Office of the President Republic of China(Taiwan)

On the morning of August 3, President Tsai Ing-wen met with leaders of the Reform for Resilience Commission's (R4R) Asia-Pacific Hub. In her remarks at the meeting, President Tsai highlighted the importance of promoting sustainable, balanced development and building a more robust social safety net as countries around the world continue to concurrently fight the pandemic and pursue economic recovery. The president expressed hope that the leaders of the R4R Asia-Pacific Hub would continue to contribute their expertise to advancing Taiwan's international cooperation and developing more resilient models for sustainable development, further aiding global disease prevention efforts.

A translation of the president's remarks follows:

I would like to welcome our visitors to the Presidential Office. All of you play key roles in academia or industry in Taiwan, and have long been involved in public affairs. You have also used your influence to speak up for Taiwan internationally, raising our global profile. For some time now, fighting COVID-19 has been the main focus of countries around the world, including Taiwan. I want to thank you all for your efforts to share the lessons learned in Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific region with the world to strengthen both domestic and international disease prevention efforts, while also helping to promote Taiwan's global ties.

Your work concerns the crucial challenge of "resilience" in the post-pandemic era, which has also become a popular topic in the field of global governance. In fact, our national security agencies have for a long time been conducting tests on many aspects of social resilience, and have been engaged in infrastructure projects to protect against the damage that we know natural disasters and pandemics can cause to the overall structure of our society. This is why I believe it is so important that your work has allowed us to engage with the international community on this issue.

Taiwan has indeed faced many challenges recently, but we have withstood them one by one, demonstrating the resilience of Taiwanese society. I have often called Taiwan an "island of resilience," and we have weathered such storms for centuries. I believe that many challenges lie ahead, but as long as we work together, we can get through them all.

At this stage of the pandemic, as countries around the world maintain disease prevention efforts and pursue economic recovery, we are all also thinking about how to promote sustainable, balanced development and build a more robust social safety net. I hope that Taiwan will have even more opportunities to share our experiences in this area with other nations.

I also want to take this opportunity to congratulate former Vice President Chen Chien-jen, who was named by Pope Francis as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Your appointment let the whole world see Taiwan's academic achievements, and I believe it was an affirmation of Taiwan's democratic system in light of your past service as our vice president.

To close, I would like to once again thank all the experts and scholars here today for everything you have done for Taiwan. I hope you will continue to contribute your expertise to strengthening Taiwan's international cooperation and developing more resilient models for sustainable development, further aiding global disease prevention efforts.

Also in attendance at the meeting were R4R Commissioners former Vice President Chen Chien-jen and Acer founder Stan Shih (施振榮), as well as Prof. Chang-Chuan Chan (詹長權), Prof. Syaru Shirley Lin (林夏如), John Tzuchiang Li (李自強), and Prof. Chou Kuei-tien (周桂田), who serve, respectively, as Advisory Board Chair, Chair and Convenor, Executive Director, and research partner of the R4R Asia-Pacific Hub.