Vice-president Lu echoed the remarks she and President Chen made during their 2000 inauguration, emphasizing Taiwan as a country that protects and upholds human rights regardless of nationality, age, or sex. She sadly described the incident as tragic and said that as the chairwoman of the Presidential Office's Human Rights Advisory Committee she wanted answers.
The vice-president implored, not only employers and labor contractors, but the people of Taiwan as well, to recognize Taiwan's industrial growth as deeply interconnected with the entire world. She said that Taiwan is living in an era of globalization; meaning Taiwan's rapid development is thanks in large part to foreign workers. The vice-president urged adopting an appreciative attitude with Taiwan's foreign workforce, calling on people to look at them as if they were brothers and sisters.
The vice-president held the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit and Hua Pan, as well as other labor management companies, responsible for the August 22nd incident. She publicly stressed the need for authorities to conduct a swift and thorough investigation into the riots and also called on officials at the Council of Labor Affairs and the Kaohsiung City and County's labor affairs bureau to administer its own internal probe. Although only a few problematic individuals were said to have started the riots, the vice-president reiterated that investigators comprehensively review all of the Thai workers' claims.
The vice-president also emphasized that Taiwan is currently at a global turning point in its development, where the country's interconnectedness to the rest of the world compels Taiwan to open its doors wider to all types of cultures and all kinds of people. She repeated her plead that the people of Taiwan welcome foreign workers with open arms and said that the riots should serve as a warning to Taiwanese citizens, government officials and private enterprises that violating labor rights have consequences.
The vice-president sincerely expressed her apologies to the Thai workers, vowing that such incidents would not happen again and hoping that their anger and pain would, in time, heal. Finally, she welcomed foreign workers to continue to come to Taiwan and contribute to the country's global development.