TNAG-1896-FCO40-2690-Calls-on-Francis-Maude--Minister-of-State-for-Foreign-and-Co-1989 — Page 17

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polytechnics.

The Centre is mounting a major exhibition in the

Taiwan National Central Library in November, with the participation

of nearly 100 British universities and other institutes of higher

education. A parallel unofficial Taiwanese Cultural Office is to

open in London shortly.

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6. The British Invisibles Export Council and the Invest in Britain

Bureau have both recently organized inward missions from Taiwan of

senior Taiwanese bankers interested in setting up branches in London

and of companies who are potential inward investors.

7. These have been a number of recent visits to Taiwan by British

MPs, including Sir Philip Goodhart, Sir Eldon Griffiths and Mr Tom

Arnold

8. All these developments are in line with our desire to see

increased people-to-people contact between the UK and Taiwan. But

there are political constraints: we deal with the Government in

Peking (no matter what we think of recent events there) and not the

authorities in Taiwan as the sole legal Government of China and this automatically imposes some restrictions on UK/Taiwan relations (ie no formal government-to-government contact with the Taiwan

authorities). We share this position with the vast majority of

other Governments, including those of all our major allies, and the

situation is unlikely to change.

9.

The absence of UK/Taiwan air services is another area regularly

addressed by the pro-Taiwan lobby. Both British Airways and Virgin

Atlantic are interested in deriving benefit from the potentially

profitable route and BA have gone so far as to sign an airline-to-airline agreement, based on the extension of their

current service to Hong Kong. We shall be submitting on this soon.

If Sir J Spicer raises the matter, the Minister might explain that the issue is extremely complex, given Chinese sensitivities (they regard air services as a matter affecting sovereignty); that no formal Air Services Agreement is possible: but that we are

considering the matter in the light of wider UK interests.

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