German Official Visits Taiwan for Talks on Supply Chains

Iain Rogers and Debby Wu
·2-min read

(Bloomberg) -- A deputy German economy minister is in Taiwan this week for talks with officials and executives and will visit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., according to the government in Berlin.

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Udo Philipp, a deputy to Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Greens, will attend Tuesday’s meeting of the Taiwan-Germany Joint Business Council, which this year is focusing on cooperation in the semiconductor sector, his ministry said Monday in an emailed statement.

Germany and Taiwan don’t have formal diplomatic ties and Berlin’s decision to send Philipp risks angering Beijing, which has ramped up military, economic and diplomatic pressure on Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te. Last year, China reacted furiously to a visit to Taiwan by a German cabinet minister aimed at expanding technology cooperation.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Beijing reiterated his nation’s view that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory.”

“We urge the German side to stick to the one-China principle, stop official interactions in any form with Taiwan authorities and stop sending wrong signals to the Taiwan independence forces,” Lin Jian added at a regular press briefing.

Lai refuses to endorse the claim that his democratically run island is part of China. Beijing hasn’t ruled out taking the territory by force.

Germany and Taiwan want to work together to increase resilience of global supply chains and foster economic diversification in the Asia-Pacific region, the ministry quoted Philipp as saying.

“At the same time, we also want to encourage Taiwanese companies to expand their involvement in Germany and the European Union,” he added, welcoming TSMC’s involvement in a €10 billion ($10.7 billion) chip facility being built in the eastern German region of Saxony.

Germany’s relations with China have have been testy under Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz. It sent its first warship through the Taiwan Strait in 22 years in September, defying Beijing’s warnings as the two sides spar over trade and Russia’s war on Ukraine.

(Updates with comments from China’s Foreign Ministry.)

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