The picture shows the main building of the Double Oak Garden owned by the "Representative Office in the United States". (Photo source: Taiwan's "United Daily News")
China Taiwan Net reported on September 13 that Taiwan's foreign affairs department has comprehensively reviewed the Taiwan authorities' 120 overseas agencies. "Legislators" regardless of party affiliation have expressed approval. DPP "legislator" Luo Zhizheng said frankly that "there are really too many embassies and offices abroad." Jiang Qichen, "legislator" of the Kuomintang, also said, "To be realistic, so many embassies and offices are just to increase the sense of presence."
According to Taiwan's "United Daily News", according to the 2017 budget of Taiwan's foreign affairs department, the budget of the foreign affairs department has a total budget of 24.4 billion yuan (New Taiwan dollars, the same below), the budget of the headquarters is 22.9 billion yuan, and the personnel expenses of the overseas agencies are As high as 6.5 billion, the operating expenses of overseas missions are more than 3.05 billion yuan, and the annual expenditure is estimated to be more than 9.5 billion yuan. Maintaining the operations of missions abroad has become a heavy burden for the foreign affairs department.
"The more fronts there are in the embassies and offices abroad, the greater the cost." Luo Zhizheng said that when he asked questions during the last session, he had asked the foreign affairs department to review and consolidate the embassies and embassies. He hoped that the foreign affairs department would do this when the budget is reviewed in the new session. illustrate.
Jiang Qichen said that the reality is that no matter how many overseas embassies and offices we set up, we still don’t have the resources and manpower to run them. We can’t blindly increase our presence everywhere, “and then feel great.” (China Taiwan Net Zhu Lian)
