Many Taiwan policymakers hold the view that US-China tensions create favorable conditions for closer US-Taiwan relations. As the thinking goes, the less beholden Washington is to maintaining stable relations with Beijing, the more it will be willing to show support for its democratic friends in Taiwan. In the coming months, this proposition may be tested.
There is a high probability that US-China relations will continue to deteriorate in the months to come. The US-China phase one trade deal slowed the rate of decline in the relationship, but it did not reverse the downward trajectory. The reality is that tariffs are the sideshow. The real action now is in the technology sphere. The more that US-China technology competition intensifies, the greater the risk of collateral damage to Taiwan, even though that is not the intent of any American policymakers.
Amidst its broad concerns about China’s technological advancement, the Trump administration is particularly focused on Chinese telecommunications company Huawei’s (華為) growing penetration of markets across the globe. Already embedded in telecommunications networks across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, Huawei recently gained approval to provide 5G services in the United Kingdom.
London’s approval of Huawei’s involvement in its 5G network was a setback for the Trump administration. Washington had hoped to limit Huawei’s reach, particularly in countries where the United States maintains close security partnerships. Now that the United Kingdom has set a precedent, there is concern that other major countries will follow suit, thus allowing Huawei to gain greater control of next generation mobile networks around the world.
To be clear, Washington’s focus on Huawei did not begin with the Trump administration and it will not end when President Trump leaves office. There is strong bipartisan awareness in the United States of the risks presented by Huawei’s growing global reach for information security, for the well-functioning of devices that will be connected to the Internet of Things, and for potential vulnerabilities in a crisis if America or its allies become reliant on Huawei’s telecommunications equipment.
With its efforts to halt Huawei’s spread into new markets floundering, the Trump administration is likely to double down on seeking to slow Huawei’s technological progress. This is where Taiwan’s equities come into play.
Taiwan is a critical provider of high-end semiconductors that Huawei and other Chinese companies need and that Chinese manufacturers cannot produce themselves. On the flip side, China is an important market for Taiwan’s semiconductor companies. For example, 20 percent of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s (TSMC, 台積電) sales go to the China market. After Apple, Huawei is TSMC’s biggest customer.
TSMC is one of Taiwan’s largest businesses and the world’s leading semiconductor foundry. As the Carnegie Endowment’s Evan Feigenbaum has described in a recent study, TSMC relies on massive scale to spread out fixed costs, push down price per unit, and pump resources into next generation research and development. If TSMC loses scale, e.g., by losing a market that accounts for 20 percent of its global sales, it could lose its edge over its competitors.
The Financial Times reported last November that the Trump administration has asked Taiwan authorities to compel TSMC to do just that. Per the article, Washington wants Taipei to restrict sales of semiconductors to Huawei and to institute stricter controls on technology exports to China. Washington also reportedly is considering tightening the US content threshold for export controls from 25 to 10 percent, meaning that chips manufactured in Taiwan with 10 percent or greater of American content would require a license for export to China. This could constrain chip sales in the short run, and over the longer term compel Taiwan foundries to engineer American content out of chips bound for China.
China famously spends more each year importing semiconductors than oil. Beijing relies on imports of high-end chips, many of which originate in Taiwan. At the same time, the United States wants to slow down the rate of China’s technological progress, including but not limited to Huawei. So, if it has not done so already, Washington may soon increase pressure on Taipei to support its strategic objectives vis-a-vis China, including by tightening restrictions on sales of high-end chips to China.
Given its equities at stake in policy deliberations in Washington over whether and how to thwart China’s technological progress, Taipei will need to ensure that its voice is heard. If Taiwan is unable to shield its semiconductor industry from increasingly intrusive US export controls on sales to China, then it will need to press Washington for offsetting actions to protect its economic competitiveness. One such possibility would be to pursue a US-Taiwan trade agreement that includes chapters covering trade in goods and services, as well as e-commerce, investment rules, and possibly other areas. Trade negotiators could begin by working from existing chapters in recently concluded trade agreements, including the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
There is a real risk that US-China technology competition will end up hurting Taiwan. Whether and how Taiwan’s economic equities are protected amidst the intensifying US-China technologic competition will depend on the work of policymakers in Washington and Taipei. There’s no time to waste.
Ryan Hass is Fellow and Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he holds a joint appointment to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies.
China took advantage of the vacuum left behind when US carriers stayed out of the western Pacific Ocean due to COVID-19 outbreaks on several US Navy warships. The Chinese government is solidifying its hold on artificial islands in the South China Sea by moving in missiles and surveillance equipment, and formalizing its occupation by creating two municipal districts in the region under Hainan Island’s Sansha — Xisha District on Woody Island (Yongxing Island, 永興島) to administer the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) and Nansha District on Fiery Cross Reef (Yongshu Reef, 永暑島) to administer the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) —
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) yesterday wrapped up its annual party conference-cum-national decision-making forums in Beijing: the National People’s Congress (NPC) and National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), known colloquially as the “two meetings.” They are normally tightly choreographed affairs, designed to project an image of stability and unassailable strength, but several events leading up this month’s sessions provided strong indications that all is not well in the state of Denmark. The first sign of major discontent came in March, at the height of the COVID-19 crisis in China, when an article by real-estate tycoon Ren Zhiqiang
French firm DCI-DESCO in April won a bid to upgrade Taiwan’s Lafayette frigates, which has strained ties between China and France. In 1991, France sold Taiwan six Lafayette frigates and in 1992 sold it 60 Mirage 2000 fighter jets. To prevent arms sales between the nations, China negotiated an agreement with France and in 1994 in a joint statement, France promised that there would be no future arms sales to Taiwan. From China’s point of view, the DCI-DESCO deal constitutes a breach of the agreement, but the French stance is that it is not selling Taiwan new weapons, but instead providing a
Chung Yuan ChristiaN University is clearly in bed with the People’s Republic of China. This can be the only explanation why the school’s authorities have done their utmost to shield a student, who lodged a complaint against an associate professor, and then used thuggish tactics to compel the teacher to issue two separate apologies to China. The original complaint, filed by an unnamed Chinese student, was for remarks by associate professor Chao Ming-wei (招名威) during a class on the origin of COVID-19. A second complaint was filed by the same student after Chao, during an apology, stated that he was a
RSS