The Michael S. Ansari Africa Center hosted a visit today by a delegation of government officials from the Republic of China on Taiwan, who are in Washington to meet with their US counterparts for discussion on piracy off the coast of Somalia and its impact on Taiwanese commercial shipping and fishing interests in the Indian Ocean.

The delegation, which included representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense, the Coast Guard Administration, the Maritime and Port Bureau, and the Fisheries Agency, was led by Remus Li-Kuo Chen, deputy director-general of the Department of North American Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and William W. Lin, deputy director-general of the Department of Policy Planning in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and accompanied by personnel from the Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office.

During the meeting, in response to briefings provided by members of the visiting delegation, Ansari Center Director J. Peter Pham and Deputy Director Bronwyn Bruton discussed the recent report by the Atlantic Council Counter-Piracy Task Force, Managing the Global Response to Maritime Piracy, as well as some ideas for Taiwan to achieve meaningful participation in efforts underway to counter pirate attacks. Also participating in the meeting were Atlantic Council State Department Senior Fellow Benjamin Weber, Ansari Center Assistant Director Kristen Smith, and Riley Barnes, assistant director of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, who helped organized the meeting.