office in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Meanwhile, we started flights between Taipei's Songshan Airport and Haneda Airport in Tokyo. This is also a very important part of our effort to form a Northeast Asia Golden Air Loop. And, we signed an investment liberalization agreement with Japan, which is unprecedented in 60 years. After the Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident, the people of Taiwan donated an amount which is more than the total amount from other donors all over the world. So, Taiwan demonstrates a degree of friendship which is really unprecedented.
We've also restored high-level trust with the United States. It is very important, because the United States is our security and economic partner. This was well-said by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton two years ago when she attended an APEC conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. And we've continued to do that. In the last four and a half years, the US has agreed to sell us modern weapons worth more than US$18 billion. This is the highest amount in almost 20 years. On the other hand, the US has also allowed us to join the Visa Waiver Program, whereby each year over 400,000 visitors will go to the United States without having to go through a visa application process. That's actually a great loss to the AIT, and I'm surprised that he could still smile. But, Chris, I can assure you, all these 400,000 visitors are very serious shoppers! The United States has also helped us to participate in international organizations, such as the World Health Assembly and others. We appreciate the remarks of former Health Secretary Sebelius that "no organization of the UN has a right to unilaterally determine the position of Taiwan." We appreciate that, and that also helps us.
So, you can see that we try to maintain good relations -- with mainland China, with the United States, with Japan -- so that we can not only survive, but also play a role as a peacemaker. This is very important for Taiwan. After all, the Republic of China is a peace-loving country. We want to play the role of a humanitarian aid provider, and we also want to play the role of a cultural exchange promoter, and a creator of business opportunities and new technologies.
Those of you who now serve as Fulbrighters in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, you understand that in Taiwan we use the traditional format of Chinese characters and the mainland uses simplified forms, but we are now in a position to teach both because, as you know, for those of you have studied the Chinese language, you should know very well that out of the around 6,000 commonly used characters, only one-third, or even one-quarter, are simplified. And out of these about 2,000 simplified characters, only a very small portion of them are changed completely. The others have been changed only a little bit. So it's much easier if you can study the traditional format -- it will take you only a few days to understand the simplified format. But the best way to do that is to learn both. You can then access the classics of Chinese culture, history, and philosophy in a very easy way.
Once again, I would like to welcome you to Taiwan, Republic of China, and to enjoy, as I said earlier, our very rich cultural life. Of course, you are urged to do as much shopping as possible, to help our economy.
Thank you very much!