If China invades Taiwan there would be no winners and everyone would lose, and people should draw lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war, which is not good for either side, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) told CNN.
The interview on the Fareed Zakaria GPS program on Sunday came at a time of heightened cross-strait tensions amid a potential visit to Taiwan by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“People in Taiwan have earned their democratic system and they want to choose their way of life,” Liu said in the interview. “Indeed, chip supply is a critical business in Taiwan, but had there been a war in Taiwan, probably the chip is not the most important thing we should worry about, because this invasion is destruction of the world rules-based order. The geopolitical landscape would totally change.”
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Liu said the Russia-Ukraine war is not good for either side and it is a lose-lose-lose scenario for the Western world, Russia and Ukraine.
People should draw lessons from the war in Ukraine, and look at Taiwan and decide how to avoid a war, and how to ensure the engine of the world economy continues humming, he said.
Asked by Zakaria what Taiwan would look like in the future, Liu said that he hopes Taiwan does not get discriminated against because it is close to China.
“No matter your relation with China, Taiwan is Taiwan,” Liu said. “We want to unleash the innovation for the world into the future continuously and not to be scared because we have some disputes with our neighbors.”
Zakaria asked Liu whether Taiwan being so integral to the Chinese supply chain creates a danger for Taiwan or serves as a deterrent since Beijing says that it needs to have total control of this valuable asset.
Liu said that China accounts for about 10 percent of TSMC’s business and that it only supplies the consumer market rather than the military or other markets.
“If they [China] need us, it is not a bad thing,” he said.
However, he warned that a military invasion by China would make TSMC factories inoperable and that it would also hurt China.
“Because our interruption would create great economic turmoil in China — suddenly their most advanced component supply disappears. It is an interruption, I must say, so people will think twice on this,” Liu said. “Nobody can control TSMC by force ... because it is a sophisticated manufacturing facility that depends on the real-time connection with the outside world,” such as Europe, the US and Japan for materials, chemicals and engineering software.
Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) yesterday told reporters that Liu’s comments were correct because if China were to invade, Taiwan’s semiconductors would not be available to the world and that would cause serious economic problems.
“That is why we say if something happens to Taiwan, the world would suffer the consequences,” Wang said.
Three cases of Candida auris, a fungus that can cause a yeast infection known as candidiasis in humans, have been reported in Taiwan over the past few years, but they did not display drug resistance, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said yesterday. Lo made the statement at a news conference in Taipei, one day after the Washington Post reported that the potentially deadly fungus is spreading in US hospitals. The fungus was first discovered in Japan in 2009 and poses a danger to immunocompromised people, with an estimated mortality rate of 30 to 60 percent, Lo
‘DIRE’: Taiwan would not engage in ‘dollar diplomacy,’ the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, after China reportedly offered Honduras up to US$3 billion to establish relations The government yesterday recalled its ambassador to Honduras after the Central American nation sent its foreign minister to China, signaling that it would sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Suspicions concerning ties with Honduras are rife after Honduran President Xiomara Castro on Tuesday last week wrote on Twitter that her country would pursue diplomatic ties with China. Honduran Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduardo Enrique Reina traveled to China on Wednesday “to promote efforts for the establishment of diplomatic relations” on instructions from Castro, Reuters yesterday quoted Honduran presidential spokesman Ivis Alvarado as saying. The government “has decided to immediately recall the ambassador to Honduras
SWITCH TO BEIJING: The government severed diplomatic relations about an hour after Honduras announced the move, saying that no semi-official ties would be maintained Taiwan severed diplomatic ties with Honduras and ended all cooperation with the Central American country, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, about an hour and a half after the Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Twitter at 8am Taiwan time that the nation would cut its ties with Taiwan. Honduran President Xiomara Castro on Wednesday sent Honduran Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduardo Enrique Reina to Beijing to negotiate the establishment of diplomatic relations. She announced the plan on March 14 on Twitter. “To safeguard Taiwan’s sovereignty and dignity, Taiwan is terminating diplomatic ties with Honduras with immediate effect” after communication with
MEDIA, SOCIETY FOCUS: Doublethink Lab said that Beijing is trying to coerce countries that rely on China economically to pursue policies in its favor China has stronger influence over Taiwan’s media and society than any other country, the Taipei-based Doublethink Lab think tank said yesterday, as it announced its China Index gauging Beijing’s global influence. Taiwan ranked 11th overall among 82 countries assessed, but first in terms of social and media influence, Doublethink Lab chairman Puma Shen (沈伯洋) told a news conference in Taipei. More than 200 experts and academics participated in the project, including some highly influential figures, Shen said. The index collects information from countries worldwide to gauge China’s influence and assess how Chinese policies affect them, Shen said. In terms of Chinese
RSS