The Island in the Mediterranean, the Taiwan Card in Washington

The Ventotene opening and the Taiwan card in Washington

On the morning of September 14, Taiwan Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim returned to Taoyuan International Airport after a previously unannounced trip to Italy. She delivered remarks by livestream, accompanied by Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung. The trip had been kept confidential before departure, and the Taiwanese government said the decision was intended to minimise interference and ensure the delegation could reach its destination safely.

The destination was Ventotene, a small Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Hsiao arrived there on September 11 to attend the second Ventotene European Conference for Freedom and Democracy, at the invitation of European Parliament Vice-President Pina Picierno and Carlo Corazza, head of the European Parliament's office in Italy.

The location was deliberate.

Why Ventotene

During the Second World War, the anti-Fascist politicians Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi were confined on Ventotene, where they drafted the 1941 Ventotene Manifesto. The document became one of the foundational texts of European federalism and later influenced the movement for European integration.

Hsiao used that history to connect Taiwan's democratic experience with Europe's own history of war, authoritarianism and political integration.

In her remarks after returning to Taiwan, she said that Europe and Taiwan had followed different historical paths but shared a basic lesson: “democracy and freedom” did not simply appear by themselves. They were achieved and defended through sustained public effort. Her point was less that Taiwan should be treated as another European state than that its political history could be discussed through a historical language familiar to a European audience.

That distinction matters because the conference's subject was not cross-Strait relations. Hsiao appeared on a panel titled “From the Indo-Pacific to the Mediterranean: Resisting Authoritarianism for Freedom.” The framing placed Taiwan in a wider discussion about democracy, authoritarian pressure and political freedom. Taiwan's Foreign Ministry confirmed that she took part in the session alongside Picierno, former Italian foreign affairs undersecretary Gianni Vernetti and journalist Antonio Talia.

The conference itself was launched by Picierno in 2025. This year's meeting was the second edition.

A narrower diplomatic channel

The institutional setting was as important as the location.

Hsiao was in Italy, but she was not invited by the Italian government. There was no scheduled meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni or Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. Her invitation came from the European Parliament's leadership and its Italian office. Reuters reported that the Italian government kept its distance from the Taiwanese delegation even as the European Parliament hosted the event.

That creates a narrower form of contact than a government-to-government meeting. The European Parliament is the EU's directly elected institution and shares legislative authority with the Council, while the European Commission is the EU's executive body. Parliament also conducts parliamentary diplomacy with non-EU countries.

For Taiwan, that distinction matters because parliamentary contacts can operate without amounting to formal diplomatic recognition by an EU member state.

The mechanism has a recent precedent. In November 2025, Hsiao addressed the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China summit at the European Parliament in Brussels. IPAC described the appearance as the first address by a senior member of the Taiwanese government in a European legislature, while Reuters reported that the visit represented an unusual expansion of Taiwan's outreach to Europe.

A year apart, the two appearances follow the same institutional route: European parliamentary networks rather than meetings with European national governments.

Where the European Commission stopped

The limits of that route became visible during the Ventotene conference itself.

Euractiv reported that the European Commission Representation in Italy had informed the European Parliament's liaison office that it wanted the Commission's logo removed from the programme after Hsiao's participation became public. A Commission official who had been due to join a panel also withdrew. The Commission subsequently said that it had not organised or hosted the conference. Euractiv, citing parliamentary sources, reported that the Commission representation had nevertheless supported the event financially.

Picierno publicly objected. She said the conference should have carried the Commission's logo as well as that of Parliament and argued that Beijing should not determine who could be received or heard in Europe. She also said she had accepted Hsiao's invitation to visit Taiwan.

The episode illustrates a basic institutional constraint. Parliamentary actors can create political space without speaking for the EU as a whole. The Commission, which is responsible for the executive side of EU policy, operates within a different set of diplomatic and institutional constraints. The result is a gap between what individual European politicians are prepared to do and what the EU executive is prepared to attach its institutional name to.

That gap is precisely where Taiwan's parliamentary diplomacy operates.

Beijing responds, Rome keeps its distance

Beijing's response came immediately.

At a September 11 press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the DPP authorities and individual Taiwanese politicians were trying to “grab attention” under the banner of democracy and freedom and described their efforts as “truly despicable and simply futile.” She said China had lodged protests with Italy and the EU.

The language was harsh, but the institutional target was broader than Hsiao herself. Beijing was protesting not only the Taiwanese official's presence but also the European institutions and political actors that had allowed it.

Italy's public position was different. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said there had been “no contact” with Beijing over the visit. He reaffirmed Italy's One China policy while also saying that Italy supported maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.

Tajani therefore drew a line between Italy's formal China policy and the activity of European parliamentary actors. Rome did not establish an official channel with Hsiao, but it also did not shut down a European Parliament event taking place on Italian territory.

That distinction is important. It shows that support for parliamentary contact does not automatically translate into a change in national diplomatic policy.

The other paper on the table

The Ventotene meeting also took place against a much larger U.S.-China timetable.

President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington on September 24. The meeting would follow their May 2026 summit in Beijing. A proposed U.S. arms package for Taiwan, worth roughly $14 billion, remains pending.

Trump himself has described the package as a “very good negotiating chip” in his dealings with China. The package has been reported to include advanced air-defence capabilities, including PAC-3 interceptors and NASAMS, as well as other systems intended to counter missiles, aircraft and drones. The exact composition has varied across reports because the package has not been formally approved by the White House.

Congress had already approved the package, but the administration had not completed the final approval process. That left the decision with the White House.

Reports in September said Beijing had warned that approval of new arms sales to Taiwan could put Xi's Washington visit at risk. The warning has not been publicly confirmed by Beijing, but it was serious enough that Trump was asked about the possibility of the summit being cancelled. On September 13, he said he was not worried and that the two leaders had a good relationship.

That puts the Ventotene episode and the Washington summit on two different institutional tracks.

In Europe, Taiwan is working through parliamentary contact, historical narratives and political forums where formal diplomatic recognition is not at issue. In Washington, Taiwan is part of a state-to-state relationship in which arms sales are directly connected to the broader U.S.-China negotiating process.

The two tracks intersect politically, but they operate through different mechanisms.

Ventotene gave Hsiao access to a European parliamentary audience without requiring the Italian government to alter its formal China policy. Washington is dealing with a different question: whether a multibillion-dollar arms package for Taiwan becomes part of the bargaining environment surrounding the next Trump-Xi meeting.

That is the narrower reality behind the symbolism of the island and the much harder arithmetic surrounding the summit.