The economic security of our region is rarely so strongly shaped by developments occurring nearly nine thousand kilometres away. For Central and Eastern European countries, stability in the Taiwan Strait is not merely a geopolitical concern—it is a tangible, everyday foundation for the availability of critical components that underpin the performance of our manufacturing sectors, energy systems, and healthcare infrastructure.
Łukasiewicz – ITECH and Visegrad Insight have jointly produced the publication “The Volatile Taiwan Strait: Economic Security Perspectives from Central Europe.” This report represents a collaborative research effort that integrates policy, expert, and business perspectives. An interdisciplinary team of authors has mapped the complex economic and technological interdependencies between the CEE region and Taiwan, while also assessing the implications of various escalation scenarios in the Taiwan Strait.
Data as a Foundation of Resilience
Contemporary strategy requires thinking beyond short-term responses. The analysis applies a strategic foresight methodology, enabling an examination of developments in the Taiwan Strait through four escalation scenarios—from grey-zone pressure to full-scale conflict. A review of recent trade flows, including imports of Taiwanese semiconductors and electronic equipment into CEE countries, provides robust evidence of the depth of integration between our economies and Taiwan’s high-tech ecosystem. Understanding these nuances is essential for accurately assessing the scale of interdependence between CEE and Taiwan.
Partnership for Resilience
In the foreword to the report, the Director of Łukasiewicz – ITECH, Dr Michał Matlak, underscores the importance of this partnership:
“Taiwan is both a critical source of strategic technologies and a model of democratic resilience, offering valuable lessons for countries in our region.”
The report’s conclusions are clear: for policymakers and business leaders alike, building long-term economic resilience requires the implementation of knowledge-based strategies grounded in risk anticipation. This publication provides a valuable starting point for that discussion, identifying concrete courses of action—from supply chain diversification to the development of capabilities in resilience technologies.
The full policy brief is available below.