The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday said that chips from Taiwanese semiconductor companies were not making their way into Chinese missiles “to the best of our knowledge.”
A report in yesterday’s Washington Post alleged that a Chinese company named Phytium Technology Co (飛騰) used chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), along with US software, in advanced Chinese military systems.
“TSMC has long placed strict controls on their chips. The export of high-tech products from Taiwan is also highly regulated,” Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said.
Photo: Zha Chunming / Xinhua via AP
“According to our understanding, none of the end uses for those products was military,” she added.
“To the best of our knowledge, TSMC’s exports not only meet Taiwanese standards, they also comply with applicable US regulations,” Wang said. “If information emerges that shows differently, we will of course investigate.”
Given the high volume of chip exports from Taiwan, the Bureau of Foreign Trade would educate exporters more to ensure that Taiwanese and international regulations are being followed, Wang said.
“TSMC has a rigorous export control system in place, including a robust assessment and review process on shipments to specific entities that are subject to export control restrictions,” the chipmaker said in an e-mailed response to the report.
“Moreover, TSMC has put in place processes to help identify abnormal circumstances in a transaction with due-diligence follow-up. With these processes already in place, we are not aware of a product manufactured by TSMC that was destined for military end-use, as alleged in the coverage,” it said.
The Washington Post article cites Ou Si-fu (歐錫富), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research (國防安全研究院), as well as an anonymous analyst.
Ou told the Taipei Times by telephone that he cannot speak specifically in regards to Phytium, but that the use of Taiwanese chips in Chinese military equipment would be “hard to trace.”
“The problem is that the chips are dual-use technology. They can be bought off the shelf for one application and then used in military equipment that is aimed right back at Taiwan,” Ou said.
Current Taiwanese and US safeguards for preventing Taiwanese chips from ending up in Chinese munitions are inadequate, Ou said, adding that meaningful measures for tightening up the flow of chips to China must come from the US.
“The US is ultimately in control of the upstream technology and equipment for the chips, even though Taiwan is the manufacturer,” Ou said. “They must be the ones to crack down.”
When asked whether Taiwanese can simply choose not to sell advanced chips to China, Ou said that it was unlikely.
“It would be asking them to voluntarily make less money and offend the Chinese at the same time,” Ou said.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
RSS