The US’ arrests earlier this week of several Chinese-American scientists on suspicion of espionage have raised concerns over the possible implications for Taiwanese participating in Beijing’s “thousand talents” program.
China has included Taiwanese researchers in the program as part of its 31 incentives announced in February, offering them generous salaries and other financial benefits. If these researchers take trade secrets and advanced research to China, it is a huge blow to Taiwan, both economically and militarily.
Chinese espionage in the US also presents a threat to Taiwan, as those secrets could be used to invade Taiwan and hamper the US’ ability to respond in the event of a cross-strait conflict.
There is also the concern that Taiwanese researchers might lose the trust of their peers, and risk being blacklisted by Washington and losing cooperation opportunities in the US.
International cooperation is beneficial to scientific advancement, but nations lose any competitive advantage garnered from research conducted at their institutions when it is lost to a foreign government.
China “depends on industrial espionage, forced technology transfers, and piracy and counterfeiting of foreign technology as part of a system of innovation mercantilism,” the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in a report.
Innovative research is expensive and Chinese companies often seek to avoid this expense, as a lack of protection for intellectual property rights in China makes research costs hard to justify.
In April, it was discovered that China was testing a stealth technology that would hide warplanes from radar systems. The New York Times on April 30 reported that there were suspicions that Beijing obtained the technology through a Chinese researcher who worked on similar technology at Duke University in 2008.
The administration of US President Donald Trump, citing such cases of espionage, has been seeking to ban Chinese researchers from US institutions.
Some politicians, such as US Senator Ted Cruz, have said that urgent action must be taken, as China is infiltrating US universities through its Confucius Institutes, which disguise themselves as centers for language and cultural exchanges, but are used by Beijing for espionage — which one of the institutes has admitted.
It would not be difficult for Chinese intelligence agencies to recruit Chinese students in the US involved in research that is of interest to Beijing, as the students need to regularly return to China to renew their visas.
Taiwanese researchers make even easier targets, as many of them voluntarily go to China to work or study — a situation that Beijing’s incentives might exacerbate.
So how can Taiwan and the US safely allow scientific and academic exchanges, and cooperate with China?
In the case of Chinese scientists in the US, it is imperative to fully understand their motivation for being there, their long-term plans and their ties to Beijing.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese who have had access to sensitive industrial or military technology should not be allowed to have any contact with Chinese officials or travel to China.
In July last year, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Fraser Stoddart criticized Trump’s approach to the issue, saying unfettered access and travel are crucial to scientific advancement.
In an ideal world, he would be correct. Unfortunately, the very freedom of people to meet and share ideas would come under threat if authoritarian governments are allowed to undermine democracies worldwide.
In November last year, a man struck a woman with a steel bar and killed her outside a hospital in China’s Fujian Province. Later, he justified his actions to the police by saying that he attacked her because she was small and alone, and he was venting his anger after a dispute with a colleague. To the casual observer, it could be seen as another case of an angry man gone mad for a moment, but on closer inspection, it reflects the sad side of a society long brutalized by violent political struggles triggered by crude Leninism and Maoism. Starting
If social media interaction is any yardstick, India remained one of the top countries for Taiwan last year. President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has on several occasions expressed enthusiasm to strengthen cooperation with India, one of the 18 target nations in her administration’s New Southbound Policy. The past year was instrumental in fostering Taiwan-India ties and will be remembered for accelerated momentum in bilateral relations. However, most of it has been confined to civil society circles. Even though Taiwan launched its southbound policy in 2016, the potential of Taiwan-India engagement remains underutilized. It is crucial to identify what is obstructing greater momentum
In terms of the economic outlook for the semiconductor industry, Taiwan has outperformed the rest of the world for three consecutive years. This is quite rare. In addition, Taiwan has been playing an important role in the US-China technology dispute, and both want Taiwan on their side, reflecting the remaking of the nation’s semiconductor industry. Under the leadership of — above all — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the industry as a whole has shifted from a focus on capacity to a focus on quality, as companies now have to be able to provide integration of hardware and software, as well as
US President Joe Biden’s foreign policy on China and the Indo-Pacific region will have huge repercussions for Taiwan. The US Department of State in the final weeks of former US president Donald Trump’s term took several actions clearly aimed to push Biden’s foreign policy to build on Trump’s achievements. Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s announcement on the final day of the Trump administration that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was committing “genocide and crimes against humanity” in Xinjiang was welcome, but comes far too late. The recent dropping of “self-imposed” restrictions on meetings between Taiwanese and US officials was
RSS