TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan and Britain are holding a new round of trade talks this week focusing on investment and green energy, officials said on Wednesday, after a deal last year that Taipei hopes will boost global engagement of the tech powerhouse.
Despite a lack of formal ties, Taiwan sees Britain as an important democratic partner, thanks to its concern over stepped-up Chinese military activities near the island, which Beijing views as its own territory.
Britain also supports Taiwan’s participation in global bodies such as the World Health Organization.
Because of its diplomatic isolation and pressure from China, major semiconductor producer Taiwan has few formal foreign trade agreements, though it belongs to the World Trade Organization and has free trade pacts with Singapore and New Zealand.
Taiwan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said talks with visiting British 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”, said office spokesperson Benjamin Hsu.
Britain’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 Britain signed an Enhanced Trade Partnership Arrangement that Taipei hopes will further boost its case to join a major pan-Pacific free trade pact and bolster the island’s ties with other European states.
China has expressed its opposition to the arrangement, saying Britain should not “enhance substantive relations” with the island.
Taiwan has long urged the European Union, which Britain 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 Britain joined last year.
(Reporting by Jeanny Kao and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
