Taiwan, Philippines strengthening people-to-people ties amid China tensions

Both increasingly bound by shared interest in economic cooperation and regional stability

- Yip Wai Yee

TAIPEI — Filipino economist Jennifer Umlas is thrilled to soon be going on a holiday to Taiwan, home of her teenage TV obsession — Taiwanese idol drama Meteor Garden (2001).

The 37-year-old will be heading to the island for the first time in December, and she plans to visit various locations that were featured in the show, such as New Taipei City's Tamsui district.

"I've been curious about visiting Taiwan for some time, and now that I see so many travel videos of it all over social media, I feel even more motivated to go," she told The Sunday Times in a video call. "Taiwan's becoming a popular travel destination for Filipinos."

In 2024, Filipinos became the No. 1 source of South-east Asian tourists to Taiwan for the first time, overtaking those from Malaysia and Singapore. Some 476,700 Filipino travellers arrived on the island that year, more than triple the 136,998 tourists recorded 10 years earlier.

Besides aggressive tourism campaigns starring Filipino influencers, Taiwan's yearly extension of a visa-free entry programme for Philippine passport holders — first launched in 2017 — contributed to the surge in numbers.

In July 2025, Manila reciprocated for visitors from Taiwan, allowing Taiwanese tourists to enter the country for 14 days visa-free.

Tourism is just one of several indicators of the expanding unofficial ties between the two economies, as exchanges in other areas such as trade and education have also grown. This is on top of the presence of close to 200,000 Filipinos working on the island, and the 600 Taiwanese companies operating in the Philippines.

"As Taiwan and the Philippines deepen their unofficial ties through trade, finance, and people-to-people exchanges, both are increasingly bound by shared interests in economic cooperation and regional stability," said Dr Jing Bo-jiun, a Taiwan studies expert at the University of Oxford.