ON JANUARY 13TH William Lai Ching-te was elected as Taiwan’s president. He thus secured a third term for his pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The vote will shape relations between self-governing Taiwan and China, which wants the island to be governed from Beijing. It will also affect the commercial relations between the two—and, because Taiwanese manufacturers sit at the heart of critical global supply chains, between them and the rest of the world.

       For Taiwan’s big businesses, the cross-strait tensions are unwelcome. Taiwanese entrepreneurs have been building factories on the mainland since the 1980s. These used to make textiles and other cheap goods. Today many make sophisticated electronics, including chips. Chinese data suggest that in 2022 Taiwanese firms had assets worth $43bn in the People’s Republic; by comparison the figure for companies from America, an economy 35 times the size of Taiwan’s, was $86bn. The real sum is almost certainly higher, as Taiwanese companies often channel investments via Hong Kong and other jurisdictions to avoid the scrutiny of their China-wary government.

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