Former West German president Walter Scheel on Tuesday called for both sides of the Taiwan Strait not to resort to force under any circumstances in dealing with cross-strait differences.
Scheel, in a speech at the Double Ten National Day cocktail party in Berlin, quoted President Chen Shui-bian (
In his speech, the 85-year-old Scheel said that Taiwan's democratization and the freedom that its people enjoy are facts that deserve the respect of the international community.
Annual two-way trade between Taiwan and Germany has reached some 1 billion euros, making Taiwan one of Germany's major trade partners in Asia, Scheel said.
He also expressed his appreciation to the National Palace Museum for having arranged for its flagship collections to be exhibited in Germany, allowing the German people to savor the magnificent Chinese culture without having to travel to China.
Scheel said he hopes that Taiwan and Germany will enhance their bilateral cultural exchanges in the future.
Meanwhile, Wolfgang Lueder, chairman of the German China Association, praised Taiwan and its people in his speech to the cocktail party.
Citing the story of a Taiwanese farmer who planted Chinese mushrooms in a Berlin suburb and went on to market his produce throughout Europe, Lueder said that Taiwan's people have been important investors in Germany beyond the high-tech field.
Lueder said that Taiwan -- with its economic strength and high level of human rights -- would be worthy of being invited by German politicians to join the EU if the island were located in the Mediterranean Sea. His remarks received loud applause from those attending the cocktail party.
Established in Germany 47 years ago, the German China Association has been an influential private organization devoted to relations between the German and Chinese people.
Since its inception it has maintained close interactions with Taiwan.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
RSS