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.
PROVOCATIVE: Chinese Deputy Ambassador to the UN Sun Lei accused Japan of sending military vessels to deliberately provoke tensions in the Taiwan Strait China denounced remarks by Japan and the EU about the South China Sea at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, and accused Tokyo of provocative behavior in the Taiwan Strait and planning military expansion. Ayano Kunimitsu, a Japanese vice foreign minister, told the Council meeting on maritime security that Tokyo was seriously concerned about the situation in the East China and South China seas, and reiterated Japan’s opposition to any attempt to change the “status quo” by force, and obstruction of freedom of navigation and overflight. Stavros Lambrinidis, head of the EU delegation to the UN, also highlighted South China Sea
The final batch of 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks purchased from the US arrived at Taipei Port last night and were transported to the Armor Training Command in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), completing the military’s multi-year procurement of 108 of the tanks. Starting at 12:10am today, reporters observed more than a dozen civilian flatbed trailers departing from Taipei Port, each carrying an M1A2T tank covered with black waterproof tarps. Escorted by military vehicles, the convoy traveled via the West Coast Expressway to the Armor Training Command, with police implementing traffic control. The army operates about 1,000 tanks, including CM-11 Brave Tiger
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said it expects its 2-nanometer (2nm) chip capacity to grow at a compound annual rate of 70 percent from this year to 2028. The projection comes as five fabs begin volume production of 2-nanometer chips this year — two in Hsinchu and three in Kaohsiung — TSMC senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer Cliff Hou (侯永清) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Silicon Valley, California, last week. Output in the first year of 2-nanometer production, which began in the fourth quarter of last year, is expected to
RSS