Upgraded trade talks with EU on semiconductors signal an advance in Taiwan’s standing
- Taipei calls the ministerial-level discussions a ‘major breakthrough in relations with the EU’
- Brussels secures Taipei’s support for the European Union’s plan to manufacture one-fifth of the world’s microchips by 2030
Amid a frenzied global hunt for microchips and souring Western ties with China, Taiwan quietly enhanced its international profile on Thursday during landmark trade talks with the European Union.
Discussions, unsurprisingly, focused on semiconductors. Taiwan produces 90 per cent of the world’s most advanced chips, which will power the industries of the future, and Europe is desperately seeking the know-how to build a chip supply chain of its own.
But perhaps more important was the symbolism: this was the first ministerial-level trade talks between Taipei and Brussels, co-chaired by the EU’s director general of trade, Sabine Weyand, and Taiwan’s minister of economic affairs, Mei-Hua Wang.
Both moves demonstrate the self-governing island’s growing economic and geopolitical importance to the West.
This was a fact Taipei was happy to trumpet, describing the talks as a “major breakthrough in relations with the EU”.
