President Ma Ying-jeou has praised the Tang Prize awards, the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize, for showcasing Taiwan’s soft power. Ma was speaking on Thursday while receiving the five Tang laureates at the Presidential Office.
Ma praised the founder of the prize, Taiwanese entrepreneur Samuel Yin for showing Taiwan’s value to the world.
“[The Tang Prize] continues the spirit of the Nobel Prize," said Ma. "It not only encourages important research that benefits humanity but also promotes Chinese culture and allows Taiwan’s soft power to flourish in the global community. It shows Taiwan’s value. We have high respect for Yin for doing this.”
The biennial Tang Prize is awarded to laureates in the fields of sustainable development, biopharmaceutical science, Sinology and rule of law.
The five laureates this year are Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway, who won the prize for sustainable development; immunologists James P. Allison of the United States and Tasuku Honjo of Japan, who shared the prize for biopharmaceutical science; Chinese American historian Yu Ying-shih, who won the prize for Sinology; and Albie Sachs, a former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, who was named the winner of the prize for rule of law.