Taiwan ambassador says good relations will continue
If you were asked to name Belize’s greatest benefactor, the name Baron Bliss would certainly come to mind… or in the case of countries the United States, Great Britain or Mexico would probably top the list. But the correct answer most likely lies halfway around the globe… in the Republic of China on Taiwan. Over the last nine years this overcrowded country of twenty-two million people and eighty-three billion U.S. dollars in foreign reserves has provided Belize with more direct financial assistance than any other partner… and on Saturday this nation, most commonly known as Taiwan, will celebrate its national day. Taiwan’s ambassador to Belize, Kuo Hsiung Shen, spoke to News Five’s Stewart Krohn about the future of Taiwan-Belize relations.
Kuo Hsiung Shen, Taiwanese Ambassador to Belize
“Our relation, the Republic of China and Belize, was established in 1989 when the P.U.P. was in government. And now after the elections, after the end of August, the P.U.P. come back again to the government and we have the confidence that with this new government our relations, our cooperation will be increased taking from the speech delivered by the Prime Minister Said Musa that Monday in General Assembly of United Nations.”
Q: “Getting away from government to government relations, it is well known that a significant number of Taiwanese as well as people from the People’s Republic of China on the mainland and Hong Kong have migrated to Belize as investors or people who are living here permanently. Relations between those people and the Belizean people have not always been smooth, is there a reason for this and what can we do to change that situation?”
Kuo Hsiung Shen
“I think the main reason is because the people in Belize cannot understand the way of thinking or the way of behavior and what they saw is the phenomenon because they only saw a lot of people coming outside, especially from Taiwan or Hong Kong or mainland China or just Chinese. And they both own quite a lot of land and they construct the houses and they live in better condition housing and they run the retail shops which is mainly run from the migrant from mainland China. And Taiwanese own the land quite a lot.
And what they think is that how come those foreigners come to Belize and occupy our land and earn our money because they run the shops. And you have no contribution to our country; you just take advantage from us. This is the impression I think. But do you think how come those people have money to buy land, run shops because those people come from Hong Kong, from Taiwan or from Mainland China?
We Chinese are very hard working people. If you want to become rich or improve your life you have to work very hard, very hard. We sacrifice a lot of things to improve or life, living conditions. For instance we Chinese do not take any leave from work even weekends; we work on Saturday, on Sunday on those holidays. We still open the shops; we still work in the fields if they engage in agriculture productivities. And we don’t take any leave and only rest in the evening, late in the evening then accumulate our fortune, if you may say so, and step by step by very hard working and in diligent way. So when they got the certain amount of money to buy a piece of land and with this land they run a lot of things.
We try our best to persuade our people who migrated to Belize to do more contributions, to make more contributions to the Belizean society to express our gratefulness. This country accommodate our people; you live in this place, in this society. You have to contribute to give back to the people. If I had the opportunity to meet our people who migrated from Taiwan to do more things, to participate their community activities, to contribute their ability or whatever they can do and give it back to the people to make Belizean people more understand about the past.”
Shen said that there are about fifteen hundred Taiwanese citizens living in Belize, plus other Chinese from the People’s Republic and Hong Kong. In addition to a balance of payments loan of twenty-six million U.S. dollars, Taiwan is also providing, among other gifts ten million U.S. dollars towards the paving of the Southern Highway.
