A petition initiated by academics opposing Chinese capital being invested in Taiwan’s integrated circuit (IC) design industry had garnered 143 signatures in two days as of yesterday, following the announcement on Friday that China’s Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd (清華紫光) is to buy a 25 percent stake in Siliconware Precision Industries Co Ltd (矽品精密) — the world’s third-largest chip packager and tester — and in its subsidiary ChipMOS Technologies Inc (南茂).
The campaign was launched by an alliance formed by National Chiao Tung University professor Lin Ying-dar (林盈達), National Taiwan University professor Lin Tsung-nan (林宗男) and National Cheng Kung University professor Li Jung-shian (李忠憲), which opposes the inclusion of the information and communications industry in a proposed cross-strait service trade agreement.
The petition says that Chinese investment in the IC design industry has huge implications for the survival of Taiwanese firms, as well as national security.
Screenshot by Liu Wan-chun, Taipei Times
It is inappropriate for President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration to negotiate such a significant policy when its term is to end in six months, the petition says.
Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng (鄧振中) last month said the ministry is drafting new regulations before his term ends in May to lift a ban on Chinese capital entering the IC sector.
The Ma administration should play its part as a caretaker Cabinet and leave such matters to the next administration, which should evaluate possible deregulation professionally and democratically, the petition says.
The alliance said that Chinese investors could control the management and development of a Taiwanese IC design company if they were to hold a 10 percent or 15 percent stake in it, as most IC design companies in Taiwan have a high degree of stock dispersion.
China’s IC design industry could not compete across the Strait without the support of Taiwanese companies, but the industry here could lose ownership and management to pressure from the Chinese market and Beijing once Chinese capital is allowed to enter Taiwan, the alliance said.
This would bring negative effects for engineers and stockholders, it added.
The alliance is to hold a press conference in Taipei today to urge the government to re-evaluate deregulation of Chinese capital.
It wants to raise public awareness of the potential effects of deregulation, it said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) said he opposes Chinese investment in Taiwanese microchip designers, describing the US$19 billion industry as too important to open to greater influence from the Chinese Communist Party.
Chu made the remarks in response to questions about a proposal by Ma’s government to lift a ban on Chinese investment in companies such as Hsinchu-based MediaTek Inc (聯發科) as the global smartphone boom slows.
“We can cooperate, but that one’s still very sensitive to our economy,” Chu said in an interview on Friday at KMT headquarters in Taipei.
If elected president, Chu said he “would not allow that one, because it is not yet the time.”
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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