Beyond Chips: Taiwan's New Phoenix Office
by Dr. Lily McElwee, PCFR President & CEO
Last month, Taipei announced it will open a representative office in Phoenix, Taiwan’s 14th consulate in the United States. There are two obvious drivers for the move: the practicalities of serving a growing population of citizens in Arizona, and the desire to enhance an already enviable economic partnership. A third is less visible but equally worth Arizona policymakers’ attention as people-to-people ties and commerce link the two regions ever more tightly.
The immediate justification for a representative office is straightforward. About 30,000 Taiwanese nationals now live in the Phoenix area, which is also home to dozens of Taiwanese companies. A representative office does what a consulate would, handling passports, notarizations, and visas.
Over 300 “TSMC babies” have been born in Arizona as the company’s workforce in the state expands. Each needs a birth certificate authenticated and a passport issued, which until now required routing through Los Angeles.
The economic case is where Taipei has been most explicit. TSMC’s pledged $265 billion investment is the largest foreign direct investment in state history, and the largest ever in the United States. Dozens of smaller firms in the chip supply chain have followed in, adding billions more. Taiwan is now Arizona’s second-largest trade partner after Mexico, with bilateral trade above $21 billion a year. The infrastructure to support this colossal commercial relationship has followed: an Arizona state trade office in Taipei, Taiwan’s Trade and Investment Service Center in Phoenix, a trilateral MOU between Arizona, Taiwan’s Kaohsiung City and Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture, and two nonstop routes that did not exist eighteen months ago. Airlines do not make such decisions speculatively, and together, China Airlines and Starlux now operate a collective seven routes a week between Phoenix and Taipei. The representative office is the latest, if loudest, bit of scaffolding constructed to support an Arizona-Taiwan relationship that is growing organically in dollars invested, miles traveled, and passports stamped.
The third factor driving the office opening – intimately related to cross-Strait dynamics – is quieter, but one worth understanding for Arizona policymakers as the two regions become more intricately connected. Taiwan has only 12 diplomatic partners globally. Beijing is dead set on paring back these relationships as part of a broader bid to restrict Taiwan’s diplomatic space. Beijing successfully peeled off Honduras and Nicaragua in 2021 and Nauru in 2024, and this June, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister called Beijing’s efforts to restrict Taiwan’s participation in international organizations and events the “new normal.” Meanwhile, Beijing’s coercion against the island itself has ramped up with the goal of breaking resolve and convincing Taiwan’s public that its status as an independent democracy is untenable (its tactics are not working, as opinion polling in Taiwan makes clear). Yet PLA air incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone more than doubled in the past two years, maritime incursions faster still, and in 2025 Taiwan reported an average 2.63 million cyberattacks per day.
The United States maintains unofficial relations with Taipei while formally recognizing the People’s Republic of China, a policy mirrored by all other advanced economies. And as noted above, Beijing endeavors to restrict Taiwan’s international space at every turn. Operating under these constraints, Taipei must pursue creative partnerships to enhance its security and global embeddedness. Subnational ties with U.S. states and cities offer one way to do so. Such relationships may be growing more important as Washington’s embrace is less unequivocal than it once was. Bipartisan support in Congress remains strong, as does military cooperation, but new tariffs were applied to Taiwan despite its strategic importance and security rhetoric has grown more transactional; the White House reportedly postponed a planned meeting between Taiwan’s defense minister and senior U.S. officials amid trade talks with Beijing.
The office is good news for Arizona and its residents from Taiwan and reflects decades of work on both sides. The partnership is anchored in commerce, though it has never been only that: Phoenix and Taipei have been sister cities since 1979, Taiwan’s pilots train in Arizona, and most recently, beloved dim sum restaurant Din Tai Fung opened in Scottsdale. As those ties deepen, cross-Strait dynamics and pressures facing Taiwan are increasingly worth Arizona policymakers keeping an eye on. We look forward to taking these questions up in future PCFR programming.
