A colorful semiconductor tycoon yesterday unveiled plans to train more than 3 million “civilian warriors” to help defend the nation in the event of a Chinese invasion, donating NT$1 billion (US$32.8 million) of his own money.
Robert Tsao (曹興誠), 75, is one of Taiwan’s most successful businessmen and founded major chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). He has been increasingly outspoken against Beijing, and his pledge came after Chinese troops put on a huge show of force near the nation after US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei last month.
For a week after Pelosi’s visit, China sent warships, missiles and fighter jets into the waters and skies around Taiwan, its largest and most aggressive exercises since the mid-1990s.
Photo: CNA
Tsao warned it would be “an intentional slaughter and vicious war crime and crime against humanity” if China were to use force against Taiwan.
The tycoon said he would put NT$600 million toward training 3 million “black bear warriors” in the next three years, adding that they could work alongside the military.
Another NT$400 million would be used to train 300,000 “marksmen” with shooting skills, he said.
Tsao, who no longer holds any position or title at UMC, said the risk posed by China is existential.
“The Chinese Communist Party’s threat to Taiwan is growing and the fight against [it] stands for freedom against slavery, democracy against authoritarianism and civilized against barbaric,” he said.
“If we can successfully resist China’s ambitions, we not only will be able to safeguard our homeland, but make a big contribution to the world situation and the development of civilization,” he added.
Taiwan has spent decades living alongside China’s threats, but the saber-rattling has become more pronounced under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
China’s most authoritarian leader in a generation, Xi is on the cusp of securing an unprecedented third term later this year and has made gaining Taiwan a key part of his “national rejuvenation” goals.
Taiwan remains massively outgunned, with 88,000 ground forces compared with China’s 1 million troops, the US Department of Defense says.
Mandatory military service for Taiwanese men is just four months, and Taiwanese and US strategists have increasingly pushed Taipei to adopt a “porcupine” strategy of asymmetric warfare, which would include training civilians to fight.
Russia’s stalled invasion of Ukraine has also focused attention in Taiwan on the threats posed by a giant authoritarian neighbor and how huge armies can be resisted by a much smaller, but determined defender.
Tsao yesterday also announced that he had regained Taiwanese citizenship.
Showing an enlarged copy of his Republic of China identification card, Tsao told reporters that he had renounced his Singaporean citizenship, which he obtained in 2011, and was “so excited” to have his original citizenship restored.
From now on, he would stand with his “courageous compatriots” against any invasion by China and ensure that Taiwan remains “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” he said, likening Taiwan to the US.
Additional reporting by CNA
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying