There is no need for one country to control the semiconductor industry, which is complex and needs a division of labor, Taiwan’s top technology official said yesterday after US President Donald Trump criticized the nation’s chip dominance.
Trump repeated claims on Thursday that Taiwan had taken the industry and he wanted it back in the US, saying he aimed to restore US chip manufacturing.
National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Cheng-wen (吳誠文) did not name Trump in a Facebook post, but referred to President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments on Friday that Taiwan would be a reliable partner in the democratic supply chain of the global semiconductor industry.
Photo: Bloomberg
Wu wrote that Taiwan has in the past few years often been asked how its semiconductor industry had become an internationally acclaimed benchmark.
“How did we achieve this? Obviously, we did not gain this for no reason from other countries,” he said, recounting how the government developed the sector from the 1970s, including helping found Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in 1987, now the world’s largest contract chipmaker.
“This shows that Taiwan has invested half a century of hard work to achieve today’s success, and it certainly wasn’t something taken easily from other countries,” Wu said.
Each country has its own specialty for chips, from Japan making chemicals and equipment to the US, which is “second to none” on the design and application of innovative systems, he said.
“The semiconductor industry is highly complex and requires precise specialization and division of labor. Given that each country has its own unique industrial strengths, there is no need for a single nation to fully control or monopolize all technologies globally,” he said.
Taiwan is willing to be used as a base to assist “friendly democratic countries” in playing their appropriate roles in the semiconductor supply chain, he added.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS