TAIWAN ASSISTANCE TO HAITI

C O N F I D E N T I A L AIT TAIPEI 000075 SIPDIS FOR HAITI EARTHQUAKE TASK FORCE AND USAID/W FOR DCHA/OFDA E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/19/2019 TAGS: AEMR ASEC KFLO MARR PREL AMGT HA TW SUBJECT: TAIWAN ASSISTANCE TO HAITI REF: A. STATE 4208 ¶B. STATE 4807 Classified By: Director Bill Stanton for reasons 1.4(b/d) ¶1. (SBU) During a January 20 lunch with Vice Foreign Minister Shen Lu-shun, AIT Pol Chief expressed appreciation for Taiwan's contributions to relief efforts in Haiti. Shen thanked AIT and the United States for assistance in this process, noting the speed with which Taiwan search and rescue personnel had received visas to transit the United States and U.S. facilitation of the transit of a Taiwan Air Force C-130 carrying relief supplies. Given the political sensitivities involved, Shen noted, Taiwan had made sure that word of the C-130 transit had not leaked out and would continue to do so until the plane arrived in Haiti. ¶2. (SBU) MOFA was also coordinating the delivery of 83 tons of medical equipment and other relief supplies which had been collected, Shen said. Rather than wait until MOFA had collected the 150 tons of material needed to fill an entire chartered 747, he noted, MOFA had decided to contract with Fedex to deliver the goods to the Dominican Republic. From there, Taiwan's embassy in Santo Domingo would coordinate distribution to Haiti. Citing ref A, Pol Chief noted the preference for financial contributions rather than donations in kind. Shen requested details on how other countries were making such financial contributions. ¶3. (C) Speaking in confidence, Shen said Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou had instructed him to explore the feasibility of forgiving all of the roughly $80 million in loans it had made to the Haitian government. In one sense, Shen commented, it would amount to making a virtue of necessity, since Haiti was unlikely to have the ability to repay the loans any time in the near future. Although they declined to make categorical decisions on the issue, Taiwan Legislative Yuan (Taiwan's parliament) Speaker Wang Jin-pyng and Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Lin Yu-fang, both present at the lunch, agreed that such a move would be both practical and humanitarian. STANTON