Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

President Tsai Ing-wen speaks in a prerecorded video on the opening day of Liberal International’s congress in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Thursday.
Photo courtesy of the Democratic Progressive Party via CNA

Liberal International on Saturday passed a “World Today Resolution” recognizing the threat that China poses to Taiwan, while supporting Taipei’s inclusion in international organizations.

Liberal International was established in 1947 as a federation of liberal political parties from around the world. Last week, it held its 63rd congress in Sofia, Bulgaria, which was attended by 221 representatives from 58 countries.

When I was teaching in Lesotho in southern Africa during the 1980s, I taught a class on comparative foreign policy. The course included trips to the US embassy, the Soviet embassy, the British embassy and the newly established Chinese embassy. The students could ask the ambassadors and staff questions about foreign policy, and would then write a report as their final term paper.

The Chinese ambassador felt that the US-style education I delivered was unique and invited me to go to China to teach.

At the time, China was planning to open up to the world, and it needed professors versed in public international law to cultivate domestic talent. All of the professors who after World War II studied in the West and returned to China had disappeared during the Cultural Revolution, so China had to rely on foreign experts.