Taiwan is reducing its reliance on the Chinese mainland as it seeks to insulate itself from pressure from Beijing and forge closer economic and trade ties with the United States. In a stark illustration of the shift, the U.S. displaced mainland China as the top destination for Taiwan’s exports in the first quarter of the year for the first time since the start of 2016. That's when comparable data became available. The world’s biggest maker of computer chips, TSMC, is among the companies shifting manufacturing to the U.S., Japan and other countries as a part of that trend. Meanwhile, the island’s investments in the Chinese mainland fell to the lowest level in more than 20 years last year.
