Minister warns EU over dependence on China
COMPLEMENTARY STRENGTHS: Reindustrialization and rearmament are shared goals for Taiwan and Europe, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said
Staff writer, with CNA and Reuters
Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) on Tuesday promoted the “Taiwan model” in a speech at the Warsaw Security Forum in Poland, presenting Taiwan as a high-tech powerhouse and a trusted partner in Europe’s reindustrialization and warning the EU about dependence on China.
Dependence on Chinese suppliers poses a risk to the bloc’s freedom, he said, ahead of an EU summit in Brussels where trade with Beijing is to be high on the agenda.
The bloc’s leaders are to discuss China as the first point of their summit starting today as Brussels attempts to reduce the bloc’s trade deficit and mitigate what many see as the risks of becoming overdependent on Beijing in sensitive sectors.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung delivers a speech at the Warsaw Security Forum on Tuesday.
Photo: CNA
Reindustrialization and rearmament are shared goals for Taiwan and Europe amid rising threats from authoritarian regimes in Russia and China, Lin said.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has exposed the dangers of Europe’s dependence on an authoritarian energy supplier, he said.
“What is happening in Ukraine is shaping the security of Warsaw, of Berlin, of Paris — and, indeed, of Taipei. In an interconnected world, the front lines of freedom are no longer separated by geographical landscape,” he said.
With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), the world is undergoing the fastest technological transformation in modern history, Lin said.
“Europe, like many others, cannot tackle these challenges alone. This is where Taiwan comes in,” he said. “Taiwan sits at the center of the world’s most cutting-edge supply chains. We make the overwhelming majority of the most advanced semiconductors. We are a global powerhouse in electronics and precision manufacturing. We produce the very hardware on which AI runs.”
“Our strengths are not a threat to Europe’s; they are complementary to them,” he added.
While Europe leads in industrial machinery, automotive engineering, chemicals and design, “Taiwan brings the chips, the components, and the manufacturing ecosystem that can turn European ambition into finished, competitive products,” Lin said.
Beyond technological know-how, Taiwan is also a partner Europe can trust, he said.
By contrast, the alternative “China model” is one that “does not play by the rules of the world trading system. It relies on massive state subsidies and unfair, nonmarket practices to undercut and overwhelm European competitors,” he said.
“Its aim is not mutual benefit; it is dominance — to make Europe dependent and to control European markets, and ultimately, reduce a continent to the status of an economic dependency,” Lin said.
“Because China’s authoritarian ideology is fundamentally incompatible with Europe’s democracy, dependence on China is not merely an economic risk — it’s a threat to European freedom and sovereignty itself,” he added.
A Europe controlled through its supply chains would be a Europe that had surrendered part of its liberty, Lin said.
While Taiwanese foreign ministers previously rarely visited Europe due to Beijing’s objections, Lin has gone several times since he assumed his position more than two years ago, including to Poland.
This is the second consecutive year Lin has attended the annual forum.
The forum, one of Europe’s major security conferences, focuses on strengthening transatlantic cooperation and addressing security and defense challenges in Central and Eastern Europe.
Europe has its own disputes with Beijing, over trade imbalances and its criticism of what it sees as Chinese support for Russia.
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