Spain has decided to forget the barabarous butchery in Tiananmen Square, and it and the People’s Republic of China have signed an agreement in Madrid for scientific and technological collaboration between the two countries: the agreement, signed by the Spanish Minister of Education and Science and President of the Interministerial Committee of Science and Technology, Javier Solana, and the Vice-Prime Minister, State Advisor and President of the State Committee of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China, Song Jian, will mean that a series of commitments made in previous co-operation agreements will be followed through; the first of these agreements, signed in Peking in September 1985, set up a committee to prepare and follow-up period plans and specific programmes, and the second, signed in Madrid in April this year by the Spanish Secretary of State for Universities and Research, Juan Rojo, was an important step in that it was an initial agreement for scientific and technical exchange between China and Spain; the latest agreement includes sabbatical years for researchers and university professors spent at universities or research centres in Spain and China as well as visits to China for Spanish scientists; 30 Spanish scientists will be going to China initially, with 50 Chinese going to Spain.
