As Israel’s foreign ties falter, Taipei sees a chance
Since Israel launched its war against Hamas in Gaza last October, many of its international relationships have fallen into decline. Even the United States’ unconditional support of Israel is beginning to show its cracks.
But Taiwan, under military pressure from Beijing and eager for international partners, has seen the war as an opportunity to learn from Israel’s defence strategies and advance bilateral ties, despite a lack of formal diplomatic relations.
Taiwan was one of the first governments to condemn Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, which killed 1,139 people, as terrorism. Soon thereafter, Taiwan’s defence ministry established a committee to study possible lessons the island could learn from Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel.
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 affected by the October 7 attack.
Lee said that in the wake of the Hamas attack, Taiwan had shown it was a “reliable partner” to Israel.
“This reminds people once again it is not always good 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.
In February, the island’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party established a “Taiwan-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Alliance”. Israel has a corresponding group in the Knesset, its unicameral parliament.
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 said 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.
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.
Beijing’s meetings with Hamas leaders and support for Palestinians’ right to self-determination at the International Court of Justice have stoked anger within Israel. Yaron in October called Taiwan “a good friend” but said the mainland’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.
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 offered “less ideological criticism”, appeared to be more stable as partners, he said.
“So far Israel hasn’t had any real strategy towards 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.
Taiwan has expressed more interest in “track-two” defence cooperation, referring to nongovernmental 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, 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 had about 200,000 troops.
“So when thinking about how to increase our mobilisation reserve force, Israel’s experience is very important,” Shen said.