Taiwan and Israel are developing close trade and high-tech ties under the watchful eyes of China which fears Taipei and Tel Aviv are secretly nurturing political and military ties.
Since exchanging trade offices in 1993, Taiwan and Israel have doubled trade from US$500 million in 1997 to US$1 billion last year, with a strong emphasis on high-tech imports and exports.
The peak in bilateral trade occurred in 2004 when two-way trade rose 64 percent. Two-way trade last year hit US$1.3 billion, up 5 percent year-on-year, according to the Bureau of Foreign Trade.
Last month Taiwan and Israel signed a scientific and technological cooperation agreement to promote cooperation in high-tech fields.
"We hope to promote cooperation and research in areas like bio-technology, nanotechnology and life science. Israel will send a delegation to sign a working plan on how to carry out the cooperation pact," National Science Council official Lin Kuang-lung (
The delegation, led by Acting Minister of Science and Technology Mina Teicher, was scheduled to arrive this month, but delayed the trip until April because Israel is scheduled to hold elections next month and has asked its ministers to stay home.
"Once the details have been worked out, we hope scientists from both sides can hold seminars so that they can decide how to carry out the exchanges," Lin added.
Israel is satisfied with its trade ties with Taiwan, but is wary of violating its "one China" policy and hurting its diplomatic ties with China, launched in 1992.
"The `one China' policy is a given policy, so we must respect it, but we can develop economic and trade ties because our economies complement each other," Ruth Kahanoff, Israel's trade representative to Taiwan, said in an interview.
Kahanoff said that promoting trade with Taiwan is a high priority for Israel because Taiwan is Israel's third-largest trading partner in Asia after China and Japan in terms of trade without diamonds.
Israeli exports to Taiwan last year totaled US$558 million, compared with US$615 million to China and US$600 million to India.
Israel counts its exports in two ways: with diamonds and without diamonds.
Trade-without-diamond figures are more accurate because diamond exports have little added-value as Israel imports diamonds and earns little from exporting cut diamonds.
Hovav Ref, economic affairs director of the Israel Economic and Cultural Office (ISECO) in Taipei, said that Taiwan and Israel complement each other because Israel is a leader in high-tech and research and development (R&D) while Taiwan has manufacturing capabilities.
"Israel spends 4.6 percent of its GDP on R&D, the highest in the world. Taiwan is good at manufacturing but many Taiwan companies have moved to China, so Taiwan is focusing on high-tech like biotech, semiconductors, etc," Ref said.
But to Taiwan, which is recognized by only 25 mostly small nations and is eager to break out of its international isolation, high-technology imports are not the only thing it wants from Israel.
Press reports said Taiwan wants to launch military ties with Israel and upgrade the level of its general ties with the Middle East country.
According to the reports, Taiwan bought 15 missile-equipped speedboats -- and was seeking to buy 40 Kfir warplanes -- from Israel in the 1980s and 1990s.
Taiwan's Tien Kung (sky bow) surface-to-air missile was modeled on Israel's Gabriel missile, the reports said.
"Israel is good at converting warplanes, electronics warfare, early-warning systems and UAV [unmanned aerial vehicles]. But no-one knows if we have military contacts with Israel," said Tang Feng, director of the Economic Ministry's Industrial Cooperation Program Office.
But China is watching closely, fearing that Israel's export of weapons or defense technology could embolden Taiwan to seek formal independence.
In 1995, former president Lee Teng-hui (
Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (in office from 1996-1999) planned to visit Taiwan in 2001 to promote trade ties, but canceled the visit without giving a reason.
In the book, The Taiwan Issue in China's Foreign Relations (published in 2002), Chinese foreign affairs expert Tong Fei summarized Beijing's worries over Taiwan's diplomatic offensive in the Middle East.
Tong Fei said that Taiwan's expanding ties with Middle Eastern nations was to secure its oil supply, and sea and air passages to Central Asia and Europe, as well as to open trade ties and to upgrade these ties to official or semi-official levels.
But China has instructed its diplomatic allies to embrace the "one China" policy and bars them from launching official ties with Taiwan or allowing visits by Taiwan's leaders.
DEATH THREAT: A MAC official said that it has urged Beijing to avoid creating barriers that would impede exchanges across the Strait, but it continues to do so People should avoid unnecessary travel to China after Beijing issued 22 guidelines allowing its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it raised its travel alert for China, including Hong Kong and Macau, to “orange.” The guidelines published last week “severely threaten the personal safety of Taiwanese traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference in Taipei. “Following a comprehensive assessment, the government considers it necessary to elevate the travel alert to orange from yellow,” Liang said. Beijing has
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that the Chinese Communist Party was planning and implementing “major” reforms, ahead of a political conclave that is expected to put economic recovery high on the agenda. Chinese policymakers have struggled to reignite growth since late 2022, when restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. The world’s second-largest economy is beset by a debt crisis in the property sector, persistently low consumption and high unemployment among young people. Policymakers “are planning and implementing major measures to further deepen reform in a comprehensive manner,” Xi said in a speech at the Great Hall
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
SOLUTIONS NEEDED: Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers due to population decline, the minister of economic affairs said in Washington President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration is considering a plan to import labor to deal with an impending shortage of engineers and other highly skilled workers, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said in Washington on Tuesday. Kuo was leading a delegation attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit. Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high-end manufacturing jobs by 2040, he said. Ministry of Economic Affairs officials are still calculating the precise number of workers that are needed, as it works on loosening immigration restrictions and creating incentives, Kuo said. Taiwanese firms operating factories in the US and other countries would