As the Beijing Olympic Games approaches, the latest issue in Germany's English-language newspaper "The Asia Pacific Times" carried good wishes and remarks made by German celebrities.

The good wishes came from German political and business leaders, scholars and athletes on the quadrennial sports gala.

"Over the coming weeks we will be cheering on our athletes. I believe that the major sporting event of the Olympic Games will produce more openness in China. We certainly have every reason to wish for that," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was quoted as saying by the monthly.

"We have to recognize what an unbelievable development the country has gone through in the last decades," he added.

Wilfried Lemke, special adviser to the United Nations Secretary- General on Sport, said he was looking forward to taking part in the opening ceremony of the Games.

"By attending, I also wish to show my respect for the organizers and the people of China. My hope is for a peaceful Olympics -- I hope with all my heart that every kind of violence can be kept away from the Games," he was quoted as saying.

Eberhard Sandschneider, head of the Research Institute at the German Council on Foreign Relations believed that the Beijing Games have "more than just symbolic importance" for China.

"In the country's 30th year of reforms, they cap a development that has surprised and astonished the world," the scholar on Sino-Germany relations was quoted as saying.

Juergen Hambrecht, CEO of BASF and chairman of the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business said the Olympic Games is of "enormous importance" to China and is "a symbol of the country's successful development" in recent decades.

World fencing champion Britta Heidemann, who has once lived in Beijing, said she had followed the progress of Beijing "very closely" over the past ten years.

"I hope for harmonious Olympics that demonstrate how sport brings nations together. And that every participant -- whether spectator or athlete - returns home with the good feeling that they were able to give people from other nations new approaches in their thinking on how to create a positive future," she was quoted as saying.

(Xinhua News Agency August 6, 2008)