As Israel’s foreign ties falter amid war in Gaza, Taiwan sees chance to cosy up

According to Abby Lee, Taiwan’s representative in Israel, Taiwan has provided humanitarian relief and help to non-governmental organisations on the ground in Israel since the beginning of the war. This has included offering food and clothes to evacuees and psychological help to those who were impacted by the October 7 attack.

Lee said that in the wake of the Hamas attack, Taiwan has shown it is a “reliable partner” to Israel.

“This reminds people once again it is not always to see relations with Taiwan from the perspective of China. That is not good for Israel’s national interests either,” Lee said.

“The relationship can be reassessed or it can look for different possibilities because of [Beijing’s] disappointing hostility during this war, but also because of global political and economic dynamics. And these dynamics are changing dramatically,” she added.

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At the inaugural meeting of Taiwan’s friendship group, Maya Yaron, the Israeli representative to Taiwan, said an Israeli parliamentary delegation would visit Taiwan in the coming weeks and attend the island’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Day event. Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to requests for more details about the event.

It would be the second Israeli parliamentary delegation to visit Taiwan within a year.

Yaron added that she hoped a Taiwanese delegation could visit Israel before the end of the year. “Now is the best time,” she said at the meeting, according to Taiwan’s Liberty Times newspaper. “Necessity is the mother of innovation.”

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Taipei’s response stands in stark contrast to that of Beijing, which has tried to maintain a “neutral” response by condemning “acts that harm civilians” and calling for the resumption of a peace process and the realisation of a two-state solution.

Yaron in October called Taiwan “a good friend” but said mainland China’s response was “disturbing”.

Gedaliah Afterman, head of the Asia policy programme at the Abba Eban Institute for International Diplomacy, said Israel had noticed and welcomed Taiwan’s support amid rising hostility.

Beijing will continue to be important economically, but politically “Israel is feeling quite isolated and is looking to work with friends”, he said.

As the West becomes less friendly towards Israel, countries such as India, Japan and South Korea, which offer “less ideological criticism”, appear to be more stable as partners, he said.

“So far Israel hasn’t had any real strategy toward Asia, and now there’s a growing understanding that it should have … our ability to manoeuvre between superpowers is limited. And because Israel’s main ticket is ‘start-up nation’ – technology – that is an important prism to see things through.”

Taiwan’s desire for warmer ties with Israel began long before the October 7 attack. Bilateral trade between the two has grown steadily in recent years, rising to over US$3.2 billion in 2022 from US$2.4 billion the previous year.

Taiwanese media and officials often speak with admiration for Israel’s strong military and make comparisons between Taiwan and Israel as two isolated democracies with strong tech sectors.

Taiwan has expressed more interest in “track-two” defence cooperation, referring to non-governmental or unofficial cooperation, and is interested in learning from Israel’s civil defence and reserve system.

Shen Ming-shih, director of national security research at Taiwan’s Institute for Defence and National Security Research (INDSR), a government think tank, said that if the People’s Liberation Army were to invade Taiwan, it would send around 400,000 or 500,000 soldiers, while Taiwan only has about 200,000 troops.

“So when thinking about how to increase our mobilisation reserve force, Israel’s experience is very important,” Shen said.

Shen said INDSR met an Israeli delegation of researchers from Reichman University and The Institute for National Security Studies in March. They discussed the importance of technology and human intelligence in detecting potential surprise attacks on Taiwan.

Since that meeting, researchers from INDSR have been considering visiting Israel to observe its war mobilisation and military strategy in Gaza, but there were no concrete plans yet, Shen said.

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“Basing Israel’s relationships in Asia, including with Taiwan, on current tensions with China or their responses to the Gaza war would be a mistake, the thinking should be more long-term and strategic,” Afterman said. “On the forward with Taiwan, while the interest to do more is there, cooperation on the ground is still developing with areas such as disaster relief and technology likely to lead the way.”

While Taiwan’s government has shown support for Israel, public opinion appears to be mixed among its citizens. An opinion poll in October showed that about 35 per cent of Taiwanese people were sympathetic to Israel while about 14 per cent were sympathetic to Palestinians. Protesters in Taipei have demonstrated in support of a ceasefire outside the Israeli and American representative offices there.

At a recent protest at Taipei’s Liberty Square, participants called on members of the new parliamentary friendship alliance to step down from the group and for Taiwan to distance itself from Israel. One of the participating groups, Amnesty International Taiwan, called on the island’s government to “take action to refuse to become an accomplice in war crimes”.

Taiwan has said it has provided aid to organisations helping both Israelis and Arabs affected by the war and that it “hopes that all parties will continue the spirit of the previous ceasefire, continue mediation and communication, and bring opportunities for peace”.

“Our main concern is that under the current humanitarian crisis, every country has the obligation to follow international humanitarian law,” said Eeling Chiu, Amnesty International’s Taiwan director.

“It should not be a double standard for the Taiwanese government to only condemn Russia, but not one sentence or one word toward Israel is quite strange and seems like they have a different standard [for Israel] on human rights violations.”