Taiwan's historical relations with Europe: Perspectives on the past and the present

Abstract

In 2006, during one of the opening speeches at an academic conference, the Minister of Education at that time, Tu Cheng-sheng, listed with a series of Western names how throughout the history of Taiwan, many people have come to this island and contributed to their Taiwan perspectives (Tu 2006: 7). The attention was drawn to the Westerners who visited Taiwan itself, and not the traditional Western encounter with the Chinese world through the image of Matteo Ricci sailing to China. It is a kind of reference that demonstrates the Taiwan style of branding that the Chen administration (2000-2008) promoted as part of its cultural policy of internationalization.