In the absence of evidence and real arguments, "Georgian Dream" has no other weapon, except to conduct a dirty campaign through direct attacks, threats and trolls, although we think they know very well that it is impossible to scare or silence us with such methods, - This is how the non-governmental organization "Civil Idea" responds to the accusations made by "Georgian Dream" against its founder, Tinatin Khidasheli, regarding the financing of the organization from Taiwan.

According to their statement, "Civic Idea" has never received any funding from the Taiwanese government.

In addition, as the organization says, "Civic Idea" has partnership relations with organizations in Taiwan and this is public information.

"We are not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, therefore we do not express a position on the recognition or non-recognition of any state; Neither "Civil Idea" nor Tinatin Khidasheli has ever made a statement about the recognition of Taiwan's independence, and you will never hear such a statement; We are no longer in the Ministry of Defense, and therefore, the fact that Tinatin Khidasheli had access to secret documents 8 years ago (which, by the way, has nothing to do with either Taiwan or the People's Republic of China, since they were not among the partners of the Ministry of Defense at that time) is impossible today. after 8 years, to have anything to do with our activities; Reciting this fact without context is a standard method of propaganda; We are also engaged in educational activities and can educate interested MPs on the difference between "One China Policy" and "One China Principle", the positions and recognitions of Georgia's Western partners; Yes, Civic Idea has partnerships with organizations in Taiwan. Neither Imedi TV nor Rustavi 2 discovered this. This information is completely open and public on our website. Also, on our page, you will read that the partner of the international conference, which we hosted in Tbilisi in October 2023 and which was attended by leading experts from more than 30 countries, was the Taiwan Democracy Foundation, the NATO Contact Embassy in Georgia, the Embassy of Great Britain, the Embassy of Poland, the Visegrad Foundation, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation of Germany together with the Foundation and NED. Their financing amounted to 5 thousand dollars. Also, on our page there is information about our visits to Taiwan and the panel discussions we held there. If you were not lazy and read a little more on our page, you would have definitely seen that December 2023 was not the first time we were in Taiwan. However, here you should be disappointed that the funding for the events we held in Taipei did not come from our Taiwanese partners and it was funded by an American organization. And finally, also on our page, you would have seen that we are participating in a very large international project together with another of our Taiwanese partners, where "Civic Idea", taking into account the reputation and professionalism of its experts, in 13 different countries of the world, research and analysis of the activities carried out by the People's Republic of China has passed. "Taiwan will fund you" is a mistake, because unlike the governments of Holland, Norway, Great Britain and the USA, where "Civic Idea" has had funding for embassies, therefore directly from these countries, for years, we have never had funding from the Taiwanese state. We really had and we hope that our cooperation with our partners from Taiwan will continue in the future as well, which are private, independent organizations and therefore, in case of approval of the initiatives presented by us, they will also allocate funding," the statement said.

In addition, the organization appeals to MP Mikheil Sarjveladze to explain what his threat means, that "the Georgian authorities will not accept the financing of the Georgian organization from Taiwan".

"For 7 years now, we have been exposing the corrupt actions of the government with facts and specific documents, and we have been exposing them in the spread of lies and misinformation. 1. Chinese companies, to which the government of Georgia signs multi-million dollar contracts, have a damaged reputation around the world and are on the black lists of various international organizations and our partner countries. 2 The government says that we are engaged in anti-state activities. No response to contracts with sanctioned companies, just sewing labels. 2. For 7 years, we warned the government to give up relations with one of the most discredited and discredited companies, "Sinohydro", based on dozens of evidences, we reported the problems that other countries had created and would also happen to us, and again, instead of giving reasonable answers, they called us "enemies", although the result was exactly the same. It happened as we warned about. In January 2024, they had to terminate the contract with "Sinohydro", albeit late and incompetently. The company sued us in international arbitration, which already cost the country's budget an additional million and a half GEL. 3. We have a similar situation with another company - "Bureau 23", which also sued us in international arbitration in November last year. Again, if you had followed our advice, we would have avoided these problems today, as well as additional waste of budgetary costs. 4. Also, for 5 years we have been warning about various contractors hired by Ricoh, we have published several reports where we have described and substantiated the "business fraud" by these companies in different countries. We asked for arguments as to why, on the basis of which the authorities felt that they will still carry out the work here in Georgia in good faith and professionally, if they are sued and disputed on almost every continent. They did not listen to us, they called us "enemies" and "anti-state". Then the year 2023 came, and one after the other, sometimes the land, sometimes the mountain collapsed at different construction sites, another time several tens of millions were added to the budget, and a new tender was announced. There are dozens of such examples. Unfortunately, every time, we were found to be right and all the facts and evidence were confirmed, with which we appealed to the authorities and called for a change in policy. Before the hysteria of the last time, we brought completely painless facts to the court of society, thereby exposing it to lies and manipulation. We wrote that despite the incessant demagoguery of the government, Chinese investments in Georgia are absolutely minimal, and over the past 10 years, the People's Republic of China has often not been among the top ten investors with its 2 or 5 percent share in the overall investment basket (our analysis is entirely based on Geostat data); And the strategic partnership, which was announced in July, is in fact completely political, and no matter how loudly dream officials of various ranks hate and curse, it cannot turn it into a spectacular and glorious economic boom. Finally, I would like to advise these Ivanishvili's parrots, before they shoot arrows at territorial integrity, to first look at the strategic application, where for some reason the Russian occupation was "missed" at all, and then to cover up the results of the vote of the People's Republic of China on the resolution of the IDPs in the UN. I am sure most of them have no idea about this topic and will be very surprised. By the way, we also wrote about it. Why did the speaker of the parliament and the parliamentary majority get angry? Why now, in January 2024, when "Civic Idea" has been talking about the government's alleged corrupt connections with Chinese companies and the Prime Minister's political corruption for 7 years. There is a simple answer to this question - Anaklia. It seems that at this stage the government is working on the decision of the Chinese company to win the Anaklia port tender. Therefore, they are well aware of the wave of dissatisfaction that such a decision will cause and, in their opinion, they are taking preventive measures. "Georgian Dream" knows that "Civic Idea" is the only organization in the country that has been working on strategic corruption and protecting the country's strategic interests for 7 years. Accordingly, the most qualified and justified criticism is expected from us. Our positions are heard and read by our Western partners as well. Therefore, today they are preparing the ground to call "Taiwanese lobbyists" instead of arguments in response to qualified criticism," the statement said.