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Niceville City Manager David Deitch returned from his trip to Taiwan, where he met with local leaders – including a past and a future presidential candidate for that country.
Deitch visited the island nation off the coast of the Chinese mainland, whose formal name is the Republic of China, for less than a week. The City Manager pointed out in the interview that, as he has multiple times throughout the last month, Niceville did not pay for the trip, and he took time off to go.
He hopes to open up a conversation between the Cities for a mutually beneficial relationship. We sat down with Deitch about his trip for an interview – here’s what we learned.
After a 21-hour one-way flight, Deitch arrived in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, hopped into a car, and made it to his hotel room to change and head out for the scheduled events.
Deitch was paired with leaders from cities in California, New Jersey, Canada, and Colorado as the Taiwanese took them to meet various individuals important to the local and national governments.
“It was a benefit to Niceville, connecting with other elected leaders nationally,” Deitch noted, “because as we spent the week together discussing issues, we all have very similar challenges. We have different ways of examining the problem and fixing it. So it was educational for me.”
Quickly, though, our conversation shifted to the dark cloud hanging over the island nation of approximately 20 million people—the People’s Republic of China.
While the larger New Taipei City has plenty to offer, smaller Niceville has its advantages in terms of economic opportunity and know-how. “There’s a lot of opportunities here,” Deitch said, “Taiwan [is] bursting at the seams with big tech companies. Taiwan Semiconductors [is] probably one of the biggest [companies] there that comes to mind,” Deitch added, “The president, CEO of that company, stood next to President Trump just two or three months ago and said they’re going to invest $100 billion in the United States. What if you drop a billion in Okaloosa County, or 500 million or whatever.”
The money could be a massive incentive for the Okaloosa County area, and it’s one that the Taiwanese need to present to as many American communities as possible. After all, they may need strong friends very soon.
They do have a reason for wanting so many American friends. They believe the People’s Republic of China (mainland, communist China) plans to invade them in 2027 to forcibly unify the two polities under the Red Banner.
To counter this, Deitch says, the country wants to rapidly strengthen bonds with anyone and everyone who can possibly help. That means having a veritable army of “civilian diplomats” to assist them in the halls of Congress when the time comes. “They’re definitely going to need that,” Deitch said.
Well, that’s really up to the city council. The five members of the body will have to decide whether to continue the process of becoming sister cities with the four-million-person city in Southeast Asia. Deitch notes that the decision to pair up is at the sole discretion of the council, not him.
However, he says the potential benefits should make the decision an attractive one from his perspective.
“But if they do [sign sister city documents], certainly foreign exchange programs with our high school students, sports exchange programs [could take place],” Deitch mused.
“I got to see the big [baseball] stadium over there in Taipei. It’s absolutely spectacular. I’ve been to many stadiums, but I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s just absolutely spectacular. And so for our kids, maybe to have the opportunity to play in a Major League Baseball Stadium in Taiwan, holy cow! When is a kid from high school ever gonna have that opportunity? Right? We have the ability to provide that opportunity to them, to our kids, you know, in the years ahead, if we pursue this.”
Pro Communi Bono
