Photo courtesy of CNA;President Tsai Ing-wen (right)
Taipei, July 17 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen showed her faith in Taiwan as a base for correspondents of the international press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders, also known by its French name Reporters sans Frontières (RSF), during a meeting with a visiting RSF group on Monday.
Tsai welcomed the delegation at the Presidential Office and said that "hereafter, I wish Taiwan will be home to RSF correspondents."
Tsai said she is confident that Taiwan will be one of RSF's best bases in the world because it has an active civil society, a complete and boundless Internet environment and excellent talent.
In addition, life in Taiwan is internationally recognized as being comfortable, she added, with a rich and varied range of food.
The president further said she believes RSF correspondents' basing themselves in Taiwan will push Taiwanese people to pay more attention to issues concerning press freedom.
"Taiwan's civil society will be an essential source of strength in the world's press freedom movements," Tsai said.
The Paris-headquartered RSF announced on April 7 that it will open its first Asian bureau in Taipei. The Taipei office will focus on East Asia, including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, North Korea, South Korea and Mongolia, RSF has said.
In Monday's meeting, Tsai expressed hope that the opening of RSF's Taipei bureau will attract other international non-government organizations to follow suit.
RSF has explained that the decision to choose Taiwan as the location of its first Asian bureau was made "not only with regard to its central geographic location and ease of operating logistics, but also considering its status of being the freest place in Asia in our annual Press Freedom Index rankings."
In the RSF-compiled World Press Freedom Index for 2017, Taiwan's ranking climbed six notches to 45th from the previous year, topping all Asian countries.
