Taiwan

Lord Callanan Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

As I said, we do not support anyone taking unilateral action in Taiwan. As the noble Lord knows, we work closely with our partners and allies on this. We are aware of Taiwan’s strategic importance to global trade in maritime movement of goods and semiconductors, and therefore not only in relation to democratic values and the points that the noble Lord raises. We are very conscious indeed of the importance of Taiwan and we take that into account in not only our bilateral work with it but our relations with our partners and allies.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, to endorse the two previous questions, China has an appalling record of hostility towards Taiwan, which is a democratic and self-governing nation. Can the Minister please be more specific about what work the UK Government are doing to support Taiwan in the face of those hostile threats from China? Does that include sharing information from the UK’s more recent knowledge about Chinese attempts to undermine our democracy?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

On the last point, I do not think the noble Lord would expect me to comment on information sharing—he is smiling from a sedentary position, so I think he expected that answer. As the whole House knows, we did a China audit, which formed part of the national security strategy published last year. As a result of the China audit and the national security strategy, we are investing in our intelligence services, updating our state threats legislation and strengthening our responses to transnational repression. We are also introducing a new China fast stream in the FCDO and creating an FCDO global China network, and we have trained over 1,000 civil servants on China policy in the past year. I reassure the noble Lord and the entire House that this is an active area and the relationship with Taiwan is one that we take very seriously and value.