In the days before the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Han Kou-yu (韓國瑜) was elected as speaker of Taiwan’s 11th Legislative Yuan, some warned that his election could make parliamentary engagements with European parliaments more difficult, due to his political connections with China and lack of international experience. After it happened, the KMT’s assistant director of international affairs refuted the idea, and the situation now is that it remains far too early to judge who was right — although parliamentary exchanges in the immediate aftermath appear to have continued as previously so far.
However, Taiwan’s broader relationship with Europe, and in particular the European Union, remains both fluid and contradictory, and it’s something to look out for over the next few months and years under the presidency of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Lai Ching-te (賴清德).
Fundamentally, for Taiwan, the relationship still takes a back seat compared to relations with the U.S. Economic and security interactions increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, and right now increases in economic, educational and delegation exchanges mean relations are “closer than ever,” according to Yu Ching-hsin (游清鑫), director of National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center, speaking at a forum hosted by the European Values Center for Security Policy earlier this month. But the EU cut off talks over a bilateral trade agreement last year and this reflects how the two remain “not close enough,” according to Yu.
On the part of the EU, the relationship is complex. Member states are all working around various forms of “One China” policies. But more than that, the organization is made up of 27 member states with different priorities and competing interests, and those interests present a clear divide between smaller and larger countries in how they engage with both Taiwan and China.
“There’s always a split between the big countries [and the small countries] because the big countries don’t have to care as much about principles as the small countries. Small countries are usually prone to favor international law because that’s the thing that’s keeping them alive,” Matej Hulicka, the Association for International Affairs’ China-focused projects intern, told Domino Theory via video call. “When someone visits China … there are always reactions from the Baltic states that are like ‘you should care less about business and the economy and care more about what those big states like China or India or whoever do badly. We should care more about human rights, we should care about democracy, international law and maintaining that.’”
Operating within that dynamic, Taiwan has had more sustained results in engaging with states in Central and Eastern Europe than with the likes of France and Germany. A major news story last year was Lithuania’s opening of a Taiwan representative office. It was the Czech Republic that sent a record 150 person delegation to Taiwan in March. And Taiwanese companies have been openly looking to invest in Central and Eastern Europe.
But this doesn’t mean the situation is always clear cut or static. Germany and France have been picking and choosing hawkish positions on decoupling with China depending on what suits them economically. This year Germany offered a tentative congratulatory message for “all voters and candidates who participated in the elections, as well as those elected” in Taiwan’s January elections, where in recent years it had only gone as far as “welcoming” the smooth conduction of elections. On the other hand, Matej Hulicka pointed out that Lithuania has been looking to normalize relations with China after the fallout from opening the Taiwan representative office, and it has an election coming up in May where the opposition party could take a different approach to China should it win.
With that as the (moving) terrain, and in light of Taiwan’s elections, which saw the KMT win the most seats in legislature while the DPP won the presidency, the future of the relationship will be contingent on several factors.
“In principle” the party makeup in Taiwan doesn’t dictate the nature of relations, said Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, a former political advisor in the European parliament. “I believe that we would work with any government that is elected in Taiwan through a free and fair election, in line with the rule of law, that is interested in cooperating with the EU as a partner,” she said, answering a question put to her by Domino Theory at an Institute for Security and Development Policy event.
“So of course how the domestic scene evolves in Taiwan, again, if we look at those as domestic issues … that again is something for Taiwan to deal with. We, as Europeans, want to be partners with Taiwan. So we will collaborate in those areas that there is mutual interest and benefit.”
In line with that logic, to some extent “the ball is in Taiwan’s court,” according to Marcin Jerzewski, the head of the Taiwan Office at the European Values Center for Security Policy, speaking at their forum event. He suggested that while a bilateral trade agreement may currently be off the table, sectoral agreements could still be something Taipei works toward. The European agricultural industry has strong lobbying power, and Jerzewski said opening Taiwan up to imports from there, for instance, could smooth the way for further relations.
Whether Taiwan pursues policies such as that or not may be contingent on the willingness of the KMT to allow them through the legislature. But there is disagreement about the likelihood of this.
Jerzewski warned that Taiwan’s continued progress on human rights — on specific issues such as treatment of migrant workers or the death penalty — would be a contingent factor on doing more business with the EU. He added this may be an issue because several more progressive legislative candidates had lost in the election. But at the same event Heng-yu Chien (簡恒宇), former deputy foreign editor of Taiwan’s Storm Media (風傳媒), emphasized the European credentials of a number of key KMT figures, and said that it would be helpful if European representatives built closer relationships with Taiwanese media in order to get their perspectives across better.
What is likely to remain the same is that there will never be simply one relationship with Europe or the EU. A degree of schizophrenia is built in when packaging up so many different states into one bundle. There will never be a definitive moment of “good” relations being declared unanimously.
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