TAIWAN

Contacts with Taiwan are maintained by Russia pursuant to the Presidential Decree on Relations between the Russian Federation and Taiwan of September 15, 1992. Russia has no official interstate relations with Taiwan. It is its position of principle that only one Chinese state exists in the world and the government of the People's Republic of China is the lawful government of the whole of China, including Taiwan. This position is recorded in joint Russo-Chinese documents, and the majority of the states follow a similar approach.

Russia is willing to develop mutually beneficial relations with Taiwan in the field of economy, trade, science, technology and culture on an unofficial basis. The PRC has no objections against such relations. This approach is recorded in a joint communique on the results of an informal Russo-Chinese summit issued in Moscow in 1998.

The development of unofficial non-governmental ties with Taiwan is promoted primarily in the economic and humanitarian spheres by the Moscow-Taipei and Taipei-Moscow Coordination Commissions for Economic and Cultural Cooperation set up in Russia and Taiwan. These commissions have already opened their respective representative offices in Taipei (1996) and Moscow (1993).

Russian-Taiwan trade grew from US million in 1990 to US billion in 1997 (with Russian exports accounting for US billion and Russian imports, for US million). The Russian-Taiwan trade turnover amounted to US billion in 1998 (with Russian exports of US billion and imports of US million). An understanding has been reached to establish direct Moscow-Taipei air route by the Transaero (Russia) and China Airlines (Taiwan) companies. It is planned to be opened in 1999.

A delegation of Taiwanese business circles headed by the general director of the foreign trade department of the ministry of economic affairs (holding a rank of deputy minister) visited Russia in September 1998. Direct partner relations are being established by companies in the field of machine-building, biotechnologies, power engineering and other high-tech fields, and by financial institutions.

Sea shipping was resumed in July 1997 between Russian and Taiwanese ports which had been previously closed for Taiwanese and Russian ships.

Notable progress has been made in cooperation in the sphere of education. Student and trainee exchanges are arranged, more than 100 Taiwanese students receive training in Moscow. Russian language teachers from Russia work in Taiwan, and almost 700 students are learning Russian in Taiwanese higher educational establishments. Cooperation agreements were signed between Russian and Taiwanese universities. In 1998 Russian ballet and circus performances, a festival of Russian cuisine and art were arranged, as well as concerts given by Mstislav Rostropovich and Yevgeny Kisin, of best symphony orchestras from Moscow and St. Petersburg. Ever more Taiwanese tourists come to Russia (10,000 to 12,000 in 1998).

Cooperation within the APEC framework. An exhibition of Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Technomart 2, was held in Taipei from January 21 to 25, 1998. Among its key objectives was broader exchanges of technological achievements in order to reduce economic inequality between the APEC member-states.

Represented at the exposition were 560 participants which presented 1137 technological exhibits at the Taipei International Trade Centre. Two seminars, presentations of achievements in science and technology by Russia and Canada, two conferences and other events were arranged at the exhibition.

The participants included leading companies using high-tech methods, universities, high-tech introducing agencies, corporations and investment firms from the US, Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, South Korea, Indonesia, China, Hongkong, Australia, Russia, Canada and Japan. Thailand and Vietnam participated as observers.

The most numerous delegation of China (220 members) represented 42 research institutes and displayed 380 high-tech products in 120 exhibition halls, including launch-rocket models, equipment for nuclear reactors, submarine robots, solar batteries and space technologies.

Russia took part in a major APEC event of this scale for the first time, and its delegation of 50 members presented state of the art high-tech products developed by Russian government research centres and private companies.

Taiwanese minister of economic affairs Van Chigang, APEC Secretariat executive director Nur Adlan, honorary chairman of the Taiwanese association of industrialists and businessmen Gu Chenfu and head of the Russian delegation Oleg Lobov spoke at the opening ceremony.

Basic displays presented achievements in the following fields: microelectronics and information technologies, new material production methods, medical and biotechnologies, automated system and machine equipment technologies, fundamentally new production methods and other technologies (for agriculture, environmental protection, etc.). Agreements on technological cooperation to the amount of US were signed at the exhibition and potential transactions were estimated at US million.