Brexit Britain cashing in on ties with Taiwan

Post-Brexit freedoms have allowed Britain to forge nearer financial ties with Taiwan and helped to push again towards makes an attempt by China to isolate the island.

Vincent Chin-Hsiang Yao, Taiwan’s new ambassador to the UK, stated his nation hopes to make Britain its largest buying and selling accomplice in Europe.

This might give the UK even higher entry to vital industries akin to microchips as Taiwan is likely one of the world’s largest semiconductor producers.

Yao’s feedback comply with a victory for Taiwan’s pro-sovereignty Democratic Progressive Party on this month’s presidential elections, which sparked fury from Beijing.

The get together promotes a extra impartial identification for Taiwan – separate from mainland China. 

Big brother: Taiwan lies simply off the coast of China and has strengthened hyperlinks with the UK

In his first interview with a UK newspaper since taking workplace earlier this month, Yao stated Britain’s exit from the European Union had supplied it with ‘extra leeway’ in overseas and commerce coverage and this had resulted in ‘much more consideration’ being paid in direction of Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific area.

Yao stated Taiwan is already a big investor within the UK, with Britain receiving ‘almost 1 / 4’ of its European funding as of the top of 2022, second solely to the Netherlands, based on knowledge from its Ministry of Economic Affairs.

He added that the UK was the second-biggest European investor in Taiwan, pouring £9.1billion into the nation, once more second solely to the Dutch.

Cosying as much as China had been a key a part of former Prime Minister Lord Cameron’s overseas coverage technique.

But commerce hyperlinks between London and Taiwan have strengthened in recent times as Britain pivoted away from attempting to court docket Beijing following the pandemic and a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019.

Yao stated: ‘The UK Government is sending much more employees to Taiwan. Personnel numbers on the British Office in [the capital city] Taipei have elevated considerably. ‘The ties between our two international locations have been expanded.’

Brexit has additionally helped to spice up commerce hyperlinks between the UK and Taiwan in vital sectors akin to semiconductors, that are utilized in the whole lot from cellphones to vehicles.

The business’s dominant participant is the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which has a market cap of £479billion, making it extra precious than Shell, AstraZeneca and HSBC mixed.

Yao stated Taiwan was targeted on ‘collaborating’ with the UK to develop cutting-edge know-how, noting that Britain’s experience in designing and researching pc chips was extremely prized.

‘Britain may be very robust in circuit design and Taiwan may be very robust in manufacturing,’ he stated, including that each side might work collectively to ‘domesticate extra expertise’ within the business.

The UK’s experience in chip design is exemplified by firms akin to Cambridge-based agency Arm, which counts tech large Apple amongst its clients. Britain and Taiwan are additionally working intently on know-how referring to synthetic intelligence, offshore wind energy and batteries for electrical automobiles.

Yao stated: ‘There continues to be room to enhance and that’s the reason we try to determine extra alternatives for us to work collectively.’

When requested if he would love Britain to change into Taiwan’s largest funding accomplice, the ambassador replied: ‘Of course. I definitely hope we get extra funding to and from the UK.’

In November, the UK and Taiwan signed an enhanced commerce deal that dedicated to holding talks on areas akin to funding and inexperienced power. It was the primary settlement of its sort signed between Taiwan and a European nation.

The transfer prompted a backlash from Beijing, which views Taiwan as a renegade province and has not dominated out the usage of power to unite it with the mainland. Due to hostility from Beijing, Taiwan is formally recognised by solely a handful of nations.

The UK maintains ‘unofficial’ diplomatic ties. Britain’s strategy is in distinction to that of the EU, which is arguing over its stage of dependence on China. Major gamers together with Germany have deep financial ties with Beijing. 

Yao added: ‘China should not be the explanation we cease these enterprise exchanges. There are many, many alternatives for us to work collectively.’