Students of Survival: Israel and Taiwan as Partners in Geopolitical Exile

Azriely Towers, the home to Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Tel Aviv. Source: Chenspec.

By Evan Stubbs

On December 29, 2021, Taiwan’s vice president (now the president-elect), Taipei’s mayor, the Israeli Representative to Taiwan, and a Jewish multi-millionaire from Cleveland gathered onstage. Above them, vaulted ceilings adorned with Star of David LED lights created a striking backdrop, and before them crowded an audience of diplomats, journalists, and dignitaries.[1] The men smiled for photographs and then, cued by countdown, cut the ceremonial ribbon on Taiwan’s first-ever synagogue. The new Jewish Community Center, a $16 million, 22,500 square foot state-of-the-art facility, boasts a three hundred-person ballroom, kosher restaurant, museum of rare Judaica art, and bathrooms painted in gold leaf and tiled in custom-made Lebanese mosaics.[2] 

The opening of Taiwan’s Jewish Community Center — opulent beyond all proportion to the island’s fewer than two thousand Jewish residents — is the latest development in a rich but understudied history of Israeli-Taiwanese relations.[3] Despite lacking official diplomatic ties, the two governments are informal but committed allies bonded by similar national circumstances. Both came into existence in the late 1940s — Israel in 1948 and Taiwan in 1949 — as safe havens for their respective populations. Israel promised the Jewish people security from antisemitism and memories of the Holocaust; Taiwan provided refuge for approximately 2.2 million refugees fleeing the Communist Party’s Civil War victory in mainland China.[4] Both, from conception, faced existential threats: Israel, the Arab world, and Taiwan, the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Both rely on their armed forces and high per-capita defense expenditures to ensure sovereignty. Internationally, both are pariah states that are not fully recognized as legitimate countries. The similarities between the two induced a Jerusalem Post writer to remark that Taiwan’s story “is so akin to that of Israel that it would not be far-fetched to wonder if — aside from the obvious differences in ethnicity — it were a case of twins separated at birth.”[5] Born into and defined by conflict, Israel and Taiwan’s shared national struggle for sovereignty and recognition has spurred half a century of fruitful military and civilian cooperation that began in the 1970s and continues today. Prompted by the changing geopolitical landscape of the early 1970s, an initial working relationship of transactional military exchange evolved into solidarity defense research in the 1980s before taking a clearer diplomatic form in the 1990s, leading to ever-stronger political, social, and economic ties into the twenty-first century.

This study of Israeli-Taiwanese relations draws upon English- and Chinese-language sources, including books, scholarly journals, news articles, YouTube videos, trade indices, and government publications. While previous scholarship has typically focused on a single facet of Israeli-Taiwanese relations — military, political, cultural, or economic — this study examines all four dimensions to observe the holistic development of ties vis-a-vis Israel and Taiwan’s outsider status in global politics. This multifaceted analysis allows for a thematic examination of Israel and Taiwan’s relationship across time periods, leadership and policy changes, and an evolving geopolitical landscape, thus isolating the core motivations behind continued Israeli-Taiwanese cooperation in a way impossible under narrow study.

The Arrested Development of Israeli-Taiwanese Relations

Despite abundant similarities as existentially threatened Western-aligned states, Israel and Taiwan initially avoided developing official relations for mutual fear of jeopardizing their desired foreign policy plans. For Israel, establishing a broad international base of support was crucial, especially with memories of the 1948 War of Independence (which pitted the fledgling Jewish state against the armies of Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria) still fresh.[6] Eager to make allies, Israel recognized the mainland PRC as China’s sole and legitimate government on January 9, 1950, one hundred days after the PRC’s conception.[7] Israel’s move positioned it as the first state in the Middle East to recognize the PRC.[8] It was grounded in the acknowledgment of Taiwan’s pre-existing ties with the Arab world and the hope that the PRC, having just defeated Taiwan’s Nationalist government, would outlive the latter and become a valuable ally. China, however, wanted nothing to do with Israel.[9] Israel’s alignment with Western intervention in the Korean War placed Israel and China as proxy adversaries, and China further saw Israel as a liability in developing economic ties with the oil-rich Gulf States.[10] In a 1951 conversation with the Soviet ambassador in Beijing, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Zhou Enlai emphasized that “China will not establish relations. . .with Israel. Establishing relations with Israel will not bring anything substantial, and besides, this can lead to a worsening of relations with the countries of the Arab League.”[11] In addition to his closed-door dismissals of the Jewish state, Enlai publicized his anti-Israel platform at the 1955 Bandung Conference of African and Asian states. At the conference, Enlai — still angling to win over the Arab League — antagonized Israel by calling for the reabsorption of displaced Palestinians, expressing support for the Arab boycott of Israel, meeting with Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Salah Khalaf, and pledging weapons to the Palestinian cause.[12] Israel, realizing their overtures with China had failed, abandoned diplomacy with Beijing and punitively voted against Chinese UN membership in 1965.[13] 

Reciprocally, Taiwan had no interest in normalizing Israeli-Taiwanese relations. Taipei followed a strict no-contact protocol for countries favoring the mainland, which, after Israel’s 1950 recognition of the PRC, made them ineligible for diplomatic ties. Furthermore, establishing relations with Israel (official or otherwise) posed an unnecessary risk to Taiwan’s network of regional allies. As late as 1971, Taiwan enjoyed full diplomatic relations with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.[14] These states formed a pro-Taiwan voting bloc in the United Nations that Taipei was careful to keep close. Perhaps most importantly, Taiwan imports 99 percent of its oil, making its relationships with the Gulf States (the above list minus Turkey) a necessary lifeline to energy resources.[15] In 1970, a third of Taiwan’s oil came from Saudi Arabia alone.[16] Taipei’s diplomatic and economic dependency on the Arabic Middle East throughout the 1950s and 1960s made relations with Israel an unaffordable liability.

Conditions for Pariahship Collaboration

While previously opposed to bilateralism, dramatic upheavals in the geopolitical world order in the early 1970s left both Israel and Taiwan more vulnerable and isolated than ever, creating favorable conditions for pariah state cooperation. Taiwan had, from 1949 onward, received only partial international recognition. Diplomatic setbacks followed Taipei into the 1950s and 60s, including France’s decision to switch its recognition to mainland China in 1964, taking former colonies Senegal, Benin, and Mauritania with them.[17] Nevertheless, American support enabled Taiwan to dodge proposals in 1966, 1967, and 1968 that would have put China's representation in the United Nations to vote.[18] Taipei entered the 1970s beleaguered by questions of legitimacy but with the critical backing of their U.S.-led Western alliance intact. 1971 ended any remaining feelings of Taiwanese security. On July 15, 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon announced that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had secretly met with China’s Zhou Enlai, the two countries had started dialogue, and that Nixon would soon visit the communist mainland.[19] Nixon hoped that dialogue with China would exploit already shaky Sino-Soviet relations to give the United States leverage in the Cold War, and to that end, he was willing to compromise on Taiwan.[20] Without the United States’ full and unwavering support, the pro-Taiwan United Nations voting bloc disintegrated. In October 1971, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 2758, stripping Taiwan of its United Nations membership and Security Council seat and declaring the PRC “the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations.”[21] In practice, Resolution 2758 removed Taiwan from both the United Nations and most major intergovernmental bodies. Thereafter, Taiwan could not participate in the World Health Organization, Olympics, or Interpol, and to this day, Beijing disputes Taiwan’s status as a “country.”[22] Taiwan’s diplomatic predicament worsened in 1972. Nixon’s February visit to mainland China and subsequent signing of the Shanghai Communiqué pivoted U.S. foreign policy towards prioritizing normalized U.S.-China relations above supporting Taiwan.[23] Even Japan, one of Taipei’s strongest allies, recognized China in September 1972.[24] Between 1971 and 1973, Taiwan lost international legitimacy, the recognition of 40 countries, and the unwavering support of the world’s preeminent military power.[25] 

While Taiwan struggled with losing allies, international recognition, and security guarantees, the early 1970s confronted Israel with a fight for survival and loss of global influence. On the afternoon of October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched simultaneous attacks on Israel as its Jewish population was celebrating the High Holy Days of Yom Kippur.[26] Israeli forces, complacent in their “sense of invincibility” following victories in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the 1967 Six-Day War, were unprepared to repel 850,000 Egyptian soldiers and 300,000 Syrians and paid a heavy toll with 2,656 dead and 7,250 wounded.[27] Amidst the national grieving, the country experienced anger, too, at America’s eight-day delay in providing military aid.[28]  Many Israelis felt that Nixon and Kissinger had eschewed America’s commitment to Israel at the most critical moment.[29] Domestic politics contributed to Washington’s delay — at home, Nixon faced both the Watergate scandal and Vice President Spiro Agnew’s resignation — but deference towards U.S.-Soviet and U.S.-Egyptian relations also influenced America’s reluctance to get involved.[30] For Israelis, questions about America’s allyship coupled uncomfortably with the Arab-led Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo on Israel-supporting nations to reinforce feelings of isolation.[31] In 1975, international condemnation of Israel culminated in United Nations Resolution 3379, which declared that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”[32] While the United Nations General Assembly had previously voted against Israel (including seven condemnations in 1973, six in 1974, and nine in 1975), no measure had so explicitly denounced Zionist ideology — the guiding principle behind Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign Jewish state — as Resolution 3379.[33]  The United Nations’ harsh castigation shadowed Israel as a pariah state unwelcome in the global community.

First Contact, First Cooperation

The simultaneous deepening of Israel and Taiwan’s pariahship in the early 1970s, coupled with each state’s security paranoia, produced the first significant government-to-government military trade by the decade’s end. In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, Israel sought to reduce dependence on foreign weapons, a vulnerability that America’s eight-day equivocation on arms resupply had exposed. The decision to promote domestic arms production over imports proved wise: by the mid-1970s, U.S. arms supplies to Israel dwindled under the joint influence of OPEC’s economic sanctions, Saudi diplomatic pressure, and a closer working relationship with Egypt.[34] American military aid to Israel under the 1978 “Matmon C” plan undercut Israeli requests by 20-25 percent, with similar reductions in the numbers of F-16s and other “high technology items” made available.[35] To develop weapons domestically, Israel needed foreign markets to support the defense industry and keep it economically viable. Enter: Taiwan. Just as American military sales to Israel dropped during the mid to late 1970s, Taiwan too struggled to attain U.S.-made weapons in the face of Washington’s appeasement of China. When the United States denied Taiwan’s requests for Harpoon and 9L Sidewinder missiles, Taiwan found Israel a willing substitute.[36] In 1977, Taiwan purchased approximately 450 Israeli Shafrir-2 air-to-air missiles, followed by 200 Gabriel anti-ship missiles in 1979. While still relatively small, these initial purchases established a working relationship that set a precedent for future Israeli-Taiwanese exchanges. In 1980, Taiwan acquired the Gabriel-2’s production licenses — a sign of trust from Israel — and by 1992, had an arsenal of 523 Gabriel-2s and 77 launchers.[37] 

Military trade proved beneficial to the security interests of both Israel and Taiwan. Having viable foreign markets expedited domestic production for Israel, enabling Israeli-made arms to meet 30-40 percent of domestic defense needs by 1981.[38] Taiwan, meanwhile, found a valuable backup arms supplier to America, whose long-term support seemed increasingly unreliable. In 1979, the United States canceled a planned sale of advanced F-X fighter jets to Taiwan and paused all weapons sales for one year as a condition of normalizing relations with China.[39]  Reagan also outlined visions for reducing arms sales to Taiwan, “leading, over a period of time, to a final resolution” in exchange for PRC promises of a peaceful solution to the “Taiwan question.”[40] America’s dealings with Beijing left many Taiwanese feeling betrayed and vulnerable, but Israel’s willingness to sell provided some consolation. Purchases of Israeli-made Head-Up Displays, Reshet fire-command and control systems, 50 Dvora patrol boats, LAR-160127 mm rocket launchers, Galil rifles, ammunition, and electronic monitoring technology provided stop-gap inventory to fill weapons shortcomings.[41]

Although prompted by the undesirable conditions of pariahship, the Israeli-Taiwanese military connection proved mutually valuable in both states’ military and civilian economies. Yaacov Liberman, a representative for Israel’s arms producers in Taiwan, remarked that at first, “the majority of highly placed [Taiwanese] Government officials, including the army and air force, were dealing with Israel strictly because of necessity rather than choice.”[42] Just like Israel, Taiwan would have preferred the security assurances of America to an outcast-outcast defense network. However, given their lack of choice, Israel and Taiwan remained committed defense partners. Between 1975 and 1992, the value of Israeli-Taiwanese arms sales reached an estimated $852 million, Israel’s second-largest market (behind South Africa) and Taiwan’s second-largest supplier (behind the United States).[43] Alongside military cooperation came civilian trade. Between pre-pariahship 1970 and post-pariahship 1974, the value of Taiwanese exports to Israel increased by 4,800 percent, while Israeli exports to Taiwan jumped by 3,950 percent.[44]  Isolated by the conditions of their statehood, Israel and Taiwan’s trade-by-necessity strategy produced mutually productive economic opportunities.

Creating “Pariah International”

The joint looming threats of numerically superior Arab and Chinese forces propelled Israel and Taiwan into greater defense cooperation during the 1980s as the two states pursued unconventional defense strategies. Despite Israel’s expanded weapons production benefitting Taiwan’s security needs, both states worried for their security. In 1977, Taiwan’s military was outnumbered ten-to-one by mainland PRC forces, a losing ratio despite Taiwan’s technologically superior arsenal (and upgraded Israeli-made weapons).[45] Similarly, Israel’s 165,000 soldiers faced a combined 875,000 Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Saudi Arabian, and Libyan troops.[46] Worsening Israel’s predicament, Iraq and Syria had both acquired modern Soviet-made T-72 tanks, and Egypt was expanding its arsenal of Western vehicles, artillery, and aircraft.[47] 

By 1980, rumors emerged of a “triangular relationship” between Israel, Taiwan, and apartheid South Africa, with the three outcast nations jointly producing nuclear weapons to address their security shortcomings. Western media highlighted the grouping as an “alliance of the shunned,” alternately dubbed the “fourth world,” and “pariah international,” names that explicitly reinforce each state’s isolation from the international community.[48] The New York Times matter-of-factly informed readers that this “club of politically isolated nations” was “forced to rely on each other for military and intelligence contacts as each has become progressively more estranged in the world community.”[49] U.S. intelligence officials assessed the trio as possessing considerable bomb-making capabilities, finding evidence of Israel helping Taiwan develop atomic warhead-bearing rockets, Taiwanese scientists supporting South Africa’s production of weapons-grade uranium, and South African uranium sales to both Israel and Taiwan (with Taiwan alone set to receive nearly 4,000 tons).[50] Israel also facilitated Taiwan’s acquisition of a 40,000-kilowatt heavy-water nuclear reactor, the same model used by India’s nuclear program.[51] Collaboration on atomic weapons provided pariah states Israel, Taiwan, and South Africa a rare measure of autonomy. As a South African spokesperson articulated, the nuclear trio allowed each nation to “counter isolationist moves against them,” taking autonomy as a “power group in their own right–militarily powerful out of all proportion to their size, technologically developed and with no shortage of resources.”[52] Ostracized from the international community, Israel and Taiwan’s participation in “triangular” defense research provided an essential security lifeline.

Strengthening Ties Today

Formal government-to-government diplomacy in the early 1990s elevated Israeli-Taiwanese relations, prompting a more comprehensive range of political, cultural, and economic cooperation. In 1993, Israel and Taiwan jointly opened economic and cultural representative offices.[53] Despite not qualifying as embassies, the offices provide all of the services of a traditional diplomatic mission and have signed over thirty pieces of joint legislation.[54]  Notably, Israel and Taiwan inked a Reciprocal Visitor Visa Waiver in 2011, allowing visa-free travel between the two states.[55] Both Israeli and Taiwanese visa policies are understandably restrictive given each nation’s security threats; the open border between them highlights confidence and trust. Nevertheless, even as Israeli-Taiwanese relations evolve past a simple defense network and into formalized diplomacy, the legacy of pariahship continues to guide the two states’ interactions. On the thirtieth anniversary of Israel and Taiwan’s 1993 exchange of representative offices, Taiwan’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs emphasized the two nations’ “similar challenges in defending their way of life” and “shared values of democracy, freedom and human rights.”[56] Even in today’s vastly different political climate, with American support more assured, Israel slowly normalizing relations with neighboring Arab states, and Taiwan protected by its “silicon shield,” lingering preoccupations with national defense keep Israel and Taiwan bonded.

Economic and cultural ties have flourished as Israel and Taiwan have grown politically closer. From $400 million in 1995 to $1.43 billion in 2012 and $2.67 billion in 2022, the total trade volume between Israel and Taiwan has blossomed in the post-representative offices era.[57]  While maturing national economies and inflation can explain a portion of the increased trade, specially cultivated Israeli-Taiwanese business relationships are a major contributing factor, as proven by year-over-year high-percentage increases in export volumes. Between 2018 and 2019 alone, Israeli exports to Taiwan jumped over forty percent.[58] Considering that in 1970, before the first Israeli-Taiwanese defense collaborations, the total value of bilateral trade stood at only a few hundred thousand dollars, the clear effect of outcast solidarity emerges.[59] 

Israel and Taiwan are also experiencing an unprecedented amount of cultural exchange. In 2018, Israel was the guest of honor at the Taipei International Book Exhibition.[60] In 2023, Israeli chief rabbi David Lau visited Taiwan, becoming the first major Israeli religious figure to do so.[61] Recent years have also seen the creation of a “working holiday scheme” to encourage travel between Israel and Taiwan, the highly-publicized visit of Israeli university students (regarded as showing “universal values of freedom and democracy” between “like-minded countries”), and a three-hundred person reception in Tel Aviv celebrating Taiwan’s Independence Day.[62] These programs have successfully facilitated greater Israeli-Taiwanese people-to-people relations, as Taiwanese tourism to Israel increased by 67 percent between 2017 and 2019.[63] That figure is especially significant considering that Israel only recorded five countries — four European nations and Mexico — as posting higher tourism growth rates.[64] Abby Lee, Representative of Taiwan in Israel, expressed hope that people-to-people exchanges would “bring new momentum to all the bilateral cooperations,” thus enriching an especially crucial relationship for two “students of survival” who need to form “strong defensive capabilities” and “stand in unity.”[65] Lee’s back-to-back praise for both cultural exchange and defensive solidarity illuminates the still-existent pariah state mentality in which the soft-power aspects of Israel and Taiwan’s relationship complement security assurances.

Takeaways

Within Taiwan’s Jewish community, there’s a running joke. Over challah, a Shabbat dinner newcomer might ask a regular: “So what brings you here?” hoping to hear about business, studies, or travel. But the regular always answers the same: “A plane.” The punchline is a subversion of dialogue–a dodge of the question’s enormity. What brings you here? For the Israeli diplomat, how do you condense seventy-five years of your country’s struggle for recognition, the precise mix of national fear and defense insecurity, the need for allies, and a “pariah international” network that brought you to this particular room in Taipei? For Taiwanese wives and husbands, how do you talk about the dwindling number of countries that recognize your right to exist — now only thirteen — and the years of uncertainty, of developing nuclear weapons in secret, of betrayal and loss, over a typical Shabbat dinner? As Israel and Taiwan’s unofficial diplomatic relationship enters its fourth decade, the pariahship that first brought the two states together remains a powerful unifying force. Israel’s controversial war in Gaza and Xi Jinping’s escalating rhetoric towards Taiwan have only seemed to strengthen the bonds between the two governments. In February 2024, lawmakers in Israel’s Knesset and Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan formed the Taiwan-Israel Congressional Association to advance bilateral interests.[66] In March, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry donated $500,000 to Israeli government agencies.[67] The Israeli-Taiwanese relationship flows against the typical liberal international order of states avoiding embattled allies; rather, the quagmired conditions of Israel and Taiwan’s national upbringings draw them together in the face of conflict. Isolated from the international community, Israel and Taiwan’s solidarity pariahship continues to bond the two nations.

About the author

Evan Stubbs is a first-year undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania majoring in Political Science and International Relations. Prior to Penn, Evan lived for a year in Taipei, Taiwan, where he studied Chinese via the U.S. State Department’s National Security Language Initiative scholarship program.

Endnotes

  1. Jeffrey D. Schwartz Jewish Community Center, "Opening Ceremony of the Jeffrey D. Schwartz Jewish Community Center of Taiwan," Jewish Taiwan Cultural Association, last modified December 2022, accessed November 16, 2023, https://jtca.org.tw/opening-ceremony-of-the-jeffrey-d-schwartz-jewish-community-center-of-taiwan/; "Jeffrey D. Schwartz Jewish Community Center Opening Ceremony (full version)," video, 1:07:28, YouTube, posted by 猶臺文化交流協會 Jewish Taiwan Cultural Association (JTCA), January 2, 2022, accessed December 4, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw5EKP5StcY&ab_channel=%E7%8C%B6%E8%87%BA%E6%96%87%E5%8C%96%E4%BA%A4%E6%B5%81%E5%8D%94%E6%9C%83JewishTaiwanCulturalAssociation%28JTCA%29.

  2. Gabe Friedman, "Taiwan's first-ever Jewish community center to open in Taipei," Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, July 29, 2021, accessed November 16, 2023, https://jewishchronicle.timesofisrael.com/taiwans-first-yever-jewish-community-center-to-open-in-taipei/.

  3. Bruria Efune, "Taiwan's $16 Million Jewish Community Center a Work of Art and Dedication," Chabad.org, last modified June 20, 2023, accessed December 4, 2023, https://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/5993620/jewish/Taiwans-16-Million-Jewish-Community-Center-a-Work-of-Art-and-Dedication.htm.

  4. Yitzhak Shichor, "Israel's Involvement in Taiwan's Defense," The Palgrave International Handbook of Israel, January 20, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2717-0_96-1.

  5. Lawrence Rifkin, "Ambiguity in Taiwan," The Jerusalem Post, last modified December 1, 2011, accessed December 4, 2023, https://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/Ambiguity-in-Taiwan.

  6. Daniel Gordis, Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn (New York, NY: ECCO, 2017), p. 201.

  7. Aron Shai, "Israel's Political Relations with China," The Palgrave International Handbook of Israel, December 18, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2717-0_65-1.

  8. Mor Sobol, "Revisiting Israel-Taiwan Relations," Israel Affairs 25, no. 6 (2019): p. 1028, https://doi.org/10.1080/13537121.2019.1670455.

  9. China refused to reciprocate Israel’s recognition, delaying the establishment of formal relations between the two countries until 1992. Ironically, despite being the first to extend recognition, Israel would be the last state in the Middle East to establish formal diplomatic relations with the PRC.

  10. Binyamin Tjong-Alvares, "The Geography of Sino-Israeli Relations," Jewish Political Studies Review 24, no. 3/4 (2012): 100, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41955510; N.V. Roshchin, "Memorandum of Conversation with PRC Premier Zhou Enlai on 24 July 1951," July 27, 1951, https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/diary-n-v-roshchin-memorandum-conversation-chinese-premier-zhou-enlai-24-july-1951.

  11. Yitzhak Shichor, Routledge Companion to China and the Middle East and North Africa, ed. Yahia H. Zoubir (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2023), p. 319.

  12. Tjong-Alvares, "The Geography," p. 99-100.

  13. Israel’s 1965 voting choice infuriated the Chinese leadership. Mao Zedong quipped that “Imperialism fears China and the Arabs. Israel and Taiwan are bases of operation for Imperialism in Asia. They created Israel for the Arabs and Taiwan for us. They both have the same objective;” Tjong-Alvares, "The Geography," p. 101.

  14. Shichor, "Israel's Involvement," p. 4.

  15. John Calabrese, "Taiwan and the Gulf: The Sky's the Limit?," Middle East Institute, last modified April 18, 2010, accessed December 4, 2023, https://www.mei.edu/publications/taiwan-and-gulf-skys-limit; Shichor, "Israel's Involvement," p. 5.

  16. Makio Yamada, "Islam, Energy, and Development: Taiwan and China in Saudi Arabia, 1949–2013," American Journal of Chinese Studies 22, no. 1 (2015): 81, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44289075.

  17. 韋聿 林, "歷史上關鍵的 1971 年，聯合國中國代表權之爭," 故事 Story Studio, last modified October 10, 2018, accessed December 4, 2023, https://storystudio.tw/article/gushi/united-nations-resolution-2758/.

  18. Ibid.

  19. USC US-China Institute, "Getting to Beijing: Henry Kissinger's Secret 1971 Trip," USC Annenberg, last modified July 21, 2011, accessed December 4, 2023, https://china.usc.edu/getting-beijing-henry-kissingers-secret-1971-trip.

  20. Evelyn Goh, "Nixon, Kissinger, and the 'Soviet Card' in the U.S. Opening to China, 1971–1974," Diplomatic History 29, no. 3 (2005): p. 475, JSTOR.

  21. UN. General Assembly (26th sess.: 1971), "Restoration of the lawful rights of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations," 1972, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/192054; 林, "歷史上關鍵的 1971," 故事 Story Studio.

  22. At the Olympics, Taiwanese athletes compete under the flag of “Chinese Taipei;” Claire Tiunn, "The Dangers of Excluding Taiwan from International Organizations," Council on Foreign Relations, last modified September 22, 2023, accessed December 4, 2023, https://www.cfr.org/blog/dangers-excluding-taiwan-international-organizations.

  23. Jonathan Manthorpe, Forbidden Nation: A History of Taiwan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. 458-459.

  24. Ibid., p. 463.

  25. Taiwan ended 1973 with the recognition of only 31 countries; Manthorpe, Forbidden Nation, p. 464.

  26. Gordis, Israel: A Concise, p. 366.

  27. Ibid., p. 356; Ibid., p. 373.

  28. Ibid., p. 373; Walter Laqueur, "Kissinger & the Yom Kippur War," Commentary, last modified September 1974, accessed December 4, 2023, https://www.commentary.org/articles/walter-laqueur/kissinger-the-yom-kippur-war/.

  29. Laqueur, "Kissinger & the Yom Kippur," Commentary.

  30. David Tal, "A Tested Alliance: The American Airlift to Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War," Israel Studies 19, no. 3 (2014): p. 31-32, https://doi.org/10.2979/israelstudies.19.3.29.

  31. Gordis, Israel: A Concise, p. 374.

  32. Final votes were 72 yes, 35 no, and 32 abstentions; Robert E. Harkavy, "Pariah States and Nuclear Proliferation," International Organization 35, no. 1 (1981): 141, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2706559.

  33. Shabtai Rosenne, "Israel and the United Nations: Changed Perspectives, 1945–1976," The American Jewish Year Book 78 (1978): p. 29, JSTOR.

  34. Harkavy, "Pariah States," p. 146.

  35. Letter by Harold Brown, "Middle East Trip Report," February 19, 1979, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v18/d20; Harkavy, "Pariah States," p. 146.

  36. Yitzhak Shichor, "Israel's military transfers to China and Taiwan," Survival 40, no. 1 (1998): 72, https://doi.org/10.1093/survival/40.1.68.

  37. Shichor, "Israel's Involvement," p. 11; Shichor, "Israel's military," 72-73.

  38. Harkavy, "Pariah States," p. 146.

  39. New York Times special, "U.S. Concedes It Promised Peking Not to Sell Taiwan Arms This Year," New York Times, January 13, 1979, accessed December 4, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/1979/01/13/archives/us-concedes-it-promised-peking-not-to-sell-taiwan-arms-this-year.html; Parris Chang, "Taiwan in 1982: Diplomatic Setback Abroad and Demands for Reforms at Home," Asian Survey 23, no. 1 (1983): p. 38-39, https://doi.org/10.2307/2644324.

  40. Chang, "Taiwan in 1982," p. 38-39.

  41. Shichor, "Israel's Involvement," p. 12; Shichor, "Israel's military," 72.

  42. Shichor, "Israel's Involvement," p. 12.

  43. Ibid., p. 16.

  44. 1970-1974 Taiwanese exports to Israel increased from US$.21 million to US$10.09 million. Israeli exports to Taiwan increased from US$.42 million to US$16.61 million; International Monetary Fund Statistics Dept., Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook, 1975 Edition (Washington, D.C: International Monetary Fund, 1975), p. 436, accessed December 4, 2023, https://doi.org/10.5089/9781484315613.042.

  45. Taiwanese leadership doubted that their 460,000 soldiers could fight off Beijing’s 4,300,000; Harkavy, "Pariah States," 142.

  46. Harkavy, "Pariah States," 142.

  47. Israel also feared Egypt’s rumored acquisition of large nerve gas stockpiles; Harkavy, "Pariah States," 144, 152.

  48. Jack Foisie, "Israel, Taiwan and S. Africa Form 'Alliance of Shunned,'" Los Angeles Times (1923-1995) (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1980, https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/israel-taiwan-s-africa-form-alliance-shunned/docview/162948153/se-2?accountid=14707; Harkavy, "Pariah States," p. 155.

  49. Judith Miller, "3 Nations Widening Nuclear Contacts," The New York Times, last modified June 28, 1981, accessed December 4, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/28/world/3-nations-widening-nuclear-contacts.html.

  50. Ibid.

  51. The United States shut down Taiwan’s nuclear program in 1988 for fear of escalating regional tensions. Nevertheless, Taiwan’s progress towards becoming a nuclear power qualifies it as a “threshold state” that could, if it chose to, develop weapons capabilities in a shortened time frame; Shichor, "Israel's Involvement," p. 9.

  52. Foisie, "Israel, Taiwan and S. Africa."

  53. Meron Medzini, "Hands across Asia: Israel–Taiwan Relations," Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs 9, no. 2 (2015): p. 238, https://doi.org/10.1080/23739770.2015.1077603.

  54. The economic and cultural representative offices have agreed to a wide-ranging set of legislation, from preventing tax evasion to promoting Israeli-Taiwanese youth sports exchange; Ibid., p. 247.

  55. Sobol, "Revisiting Israel-Taiwan," p. 1026.

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ArticleYale Journal of International AffairsSpring 2024, Asia