00:00President Lai Ching-de is on a kind of surprise trip to Eswatini.
00:04Is there any precedence for this in Taiwan or anywhere else around the world?
00:09At least the MOFA is the example of President Trump or Biden or Obama visiting Afghanistan and Iraq.
00:21I don't think it's a good comparison because at the time they were visiting war zones.
00:30Eswatini is not in a war, right? I think that's important.
00:34But this is your visit to a diplomatic ally and you cannot announce it.
00:41It's not a breakthrough because you are not taking your presidential charter flight.
00:46Any kind of semblance to a sovereignty is gone, even though once he arrived there,
00:54he has been received with dignity, with the head of a sovereign state.
01:01I think this is unprecedented.
01:02But, you know, when you are facing challenge, I think they just improvise.
01:07And this might be the only way you can arrive there.
01:11But then the question is, how do you come back?
01:14Is this going to have any impact on Taiwan's diplomacy moving forward?
01:19Is there any significance here?
01:20For the long term, it's just an episode in our diplomatic setback,
01:26but not going to affect our relation with the majority of the diplomatic ally,
01:32especially if President Lai travels to Latin American countries, Caribbean.
01:38If you're flying east, you're going to go to the dominant sphere of the United States.
01:45I don't think China will try anything in the Western Hemisphere.
01:50What kind of message does this trip send, if any?
01:54And is Taiwan sending a message more here to China or the rest of the world?
01:58I think we sent a message really to Swatini that your relation is very valuable to Taiwan.
02:06Even though we missed the ceremony of the king's 40th anniversary,
02:12but we still want to come and show our appreciation.
02:17Again, Swatini is not a model of democracy or anything that we share value with.
02:24But hey, Taiwan is in a diplomatic isolation.
02:28Any friend we can have is a good one.
02:30So we continue to cultivate relations.
02:34Now, you said one of the biggest challenges here is the question
02:37of how the president is going to get back to Taiwan.
02:40Now, I know you said that you're not 100% sure how he might do it,
02:43but in your mind, is there a scenario you think is most plausible?
02:47You know, there are so many strange proposals. Some people say he can fly to Paraguay and then
02:55come back to Taiwan with the Paraguay presidential charter because the president of Paraguay is
03:03coming to visit. I'm not sure that would be the case. But my suggestion is if you fly commercial,
03:10you don't have to request for the permission of flying over certain countries' airspace.
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