“The Yushan Forum has long served as a platform for Taiwan to connect with political, economic, and strategic elites from across the region and beyond. This year’s forum brought together more than 70 political and economic leaders from 22 countries, making it the largest gathering in the forum’s history. Participants included Chair of the Japan-ROC Diet Members’ Consultative Council and Chair of the House of Representatives’ Commission on the Constitution Furuya Keiji, Paraguayan Minister of Information and Communication Technologies Gustavo Villate, South Korean Reform Party leader and National Assembly member Lee Jun-seok, former U.K. Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox, former Chair of the Munich Security Conference and former German Ambassador to the United Nations Christoph Heusgen, former Canadian Ambassador to the WTO Jonathan Fried, and former Philippine Vice President and current Naga City Mayor Leni Robredo, along with former ministerial-level officials from Bulgaria, Czechia, Lithuania, Malaysia, and New Zealand. ”
“This is an important shift in emphasis. It suggests that Taipei increasingly sees its southward outreach not as a geographically limited policy, but as part of a wider diplomatic and strategic realignment. Taiwan seeks to present itself as an active player in Indo-Pacific affairs rather than a passive object of cross-strait tension.”
“In 2010, 83.8 percent of Taiwan’s outbound investment went to China, yet last year that figure had dropped to just 3.75 percent, a historic low. Over the same period, Taiwanese investment in EU countries increased by 650 percent.”
“Moreover, since 2025, the United States has become Taiwan’s largest export market, with exports to the U.S. up 78 percent. Taiwan’s exports to New Southbound partner countries rose 30.5 percent.”
https://thediplomat.com/2026/03/taiwans-new-southbound-2-0-rewiring-the-indo-pacific-beyond-china/