Republic of China President Ma Ying-jeou threw out the first pitch Friday before a baseball game in Palau, one of Taiwan's diplomatic allies in the South Pacific. President Ma and his Palau counterpart Johnson Toribiong were both on hand to open the game between the team from Taipei County's Ku Pao Home Economics and Commercial High School and a local team that was organized in 2007 with 'technical assistance' from the Taiwanese school. The Ku Pao players performed a war dance prior to the game. The diamond's lines were formed with seashell sand instead of the typical lime dust or chalk usually used on fields in Taiwan and around the world. Earlier in the day, President Ma visited an exhibition showcasing the cultures and traditions of Taiwanese indigenous people and their modern art. Ma said at the occasion that 2010 is a major year for Taiwan in terms of promoting exchanges between Taiwan's indigenous peoples and their counterparts from around the world. The second World Indigenous Television Broadcasting Conference was held at the National Museum of Prehistory in southeastern Taiwan's Taitung County from March 9-12, and a show on indigenous ethnography is slated for May, Ma said. An international conference on Austronesian peoples is slated for June and an Austronesian cultures week is scheduled to be held in November, he continued. President Ma departed the Solomon Islands earlier Friday for Palau via Guam. Palau was the sixth and final leg of his week-long diplomatic tour of Taiwan's six allies in the South Pacific. He has already visited the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Nauru and the Solomon Islands. 