Sun, Mar 09, 2025 page8

• The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan

  • By Ninon Godefroy
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  Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention. If it makes headlines, it is because China wants to invade. Yet, those who find their way here by some twist of fate often fall in love.

  If you ask them why, some cite numbers showing it is one of the freest and safest countries in the world. Others talk about something harder to name: The quiet order of queues, the shared umbrellas for anyone caught in the rain, the way people stand so elderly riders can sit, the feeling that life moves with a gentle precision, a quiet sense of people looking out for each other.

  To help my foreign friends understand, I take them to Din Tai Fung. Not just because they have never had better dumplings — although that is part of it — but because here, they see this elusive quality in motion.

  There is always an hour-long wait, but no sighs, no restless shuffling — just a good system in place. When you step inside, it is a masterclass in care and precision. Chefs fold dumplings so thin they are nearly transparent, always eighteen pleats — never more, never less. Behind the glass, a choreography of hair-netted staff, synchronized to the second, eliminates every possibility of error. Waiters appear at just the right moment, draping a cloth over your coat so it does not absorb the food’s aroma, refilling your tea before you notice your cup is empty. Then, the dumplings arrive, steaming hot, perfectly timed. Every movement is deliberate, and yet, there is no pretense, no performance — only a rhythm of moving with and for each other, until the whole becomes larger than its parts.

  Watching the people in Din Tai Fung, I realize that ethos of meticulous coordination is not just what makes Taiwan special. It also powers an industry the world cannot afford to lose.

  Semiconductors are the silent core of everything electronic. Taiwan produces 60 percent of the world’s chips, but for the most advanced chips — those that power smartphones or artificial intelligence — its share is 92 percent. Experts say a war over Taiwan would cost the world US$10 trillion — almost double the economic impact of COVID-19.

  Despite billions poured into catching up, neither the US nor China has managed to replicate what Taiwan can build. Semiconductor dominance is not just about technology. It is about the same quiet coordination that makes Din Tai Fung possible.

  In a semiconductor factory, as in a Din Tai Fung kitchen, precision is absolute. A microscopic contaminant can halt production and cost millions. Workers wear full-body suits; the air is filtered thousands of times per hour. Yet, a factory alone cannot make chips. It requires an entire ecosystem — designers, lithographers, packagers — all relying on each other to push the limits of what is possible at the nanometer scale.

  That kind of precision does not seem to travel well, because it rests on something less tangible, something instinctive, something cultural.

  There are Din Tai Fung branches in Shanghai, London and Dubai. Yet, connoisseurs say the dumpling skin is a little thicker, the service a little slower, the balance slightly off. Still good — but not quite magical.

  It is the same with semiconductors. The world looks at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and thinks: Just copy that. Build a factory, import the machines, poach the engineers, but somehow, it never quite works.

  TSMC’s new plant in Arizona, meant to bolster US chip independence, has struggled with cost and efficiency. Now, US President Donald Trump’s US$100 billion deal for TSMC to build three advanced foundries, two packaging plants, and a research-and-development center in the US would test whether chips could ever be crafted on US soil the way they are in Taiwan.

  Today’s geopolitics feel tenser than ever. It is easy to wonder whether semiconductors alone could keep Taiwan valuable in the eyes of the big and powerful. If the worst were to happen — if Taiwanese lost their home — the world would lose more than just microchips or dumplings. It would lose the quiet rhythm of a place that moves the world in a gentler direction. A place that reminds us that often, the smallest things — an act of care for a neighbor or the precision of a chip — are what hold us together.

  Ninon Godefroy is an advisor on foreign and diaspora policy in the Legislative Yuan.
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