2020 Winter escape to Vatican

Inspired by the speech of Joe Biden, the former vice president of the United States, in 2018 Copenhagen Democracy Summit, as he said, ‘the most important office in any democracy: citizen.’ Yes! Earlier this month, people in Taiwan have voted for Miss Tsai Ing-wen as their new president for the following four years.

Although Taiwan share same values of democracy and freedom with many countries in the world, so far only 15 countries recognize Taiwan (R.O.C) as a sovereign nation and have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. However, many countries have maintained close relationships with Taiwan through trade connections. This situation is due to a long-term political conflict between Taiwan and mainland China; China does not allow any country to have official ties with both itself and Taiwan; therefore, the U.S has been an important role to balance this situation and is a military ally to supply Taiwan with the means to defend itself.

(Source: BBC)

Being a Taiwanese, I always doubt how can we compete with other countries in global development without formal diplomatic ties with many countries? Are we international orphans in this global village? Nevertheless, Taiwanese citizens (nearly 23.57 million) enjoy visa-free entry to more than 160 countries and according to the International Monetary Fund (2019), Taiwan is the 7th largest economy in Asia and is listed in the advanced economies group. Besides, based on per capita income and adjusted for purchasing power, Global Finance Magazine listed Taiwan in the 17th richest nation in the world (Global Finance Magazine, 2019; IMF, World Economic Outlook, 2019). Fortunately, there is one country in Europe—Status Civitatis Vaticanae—has offered friendship with Taiwan, which can be traced back to 1922.

The Holy See and the Republic of China (known as Taiwan after 1971) relations were built upon religious freedom, which guarantees and respects individual choices and human rights.

  

To appreciate this noble friendship, of course, my winter escape to Italy has also made a plan to visit Vatican City State, where is located within Rome.
Where it is: 

On the other hand, the Holy See (Vatican) is home to one of the World Heritages: Vatican Museums (Musei Vaticani), where is featured by religious collections and displaying works including several of the most renowned Roman sculptures and many masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world.  

受美國前副總統喬·拜登（Joe Biden）在2018年哥本哈根民主高峰會上演講的啟發，如他所說“任何民主國家中最重要的職務：公民。”是的！本月初，台灣人民投票選舉蔡英文女士為未來四年的新總統。

儘管台灣與世界上許多國家都享有同樣的民主和自由價值觀，但目前只有15個國家承認台灣是一個主權國家，並與台灣建立了正式外交關係。 但是，許多國家通過貿易聯繫與台灣保持著密切關係。 這種情況是由於台灣與中國大陸之間長期的政治衝突； 中國不允許任何國家與台灣和台灣建立官方關係。 因此，美國在平衡這種局勢方面一直發揮著重要作用，並且是向台灣提供自衛手段的軍事盟友。

作為台灣人，我總是懷疑，如果不與許多國家建立正式外交關係，我們如何在全球發展中與其他國家競爭？ 我們是這個地球村中的國際孤兒嗎？ 儘管如此，台灣公民（近2357萬）可免簽證進入160多個國家，根據國際貨幣基金組織（2019年）的數據，台灣是亞洲第七大經濟體，列於發達經濟體集團中。 此外，根據人民平均收入並根據購買力進行調整後，《全球金融雜誌》將臺灣列為世界第17位最富有的國家（《全球金融雜誌》，2019年;國際貨幣基金組織，《世界經濟展望》，2019年）。

幸運的是，歐洲有一個國家-奇維塔蒂斯·梵蒂岡城國-與台灣的友誼源遠流長，其歷史可追溯到1922年。羅馬教廷與中華民國（1971年後被稱為台灣）的關係是建立在宗教基礎上的 自由，它保證並尊重個人選擇和人權。

為了感激這種崇高的友誼，當然，在我冬季避寒前往義大利的旅行中計劃去參觀在羅馬內的梵蒂岡城國. 此外，這個國家擁有著世界遺產之一:梵蒂岡博物館（Musei Vaticani），那裡以宗教收藏為特色，並展示著作品, 其中包括一些最著名的羅馬雕塑以及世界上許多文藝復興時期的傑作。