The European Union’s (EU’s) Taiwan policies have been dominated by trade and economic
concerns due to the absence of a security profile and China’s insistence on Taiwan belonging to
China. This neglect of a political role of the EU in East Asia is often regarded as a central strategic
weakness of the EU. With a new government in office in Taiwan since 2016, Cross-Strait
relations have worsened; this challenges EU’s ambitions to become a strategic actor in the region.
Apart from security and economy, other political aspects of bilateral relations have remained
almost unnoticed in the literature. This article addresses EU’s Taiwan policies from a different
perspective. Instead of a hierarchic foreign policy exploration with security issues predominating,
here, a multidimensional mosaic of EU’s Taiwan relations is analysed breadthways. From this
standpoint, one can see that EU’s profile in Taiwan has increased considerably in recent years.
These broadened bilateral relations may also support the EU’s wider political and strategic
interests in the region altogether. The EU could help Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy align
with EU’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations strategy, and thus support a rule-based
strategy in the Far East.