First Taiwan visit by German minister seals science deal

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Science deal sealed in German visit to Taiwan
(R-L) Bettina Stark-Watzinger , Germany's Minister of Education, Joerg Polster, Director General of the German Institute Taipei, Jhy-Wey Shieh, representative of the Taipei Representative Office in Germany, Tsung-Tsong Wu, Taiwan's Minister of Science and Technology, stand together at the signing of a cooperation agreement. Stark-Watzinger came to Taiwan on a two-day tour that included discussions with government officials and experts. Photo: Jörg Ratzsch/dpa

By dpa correspondents I Tuesday, March 21, 2023

 

TAIPEI, Taiwan – German Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger secured a science deal in Taipei on Tuesday, becoming the first German minister on an official visit to Taiwan in over two and a half decades, amid heightened tensions between the self-governing island and Beijing. 

“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 as she witnessed the signing of a bilateral agreement on science and technology.

Under the deal, Taiwan and Germany plan to expand cooperation in areas including lithium batteries, hydrogen, artificial intelligence and semiconductors.

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 shows that Germany sees 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 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 refuses to maintain official relations with any country that formally recognizes Taiwan diplomatically. There are only a few countries in the world that do so. Germany is not one of them.

Former economy minister Günter Rexrodt was the last German minister to visit Taiwan in 1997.

Visits to Taiwan last autumn by two groups of German members of parliament caused friction between Beijing and Berlin, and plans for Stark-Watzinger’s two-day visit, announced on Friday, had already drawn an angry response from the Chinese embassy in Berlin.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday that “China firmly opposes the egregious act by the German official and has made a serious protest to the German side in Beijing and Berlin to express strong disapproval.‌‌”

Wang called on Germany to abide by the “One China” principle and stop using Taiwan question as a pretext to interfere in China’s internal affairs.

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