Berlin on Wednesday appealed for efforts to reduce tension over Taiwan as the German foreign affairs minister flew to China for official talks.
German Minister for Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock arrived in the northeastern port city of Tianjin for meetings and was due to hold talks with her Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang (秦剛), today in Beijing and with senior diplomat Wang Yi (王毅) tomorrow.
Her ministry said she would discuss Taiwan, Ukraine, human rights and other issues with Chinese officials.
Photo: Reuters
The Chinese Communist Party sent warships and fighter planes near Taiwan last weekend in retaliation for a meeting between President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
“Threatening military gestures” increase “the risk of unintentional military confrontations,” a spokeswoman for Baerbock’s ministry, Andrea Sasse, said in Berlin.
“We therefore call on all partners in the region and are working also with our international partners to contribute to a de-escalation in the Strait of Taiwan,” Sasse said on Wednesday.
European governments are increasingly worried about Chinese pressure on Taiwan, a global high-tech center and one of the biggest trading economies.
“We hope Germany can refrain from politicizing business cooperation, making it something about ideology or security, or artificially setting up obstacles,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) told a briefing yesterday.
Baerbock plans to travel to South Korea tomorrow and then attend a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Japan on Sunday.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
RSS