President Tsai Ing-wen said Sept. 20 that recently concluded tours of South and Southeast Asian nations by participants in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ International Youth Ambassador Exchange Program fostered people-to-people ties and strengthened Taiwan’s profile across the regions.
 
According to the president, this year’s edition of the program—themed New Taiwan Generation, New Southbound Vision—helped build bridges of cultural understanding with New Southbound Policy target nations, furthering Taiwan’s efforts to expand across-the-board exchanges.
 
Tsai made the comments while meeting with participants at the Office of the President in Taipei City. The 2017 program featured 75 university students divided into three groups, each of which visited two destinations from late August to early September—Jakarta and Manila, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, and New Delhi and Singapore.
 
Noting that two of the youth ambassadors are fluent in Indonesian and Thai, respectively, the president said that such communication skills are crucial to further deepening cooperation with New Southbound Policy target countries. Going forward, she encouraged the youths to consider careers in diplomacy, and invited them to serve as civilian ambassadors for the policy by using their experiences in South and Southeast Asia to boost Taiwan’s connections to the regions.
 
During their tours, the youth ambassadors participated in seminars, forums and volunteer work; visited local government officials and Taiwan-backed initiatives and businesses; and engaged in conversations with their counterparts from leading universities. The groups also hosted Taiwan Night events in each destination featuring a variety of cultural performances.
 
According to the MOFA, since its inception in 2009, the youth ambassador initiative has dispatched 164 groups of more than 1,400 students to almost 70 countries and territories around the world. These tours have successfully bolstered the global perspectives of Taiwan’s youth and promoted wide-ranging international exchanges, the ministry said. (KWS-E)
 
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