In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.”
That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1 trillion per year by some accounts. That sounds like something people might bat an eyelid at.
Context is everything; we need to understand what Oeuillet was saying. His point was that Japan and South Korea, with Thailand next in line, have successfully developed their creative industries to the extent that entertainers and productions have become household names around the world. Oeuillet was not talking about industry heads, company CEOs, national leaders or geopolitical analysts. He was talking about cultural exports as soft power, as a way of getting members of the public to prick up their ears and pay attention.
If Japan, South Korea and Thailand can do it, he asked, why not Taiwan?
Soft power is the provision of something of value to people, that gives them a reason to care, or to become alert if the continued provision of that thing is threatened, and to miss it were it to be taken away.
Taiwan certainly has the talent to create cultural exports that other countries would be interested in, even if the support and funding is lacking. TSMC could still be used to get the message across. Those concerned with the preservation of Taiwan’s freedom and sovereignty in the face of the threat from the CCP are aware of the conundrum. It is not enough to provide information; one has also to find a way to get the recipient of that information interested enough to engage with it.
It is clear that TSMC — and by extension Taiwan’s continued sovereign, independent existence — is crucial to politicians, planners, strategists and CEOs. It is less obvious how to get that message across to a woman in Denmark who knows about K-pop, but has no real reason to care about TSMC.
It is no wonder when you read the kind of articles written about semiconductors. Who, apart from those already in the know, could get enthused about 3-nanometer processes, disrupted global supply chains, dense power delivery networks, lithography machines or semiconductor ecosystems? Who knows the difference between semiconductors, chips, integrated circuits or microchips?
For people to care, they would need to understand the implications of having their chips taken away. No semiconductors means no smartphones, tablets, computers, TVs or video games; it means airplanes would be grounded, and modern trains and cars would not operate. It would be the end to X-rays, MRIs and ATMs.
In other words, when an analyst says US$1 trillion would be wiped from the global economy, it kind of sounds like someone else’s problem.
When it becomes impossible to replace your smartphone or computer with a new device, things hit home. When you cannot travel because the flights are grounded or prohibitively expensive due to low availability, you are stuck where you are.
Other countries have the ability to produce semiconductors, but TSMC continues to be at the cutting edge of the industry, producing the most advanced chips. Yes, we know that, but how many people are aware of exactly how the removal of TSMC from the global supply chain would impact them? The trick is how to convey that message, and how to convert it into actionable soft power.
This is where Blackpink meets TSMC.
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