The German Institute Taipei yesterday unveiled a memorial plaque on the former site of the Imperial German Consulate in Taiwan in Taipei’s Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area, as it celebrated more than 100 years of ties between the two nations.
The plaque was installed on the wall surrounding Taipei Municipal Zhongxiao Junior High School and features a brief introduction to the consulate’s history in German, Chinese and English.
It also depicts a hand-drawn sketch by a Taiwanese designer of what the consulate looked like in the 19th century.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Due to increasing trade activities between Germany and Taiwan in the 1890s, the two-story consulate building was constructed in 1895 on the banks of the Tamsui River (淡水河) by Taiwan-based German businessman Arthur von Butler on behalf of the then-German Foreign Office, the institute said.
Two German consuls and four interim consuls were stationed at the consulate before it was closed and sold to the Japanese colonial administration in 1908 and torn down, the institute said, adding that the official seal of the consulate used “Formosa” rather than “Taiwan” to refer to the island at the time.
“About 120 years ago, what stood in front of the school’s main gate was the Imperial German Consulate. On the right was the then-US embassy and behind the consulate stood the then-Dutch embassy,” school principal Chen Tse-min (陳澤民) said.
After the institute posted a message on Facebook in October 2016 inquiring about the exact location of the consulate, a few of the school’s history teachers used a digital historical map to try to locate it, only to realize it was located where the faculty office is today, he said.
The discovery motivated the school’s teachers to design a series of teaching materials that seek to take students back to 1895 through a historical tour of Dadaocheng that begins at the site of the former consulate, he added.
Several students have expressed interest in studying in Germany due to the school’s connection with the nation, Chen said.
Institute Director-General Thomas Prinz said that his office started studying the history behind the former consulate as early as 2015.
“Thanks to information provided by the German Federal Foreign Office and the help of many Taiwanese friends, we were able to find the old site of what was known at the time as the ‘most beautiful and magnificent building along the Tamsui River,’” Prinz said.
The school is the “most ideal successor” to the former consulate, he said, expressing the hope that the school and the institute could cooperate to jointly hold events.
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
TIT-FOR-TAT: The US allegedly revoked the visa of a Chinese national working at Xinhua News Agency in the US in response to Beijing’s expulsion of Vivian Wang The Presidential Office yesterday condemned China for expelling a New York Times correspondent from Beijing following the newspaper’s interview with President William Lai (賴清德), saying the move highlighted Beijing’s suppression of press freedom and its threat to international news media. Taiwan has noted a series of recent incidents in which Beijing used similar tactics to “threaten and pressure international media outlets and journalists,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. “This concerns not only press freedom and freedom of expression, but also the safety of journalists, and Taiwan and relevant partners are paying close attention to the situation,” she
RSS