Relations with Germany continue to warm as German-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Group chairman Klaus-Peter Willsch, leading a six-person delegation, left Germany for a six-day visit to Taiwan yesterday.
The visit is yet another move by Berlin this year in support of Taiwan. The German Bundestag in May unanimously passed a resolution to support Taiwan’s bid to participate in the WHO as an observer.
German Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach added his support for Taiwan’s participation at the World Health Assembly this year.
Photo: Screen grab from the facebook page of Representative to Germany Shieh Jhy-wey
German Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock in August voiced support for Taiwan in light of Beijing’s military response to US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
A progress report on Germany’s policy guidelines for the Indo-Pacific region released last month said that the country was against any non-peaceful change to the “status quo” across the Taiwan Strait.
It was the first time that Taiwan was mentioned in a progress report about the policy.
Taiwan and Germany also signed an air services accord in July last year that saw flights between the two countries increase from seven to 11 flights per week, and laid the basis for EVA Airways to launch a new direct route from Taipei to Munich next month.
Democratic Progressive Party legislators twice last month visited Germany to deepen Taiwan-Germany parliamentary relations, while the Legislative Yuan on Wednesday founded the Taiwan and German Parliamentary Friendship Association.
“We cannot allow China to move goalposts to isolate Taiwan, let alone to break international law,” German Ambassador to the US Emily Haber wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
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As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
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