Representative to Germany Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) on Wednesday said he has written to several major German companies demanding that they stop listing Taiwan as part of China on their Web sites.
Shieh was referring in particular to Lufthansa and Mercedes-Benz, which have listed Taiwan on their English-language Web sites as “Taiwan, China,” as well as Bosch, which uses “Taiwan (China)” on its Web site.
“These companies have apparently come under heavy pressure from Beijing, as China has been flexing its muscle toward Taiwan around the globe,” he said. “However, this is something that we cannot accept and we have demanded a correction from these companies.”
The issue came on the heels of Marriott International’s apology to Beijing in January for naming Taiwan as a stand-alone country on an e-mail questionnaire it sent to members of its reward program.
China has been stepping up its offensive against Taiwan by adopting a two-pronged strategy.
While it is seeking to block the nation’s presence in the international community, Beijing is offering incentives to Taiwanese citizens in hopes of enticing more Taiwanese to engage with China.
Late last month, Beijing announced 31 measures that would allow Taiwanese to compete on an equal footing with Chinese in China, covering an “unprecedented” number of actors, from students to the film industry.
Academics have expressed concern that this would accelerate an exodus of talent from Taiwan, placing the nation at a disadvantage in the global competition for highly educated workers.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
RSS