After US president-elect Joe Biden is sworn in, Taiwanese and international commentators agree that US-Chinese relations are likely to remain unchanged. That might be true, but there would be great differences in the force and scope of any confrontations. If the issue is not handled with caution, it could endanger not just Taiwan, but the world.
It took US President Donald Trump’s administration about three years to find China’s Achilles’ heel: It is technology, not trade. When the US imposed sanctions on Huawei Technologies during a US-China trade dispute, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei (任正非) remained unfazed and continued to expand his business worldwide.
Once Washington issued restrictions on the Chinese telecom’s access to US technology, Ren begged for mercy. If Trump’s tech ban remains, it would delay Chinese technology development by 20 years.
After his victory, Biden is likely to be pressured by US companies to relax the restrictions for short-term commercial gains. If the US fails to protect trade secrets and stay alert for Chinese spies, technological innovations and job opportunities would be stolen by the Chinese.
Taiwan’s significance lies in the world-class Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and the upper, mid and downstream sectors of its supply chain. If TSMC and related businesses are able to transform into an exclusive industrial cluster by cooperating with US, Japanese and European companies, that would create the a strong protective shield for Taiwan.
If Taiwan does not attach sufficient importance to the protection of intellectual property rights and prevent the flow of talent to China, it will be left with a bunch of outdated factories in 20 years.
Biden’s long political career shows that he avoids offending anyone. When former US president Barack Obama first took office nearly 12 years ago, he tolerated Beijing’s building of artificial islands in the South China Sea and did not send US warships to deter it.
Instead, Obama mobilized the Philippines to file a lawsuit against China with the International Court of Justice. The Philippines might have won the lawsuit, but China still occupies the South China Sea.
It is possible Biden will follow Obama’s approach. He might join hands with free democratic countries and place strong sanctions on China, but as a result of business pressure this is likely to be more talk than action. This could also accelerate China’s theft of technologies from the world’s advanced countries, and help it speed up its transformation.
Taiwanese businesses must understand that the Chinese Communist Party’s nature is that “if you cannot trick someone into giving you what you want, buy it; if you cannot buy it, steal it.”
These companies need to tighten control of their talent, and every key position must be accompanied with noncompetition agreements with specific time limitations.
Executives such as former TSMC research and development director Liang Mong-song (梁孟松), who left the firm for South Korea’s Samsung Group and then China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International, should be prohibited from working for major competitors for at least 10 years after their resignation.
Taiwan’s chance to turn things around might lie in taking advantage of global anti-Chinese sentiment to recruit foreign talent, offering them job opportunities, permanent residency and quality healthcare insurance.
Using this approach, the nation could become a treasure island where global talent in high-tech industries would love to work, and where a leading semiconductor powerhouse acts as a critical strategic partner of Biden’s administration.
Richard Huang is Asia-Pacific general manager of US-based TRENDnet Inc.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has offered Taiwan a paradoxical mix of reassurance and risk. Trump’s visceral hostility toward China could reinforce deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Yet his disdain for alliances and penchant for transactional bargaining threaten to erode what Taiwan needs most: a reliable US commitment. Taiwan’s security depends less on US power than on US reliability, but Trump is undermining the latter. Deterrence without credibility is a hollow shield. Trump’s China policy in his second term has oscillated wildly between confrontation and conciliation. One day, he threatens Beijing with “massive” tariffs and calls China America’s “greatest geopolitical
Ahead of US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) meeting today on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea, an op-ed published in Time magazine last week maliciously called President William Lai (賴清德) a “reckless leader,” stirring skepticism in Taiwan about the US and fueling unease over the Trump-Xi talks. In line with his frequent criticism of the democratically elected ruling Democratic Progressive Party — which has stood up to China’s hostile military maneuvers and rejected Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework — Lyle Goldstein, Asia engagement director at the US think tank Defense Priorities, called
A large majority of Taiwanese favor strengthening national defense and oppose unification with China, according to the results of a survey by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC). In the poll, 81.8 percent of respondents disagreed with Beijing’s claim that “there is only one China and Taiwan is part of China,” MAC Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference on Thursday last week, adding that about 75 percent supported the creation of a “T-Dome” air defense system. President William Lai (賴清德) referred to such a system in his Double Ten National Day address, saying it would integrate air defenses into a
The central bank has launched a redesign of the New Taiwan dollar banknotes, prompting questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators — “Are we not promoting digital payments? Why spend NT$5 billion on a redesign?” Many assume that cash will disappear in the digital age, but they forget that it represents the ultimate trust in the system. Banknotes do not become obsolete, they do not crash, they cannot be frozen and they leave no record of transactions. They remain the cleanest means of exchange in a free society. In a fully digitized world, every purchase, donation and action leaves behind data.
RSS