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.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
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The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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