The Quiet Convergence of Polish and Taiwanese Interests

In just a few years, Poland has emerged as one of Taiwan’s most promising industrial and technology partners in Europe – all without altering a word of its diplomatic position. No office has been renamed and no representation upgraded. Everything that has changed, for now, flies under the radar of politics and symbolism: drones, land, permits, planned investments, and a joint research platform.

What makes this relationship worth examining is its symmetry. Poland and Taiwan arrive at each other from opposite directions, and each holds what the other needs. Poland wants to climb up the value chain and arm itself quickly and reliably. Taiwan wants increased industrial depth in Europe and international partners with a material stake in its security. Neither has to concede anything to the other to pursue its objectives, which is precisely why the arrangement has grown so quickly.

Where the Interests Meet

The organizing concept on the Taiwanese side is the “non-red supply chain,” which under President Lai Ching-te serves both political and commercial purposes at home and abroad, giving Taiwanese companies a reason to invest in Europe and European governments a reason to welcome them. In Poland, this concept lands particularly well for historical reasons, and for Warsaw, the “non-red” connotation carries a meaning that does not necessarily resonate further west. The country still remembers the Battle of Warsaw in 1920 against the “red” Bolsheviks and their army, as well as being trapped for four decades inside the socialist Soviet bloc. It may sound like distant history, but these memories still play a role in Polish foreign policy. Poland has also spent most of its modern history explaining that its own security is inseparable from its partners’ and arguing that dependence on a large neighbor is not merely a commercial question, but predominantly a security one – arguments that resemble those coming from Taipei. It is therefore unlikely to be a coincidence that at the 2026 Yushan Forum, President Lai reached for “no freedom without solidarity,” the slogan of the Polish Solidarity movement, with Lech Wałęsa, the movement’s leader and the first freely elected president of the Third Polish Republic, in the room.

The second driver is that Poland finds itself at a very ambitious moment. Growth has been fast enough for foreign press to call it an economic miracle, The Economist has put the country on its cover, and Warsaw makes no secret of wanting a permanent seat at the G20. The constraints, however, are structural: Poland still largely assembles what others design, which is what Prime Minister Donald Tusk means when he says the country should no longer be “just an assembly hub.” This is where Taiwan could play a role. Its technology park planned for Miękinia in Lower Silesia is designed to be a “city of science,” a concept largely new to Poland that places manufacturing, R&D, and education all on the same site, while the Polish-Taiwanese R&D pact commits both sides to joint research from its first funding call in 2027. Taiwan gains industrial depth in Europe, whereas Poland gains joint ventures and R&D rather than merely subcontracting.

The third driver is that both Poland and Taiwan are exploring their options beyond the US without turning away from it. Poland buys tanks from South Korea and drones from Taiwan while remaining one of the largest customers of the American defense industry in Europe. Foreign Minister Sikorski has been explicit that Poland will remain America’s loyal ally, but he has also insisted that, given America’s increasingly transactional posture, Warsaw must look after its own interests – a hedge, nonetheless, rather than a reorientation. Taiwan has likewise committed to strengthening cooperation with Washington, even though surveys conducted through 2025 showed a significant increase in the share of Taiwanese who consider the US unreliable.

For Taipei, the practical answer to dealing with the US is to double down on the logic of the silicon shield overseas: if Europe depends on Taiwanese capacity and investments, it will have a stake in defending the island – and partners with something to lose are more likely to care what happens in the Strait. That logic might help explain both the framing and the geography of the two Taiwanese flagship investments in Poland. They are presented as Taiwan’s gateway to Europe – a formulation that so far belongs predominantly to the Polish side – and both sit in Silesia, a well-connected industrial region close to the German border and within reach of Dresden and Silicon Saxony, which places them inside a wider cluster that runs across the border, not just within Poland.

The Two Flagship Projects

The larger project is a technology park in Miękinia in Lower Silesia, some 30 kilometers west of Wrocław. TEEMA, the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association, announced its plans in March 2026 and confirmed the location at the Taiwan Expo in Europe, held in Warsaw in June this year. The technology park is to be built on the same piece of land Intel abandoned in July 2025, but TEEMA has since expanded its request from 150 to 280 hectares, and the August coordination meeting moved the project to the operational phase of preparations. The park is to cover AI data-center infrastructure, electromobility, and smart-city solutions, with a semiconductor plant among the options still on the table. Foxconn is expected to be one of the tenants, though its role remains undefined. Nonetheless, the expectations for the project are high, and the Voivode of Lower Silesia, Anna Żabska, called the investment a test for the entire country.

The second project, some 250 kilometers away, in Jaworzno, Upper Silesia, is a separate venture with different partners and funding. State-owned ElectroMobility Poland (EMP) selected Foxconn as its strategic partner in May 2026 to develop an electric vehicle (EV) production and R&D hub, with EV production planned to start in 2029. It is also telling that the project was originally to be built on a Chinese EV platform: EMP chose Geely in 2022, and when the Chinese partner withdrew, it was replaced by a Taiwanese one in a state-owned project financed with public money.

Both projects are covered heavily in Polish media, and both are treated as national undertakings rather than as mere foreign investments. Despite that, neither of them is anywhere close to completion. No MoU has been signed, the land has not been assembled, and no tenant has been confirmed. For now, it is mainly the paperwork that moves forward: a delegation led by Michał Jaros, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Development and Technology, was in Taipei in early September to work on the park’s legal framework, which he wants signed in November during TEEMA Industry Days in Warsaw. Whether the investments materialize remains to be seen – and it is worth remembering that the plot of land in Miękinia already carries one abandoned project on its record.

No Reaction from Beijing

Beijing, for its part, has not reacted to any of these developments. No Chinese measures against Poland have been publicly connected to the Taiwanese projects, and a degree of engagement has continued in parallel: a few weeks after China imposed restrictions on Polish entities for the first time, the 20th China-Poland Joint Commission met in Beijing and pledged to increase Chinese imports from Poland.

However, the restrictions themselves are worth a second look. In July 2026 the Ministry of Commerce of the PRC placed 14 EU entities on its export control list, among them Vigo Photonics and Wrocław University of Science and Technology. Beijing framed the move as retaliation for the EU’s 21st sanctions package against Russia, and no evidence contradicts that directly. The university is also central to Polish space and photonics, offering an additional explanation for Beijing’s decisions. Nonetheless, the university is just half an hour from the planned Taiwanese technology park in Miękinia, and an investment of such potential and scale would inevitably draw engineers, graduates, and research partners from Wrocław – with the university being one of the key sources of that talent.

Regardless of what lies behind these listings, one thing is certain: all of this comes as the EU is rearming, trying to reindustrialize, and figuring out what to do about China – questions that have been partly addressed in President von der Leyen’s State of the Union speech and are expected to be taken up further in October, when the one-year truce on Chinese rare-earth export controls expires along with the EU’s trade “ultimatum.” Against that backdrop, what is unusual about the Polish case is not the sheer scale of Taiwanese investments but the alignment of interests behind them. Should they materialize, Poland might move up the European value chain and Taiwan might acquire the European foothold its strategy seeks. Both Warsaw and Taipei appear to understand that, and for now, both seem equally determined to see it happen.