Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that national security concerns and economic competitiveness have smothered globalization as the US-China trade dispute pans out.
Chang made the remark during a speech on globalization at the Taipei-based Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce.
“The world has redefined globalization as allowing domestic companies to make profits abroad, and allowing foreign industries and services to enter the home country without harming its national security and [its] current or future technological and economic leadership,” Chang said, asking the audience if globalization can stay alive under the circumstances.
Photo: CNA
The 91-year-old industry veteran had earlier pronounced globalization “dead” amid the US-China technology competition.
Chang defined globalization as a period when countries endeavored to pursue profit and undertook commercial risks, regardless of borders.
Experts and academics at the time viewed the world as “flat” and the trend reached the optimal state in 2010, still far from the peak, Chang said.
Globalization had positive influences — such as lifting billions of people out of poverty and improving the average standard of living in almost every country, Chang said.
However, it also had negative effects, such as worsening the imbalanced distribution of wealth, he said.
Decades ago, a CEO at his former employer Texas Instruments could receive US$16 million upon retirement, but today CEOs earn more than that in a single month, widening the income gap among ranks, Chang said.
At the same time, globalization weakened the middle class in many countries by eliminating jobs, he said, adding that US steel, auto and garment makers moved their manufacturing facilities overseas, leaving many unable to share the benefits of globalization.
Globalization has led to a Thucydides trap, an apparent tendency toward war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon, Chang said, referring to China and the US.
The US has introduced trade restrictions against China to secure its own military and economic leadership, while seeking to weaken its rivals’ competitiveness, which is at odds with globalization, he said.
Globalization is built on the foundation of the division of labor in line with comparative advantages among players who cooperate, but national security and economic and technology leadership have taken precedence over other concerns, Chang said.
That explains why the US and China have assigned more importance to competition than cooperation, he said.
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
Tsunami waves were possible in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East, the Russian Ministry for Emergency Services said yesterday after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands. “The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, after the latest seismic activity in the area. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System in Hawaii said there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The Russian tsunami alert was later canceled. Overnight, the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA
CHINA’s BULLYING: The former British prime minister said that he believes ‘Taiwan can and will’ protect its freedom and democracy, as its people are lovers of liberty Former British prime minister Boris Johnson yesterday said Western nations should have the courage to stand with and deepen their economic partnerships with Taiwan in the face of China’s intensified pressure. He made the remarks at the ninth Ketagalan Forum: 2025 Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prospect Foundation in Taipei. Johnson, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time, said he had seen Taiwan’s coastline on a screen on his indoor bicycle, but wanted to learn more about the nation, including its artificial intelligence (AI) development, the key technology of the 21st century. Calling himself an
South Korea yesterday said that it was removing loudspeakers used to blare K-pop and news reports to North Korea, as the new administration in Seoul tries to ease tensions with its bellicose neighbor. The nations, still technically at war, had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. It said in June that Pyongyang stopped transmitting bizarre, unsettling noises along the border that had become a major nuisance for South Korean residents, a day after South Korea’s loudspeakers fell silent. “Starting today, the military has begun removing the loudspeakers,”
RSS