Relations between Taiwan and the Vatican will not be affected by a recent letter by Pope Benedict XVI to China urging it to respect religious freedom, a foreign ministry official said yesterday.
"We think the letter is apolitical," Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Phoebe Yeh (葉非比) said. "We also understand the pope's views on the problems the Holy See encounters when doing missionary work in China."
Yeh was referring to a letter, published on Saturday, in which the Pope addressed the nearly 12 million Catholics in China.
The pontiff called on Beijing to respect their "authentic religious freedom" and warned that China's official church was "incompatible with Catholic doctrine."
The Vatican released the 55-page letter on its Web site. The letter was translated into five languages -- including Mandarin, in both traditional and simplified characters.
China did not immediately respond to the letter, but its Foreign Ministry called on the Vatican to sever ties with Taiwan and not interfere in Beijing's internal affairs in the name of religion.
The Vatican said it was prepared "at any time" to move its diplomatic representation from Taipei to Beijing -- as soon as an agreement with the Chinese government is reached.
This was not the first time the Holy See had proposed to move the embassy, Yeh said.
"However, the Vatican's offer comes with requirements, a long-existing bone of contention between Beijing and the Vatican," she said.
Beijing and the Vatican have repeatedly clashed over the appointments of bishops ever since China severed ties with the Holy See in 1951, setting up its own Catholic church administered by the government.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS