President Tsai Ing-wen addressed the 2021 New York Mets Taiwan Day event via video, which was broadcast at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets baseball team, at around 1 p.m. on August 29 local time (1 a.m. on August 30 Taipei time). In the video, the president introduced Taiwan's top athletes who competed at the Tokyo Olympics and thanked the United States for donating COVID-19 vaccines to Taiwan.
A transcript of President Tsai's remarks follows:
Hi, Mets fans! It's great to see you all here at Mets Taiwan Day 2021. I know last season was tough, with no crowds at games. So I'm happy that fans are back here at Citi Field to cheer on our Mets!
Mets Taiwan Day is an opportunity to celebrate Taiwan, the Taiwanese-American community, and everything our nations share in common, especially our love of baseball.
Last Taiwan Day, I introduced some of Taiwan's best-known snacks and landmarks. This time, I want to highlight our Taiwanese athletes, whose inspiring performances at the Tokyo Olympics made our country proud and showed the world what Taiwan is about.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank the US for helping Taiwan in these challenging times. Your donation of COVID-19 vaccines has gone a long way towards protecting our country and people. Thank you as well to our Representative to the US Bi-khim Hsiao and our team of diplomats in the US for all your hard work.
Held almost every year since 2005, Mets Taiwan Day is the longest-running and largest Taiwan-themed event in any of the four major professional sports leagues in the US. While Taiwan Day was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year's event featured an opening pitch by Representative to the US Bi-khim Hsiao, as well as a video shown on the stadium's giant scoreboard celebrating Taiwan-US cooperation in disease prevention and thanking the US for donating 2.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan in June.
