GERMANY’S government appealed today for efforts to reduce tension over Taiwan as Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock flew to China for talks following Chinese military exercises near the breakaway island.

Ms Baerbock will discuss Taiwan, Ukraine, human rights and other issues with Chinese officials, according to the German Foreign Ministry.

“Threatening military gestures [increase] the risk of unintentional military confrontations,” said ministry spokeswoman Andrea Sasse.

“We therefore call on all partners in the region and are working also with our international partners to contribute to a de-escalation in the strait of Taiwan.”

The German intervention came days after warnings from the Chinese about the tensions that will be caused by more than 17,600 US, Filipino and Australian troops staging the largest-ever war games in the South China Sea.

The US already has a heavy presence in the region, with at least 313 bases in east Asia, forming an arc around China, and some 750 bases worldwide.

In contrast, China has one base in Djibouti and a small number in the South China Sea, making about eight foreign bases in total.

Ms Baerbock and her team made no mention of the tensions raised by the visit of then US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in August last year or the meeting in California last week between current Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the island’s President Tsai Ing-wen. 

Taiwan split from China in 1949 at the end of the civil war that brought the communists to power on the mainland, but Beijing still considers the island to be part of its territory.

Ms Baerbock, one of the Green ministers in Germany’s Social Democrat-led coalition government, is also set to travel to South Korea tomorrow and then attend a meeting of foreign ministers of the Group of Seven major economies in Japan on Sunday.