Vice President Chen visits disabled care center and 911 emergency response center in the Dominican Republic
At 3:00 p.m. on August 15 (3:00 a.m. on August 16, Taipei time), Vice President Chen Chien-jen and his wife toured the Center for Comprehensive Care for the Disabled in the Dominican Republic capital of Santo Domingo. They were escorted on their tour by First Lady Candida Montilla de Medina, and received flowers from two children.
Shortly thereafter, Vice President Chen and First Lady Montilla engaged in talks before viewing an introductory video in the Center's conference room and touring the site to learn about its facilities and what it is doing to treat children with special needs.
Vice President Chen and his delegation then toured the 911 National Emergency Response and Security System in Santo Domingo, where they were accompanied by Dominican Republic Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito, Vice Minister of the Presidency Zoraima Cuello, and 911 Director Dalvert Polanco.
In remarks, Vice President Chen praised the Dominican Republic for its excellent 911 National Emergency Response and Security System, noting that the Taiwan government donated over 90 ambulances and nearly 1,000 Taiwan-made police motorcycles in 2013 and 2014. He added, however, that while providing physical equipment and facilities is important, the intangible aspects cannot be neglected either. The Dominican Republic government has successfully integrated "hardware" (i.e. physical facilities and equipment) and "software" (i.e. systems and other intangible elements), resulting in a high-performance Emergency Response and Security System that stands as a highly successful case of bilateral cooperation. President Tsai Ing-wen, he said, is vigorously pursuing a policy of “steadfast diplomacy” aimed at providing mutual assistance for mutual benefits, and this is certainly a good example of what can be achieved through this approach.
Vice President Chen also spoke about another recent case of success, in which Taiwan made use of surveillance video to crack a major criminal case in which Russian hackers illegally withdrew cash from ATM machines in Taiwan. Our police pieced together evidence from a large number of surveillance cameras to quickly identify the offenders, and were able to recover 90% of the stolen money. This marked the first time in the world where an emergency response center was used to solve a case of this kind, and provided a glimpse of what these centers can do. The vice president then added that he found it especially gratifying to see such excellent results achieved by Taiwan-Dominican Republic cooperation projects.