Taiwan and the UK are holding a new round of trade talks this week focusing on investment and green energy, officials said yesterday, after a deal last year that Taipei hopes would boost global engagement of the tech powerhouse.
Despite a lack of formal ties, Taiwan sees the UK as an important democratic partner, thanks to its concern over stepped-up Chinese military activities near the nation, which Beijing views as its own territory.
The UK also supports Taiwan’s participation in global bodies such as the WHO.
Photo courtesy of the Executive Yuan
As a result of its diplomatic isolation and pressure from China, major semiconductor producer Taiwan has few formal foreign trade agreements, although it belongs to the WTO and has free-trade pacts with Singapore and New Zealand.
Taiwan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said talks with visiting UK officials in Taipei this week focused on issues such as digital trade, investment, renewable energy and net-zero emissions.
Both sides “do not rule out signing relevant agreements,” OTN spokesperson Benjamin Hsu (徐崇欽) said.
The UK’s de facto embassy in Taiwan said working-level trade officials were in Taiwan this week for talks on the Enhanced Trade Partnership announced last year, but declined to comment on the status of the talks.
In November last year, Taiwan and the UK signed an Enhanced Trade Partnership Arrangement that Taipei hopes would further boost its case to join a major pan-Pacific free-trade pact and bolster the nation’s ties with other European states.
China has expressed its opposition to the arrangement, saying Britain should not “enhance substantive relations” with Taiwan.
Taiwan has long urged the EU, which the UK left in 2020, to sign an investment agreement.
Taiwan has also applied to join the 12-country Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP, which the UK joined last year.
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