Tou Chou-seng

Tou Chou-seng ( Chinese  杜 筑 生 ; born March 30, 1942 in Guizhou Province , southern China) is a Taiwanese diplomat .

Life

He graduated in law at the National Taiwan University and was at the University of Paris II to the doctor of law doctorate. In 1976 he joined the Foreign Service of his country and was initially employed in the Foreign Ministry until 1981. He then moved to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Brussels, until he was appointed back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1985. In the first year he was also a lecturer at the Institute for European Studies at Tamkang University in Taipei . In the years 1986 to 1989 he filled the new duties as deputy head of the legal department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1989 he took over the management of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Athens and from 1991 to 1993 he was head of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Chicago . In 1993 he returned to his home country to take on the position of chief of protocol in the State Department. Also in the State Department, he headed the North American Affairs Department from 1994 to 1996. When Taiwan established diplomatic relations with Senegal in 1996 , he became his country's first ambassador to Dakar . In 2001 he signed a development aid plan for ten projects to improve infrastructure in the areas of health, industry, education and water supply. In 2002 he left Senegal and returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs again, this time in the role of Deputy Foreign Minister, which he held until the end of 2003. From January 2004 to September 2008 he was ambassador to the Holy See . In preparation for this assignment in the Vatican , he had visited various Catholic institutions in his country and spoke to staff in hospitals, nursing homes and institutions for the disabled. He later reported that the people radiated an inner joy and peace that aroused curiosity in him. Bible studies and instruction in the catechism by a member of Opus Dei in Rome did one more thing to bring Christianity closer to him. He finally accepted the Catholic faith after receiving solace in prayers after the sudden death of his brother-in-law. In 2012 he wrote a book on the (translated) title The International Status of the Holy See and its Relations with China (Original: 教廷 的 國際 地位 兼 論 教廷 與 中國 的 關係about the insights gained during his term of office into the chaotic Sino-Vatican diplomacy ).

Tou Chou-seng has been married to a Catholic since 1962 and has two children.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Taiwan Yearbook 2003: Who is Who in Taiwan. archive.li, archived from the original on August 19, 2006 ; accessed on May 29, 2017 (English). 
2. ^ Agence France Presse (AFP): L'aide internationale au Sénégal. 77 milliards de F CFA de Taiwan au Sénégal. In: izf.net. January 16, 2001, accessed August 27, 2017 (French). 
3. ↑ Press Office of the Holy See , [1] ; Union of Catholic Asian News , [2]
4. ↑ ^{a b} How a Chinese Became Christian. In: kath.net. April 15, 2008. Retrieved August 27, 2017 . 
5. ^ ^{A b} Bernado Cervellera: Ambassador Tou: Why I Became Catholic. In: cantate-domino.blogspot.de. May 11, 2006, accessed August 27, 2017 . 
6. ↑ Shih Hsiu-chuan: Ex-envoy publishes book on Vatican ties. In: taipeitimes.com. January 17, 2013, accessed August 27, 2017 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
	List of Chinese ambassadors in Senegal from 1996 to 2002
	Chinese Ambassador to the Holy See January 2004 to September 2008