City of Taoyuan in northern Taiwan at night/via Nick Kembel

The government of Taiwan is taking steps to try to enhance ties with the City of Kamloops.

The Director General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Affairs Office, Angel Liu, was in Kamloops this past week to meet with Mayor and Council, as well as officials at Thompson Rivers University.

The Office is Taiwan’s de facto consulate in Vancouver, and Liu holds the equivalent rank of Consul General, as Canada does not officially recognize Taiwan as an independent country as per the Chinese government’s “One China Policy.”

She tells Radio NL there are areas for cooperation between Kamloops and Taiwan, including a potential sister-city agreement.

“There is a Taiwanese community leader. He wrote a letter to the mayor and the city council, hoping that we can facilitate a bilateral friendship city between the City of Kamloops and the City of Taoyuan in northern Taiwan,” Liu revealed.

Map of Taiwan, with the City of Taoyuan located on the northwest corner of the island, next to the capital, Taipei/via Google Maps

On top of also promoting business ties and people-to-people exchanges, Liu says there are also opportunities for students at Thompson Rivers University to help Taiwan with its education programs by becoming college teachers.

“Our Ministry of Education actually will allow some teaching assistance programs for foreigners who teach English in Taiwan as a second language,” noted Liu.  “Those foreign teachers, after passing through some qualification examinations or criteria, they will be able to teach in Taiwan’s colleges. We welcome those teachers.”

Taiwan has embarked on a program to become bilingual in English and the de facto lingua franca, Standard Mandarin Chinese, by 2030.

On top of inter-personal exchanges, Liu says there are also opportunities for further business expansion between the two sides.

“We know that renewable energy is one of those aspects that Canada is strong at,” noted Liu.  “Taiwan is promoting the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.”

According to the Canadian government, Taiwan is Canada’s 12th largest trading partner and sixth largest in Asia.

Total merchandise trade with Taiwan in 2022 was $12 billion, with Canadian merchandise exports of $2.6 billion, and imports from Taiwan at $9.5 billion.

The federal government identifies Canada’s priority sectors in Taiwan as aerospace, information and communications technology, agri-food and seafood products, biotechnology, clean technologies, and energy.