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.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS