President Chen Shui-bian (
"It is unfair to forbid Taiwan's high-level officials from conducting private visits to Germany, including the head of state, the vice president and the premier," he said. "I hope the German government will improve their policy."
Chen made the remarks while receiving German Member of Parliament Jens Spahn at the Presidential Office yesterday morning.
Citing the example of the US, Chen said that although the US government, like Germany, embraces the "one China" policy, it does not set too many limitations to the visits and stopovers of senior Taiwanese officials.
In addition, the US has publicly voiced its support for Taiwan's bid to join the WHA as an observer, Chen said.
Chen said that the global disease prevention system and health care network should not be politicized or get confused with issues of sovereignty. He said that Taiwan had borne the brunt of the SARS outbreak three years ago because of China's deliberate concealment of its cases.
Chen also extended appreciation to the German government for its concern for cross-strait issues, including the German parliament's passage of a resolution in October 2004 that set three conditions that need to be met before the EU lifts its arms embargo on China.
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:
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