Foreign
GERMAN Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger on Tuesday arrived in Taipei for a two-day trip, becoming the first German minister on an official visit to Taiwan in over two and a half decades.
“It’s a great pleasure and honour for me to be the first minister heading a specialist government department to visit Taiwan in 26 years,’’ Stark-Watzinger said.
Stark-Watzinger did this in Taipei as she witnessed the signing of a bilateral agreement on science and technology.
Stark-Watzinger’s trip to Taiwan came amid heightened tensions between China and the self-governing island.
The plans for the visit were announced on Friday and it drew an angry response from the Chinese embassy in Berlin.
Stark-Watzinger said it was very important to promote cooperation with like-minded partners.
Tsung-Tsong Wu, minister of Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Council, said that the visit showed that Germany saw Taiwan as a valuable partner.
“If we combine Taiwan’s chip production capacity with Germany’s applications in some advanced industries, such as biomedicine and automobile, then it will be a win-win cooperation.
“The win-win cooperation will be in the following 10, 20 years or even 30 years,’’ Wu said.
Taiwan is a self-governing democracy but is viewed by China as part of its territory.
China opposes any form of official diplomatic contact or recognition between Taiwan and other countries.
China refused to maintain official relations with any country that formally recognize Taiwan diplomatically.
There were only a few countries in the world that did so, Germany is not one of them.
The visits to Taiwan last autumn by two groups of German members of parliament caused friction between Beijing and Berlin.
Former economy minister Günter Rexrodt was the last minister to visit Taiwan in 1997. (dpa/NAN)
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Tags: German Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger Stark-Watzinger Tsung-Tsong Wu
