Trenton hosts ambassador from Taiwan at City Hall
TRENTON » Taiwanese ambassador Lily Hsu must have known the new mayor had a rough week.
She came to City Hall on Friday afternoon bearing the gift of a special brand of Taiwanese Kavalan whisky, hopefully high potency, for Mayor Reed Gusciora to take the edge off after the capital city got kicked in the gut earlier in the week.
Gov. Phil Murphy line-item vetoed a provision that would have ended years of state oversight of the city’s hiring and financial decisions.
Gusciora prematurely announced the city had been let out of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Community Affairs but was forced to backtrack when he learned otherwise.
“I already may need a few glasses after my first week in office,” a self-deprecating Gusciora said as the room burst into laughter.
Gusciora, the city’s 56th mayor, visited Taiwan last year as an assemblyman as part of a cultural and economic legislative delegation.
The mayor’s meeting room was packed with community powerbrokers to greet the foreign diplomat who heads the United Nations Affairs Task Force based out of New York’s Taipei Economic and Cultural Office.
Hsu has been involved in foreign relations for nearly three decades, or as long as New Jersey and Taiwan have shared a sister state relationship.
“Both Taiwan and Trenton, we have a T,” Hsu said, “and that stands for ‘team.’ We would love to see more of these team collaborations.”
Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman – whom Gusciora implored to help “bring home the bacon” – Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, several members of City Council, new Trenton Water Works leader and ex-West Windsor mayor Dr. Shing-Fu Shueh, Mercer County Community College President Dr. Jianping Wang and others were on hand to greet the Taiwanese dignitary.
Wang jokingly apologized for showing up in brightly colored sneakers that matched her dress, an indication to Gusciora the MCCC president was “hitting the ground running.”
Taiwan, considered a part of the Republic of China, is an island in the western Pacific Ocean, about 100 miles off the coast of southeastern China.
Several Taiwanese companies have corporate footholds in New Jersey, Hsu said, including Formosa Plastics in Livingston.
Trenton hopes to expand Taiwanese connections and influence in the coming years, the leaders said, laying out no specific plans.
New Jersey and Taiwan are about the same size, Gusciora said, though Taiwan boasts 23 million compared to just over 9 million people living in the state. Of that about 85,000 residents live in the capital city, fewer than two percent whom are Asian, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
By comparison, neighboring Princeton – where Gusciora once lived and served as an assemblyman until he was forced to move following redistricting – has a roughly 15 percent Asian population.
Hsu and Mayor Gusciora talked about forging a sister city relationship between Trenton and Taipei, which is the seat of Taiwan’s government, hoping to bring foreign investment into a distressed capital city that was once an industrial hub celebrated by the iconic “Trenton Makes, the World Takes” bridge.
Hsu thanked the mayor for the vibrant reception at which Gusciora gifted her with an intricately decorated piece of Stangl pottery made in the capital city.
The mayor also presented one of the Taiwanese hosts who made his stay at the island memorable with a Trenton Thunder onesie for his new baby girl, promising to take them to a ball game when they return.
“I would love to see more [collaboration],” Hsu said. “And, indeed, we will see more.”