Richard Shih (
Shih made the remarks when he spoke to representatives from the South African government, political parties and media over a luncheon at a country club in Pretoria.
Shih described Taiwan as a country moving from underdevelopment toward being a high-tech island, and from one ruled by authoritarian decree to a free and open democracy. Both South Africa and Taiwan have much shared experience in their development, and both can work toward upgrading bilateral relations, he said.
He also told more than 100 South Africans that most of them know that Taiwan is a high-tech island nation, that three-fifths of the world's notebook computers are produced in Taiwan, and that three science-based industrial parks on the island export high-tech products worth US$25 billion every year, or one-sixth of the GDP of South Africa.
Although the 23 million people of Taiwan only equals one-60th of China's population and its land is only one-270th of China's, its GDP last year totaled nearly US$300 billion, which is one-quarter of China's.
On cross-strait relations, Shih said that President Chen Shui-bian (
Shih said there was much to learn, citing the accomplishments of the Reconciliation Commission, the nation's diverse culture and natural beauty.
Saying that Taiwan has a passion for sports, especially soccer, he also expressed the hope that the Taiwan team can participate in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching