President William Lai (賴清德) in a US media interview said that Taiwan is “working side by side” with other democracies to deter a Chinese invasion, and “robust preparations are the best way to avoid war and achieve peace.”
Speaking in a prerecorded video interview, which aired on Wednesday at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit, Lai said that “peace is priceless and war has no winners.”
“While we aspire to peace, we cannot harbor illusions about it,” Lai told interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin in his first foreign media interview since he announced a US$40 billion special defense budget on Wednesday last week.
Photo: AFP
“Peace must be secured through strength. This is why we are increasing our defense budget and strengthening our national defense capabilities, while also cutting back our economic dependence on China,” Lai added.
The president was one of more than a dozen interviewees at the Times’ event, which also featured conversations with US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, General Motors CEO Mary Barra and California Governor Gavin Newsom.
In the Lai interview, which lasted about 10 minutes, Sorkin asked about China’s goal of being capable of “taking Taiwan by force by 2027” and what Lai thought China’s current timeline could be.
“Whatever timeline China’s People’s Liberation Army may have, Taiwan’s fundamental principle is that we must be ready first,” he said, before expressing gratitude to the international community for their support of Taiwan.
Sorkin then asked how confident Lai felt about US President Donald Trump’s support for Taiwan.
“Our relationship truly is rock solid,” Lai said of the long-standing relationship between the two countries, adding that US cooperation with Taiwan has expanded since Trump assumed office.
On the Russia-Ukraine war, Lai said Taiwan stands with Ukrainians, and he hopes “this irrational and illegitimate war will be over as soon as possible so that the Ukrainian people will no longer have to suffer.”
“However, in ending this war, we also hope that Ukraine’s national dignity and the well-being of its people will be respected and future conflict will be prevented,” Lai said.
Sorkin, a financial columnist for the New York Times and coanchor of CNBC’s business news show Squawk Box, turned the interview to the topic of semiconductors.
Noting the Trump administration’s desire to manufacture “40 to 50 percent of all semiconductors in the next couple of years,” Sorkin asked whether Lai was concerned about Taiwan potentially becoming “less valuable” to the US.
Lai said that “semiconductors are a global ecosystem” and that he hopes Taiwan can “support the reindustrialization of the US” through investments in the country.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and other Taiwanese chip firms invest in the US, Japan, Europe or “wherever they believe it is needed,” Lai said.
On the question of whether Trump’s 40 to 50 percent domestic semiconductor manufacturing goal was realistic or not, Lai said that would depend on the US government’s ability to facilitate land, water and electricity, workforce and talent development, and investment incentives.
Later in the interview, Lai said that Taiwan’s decision in about 2000 not to relocate its most advanced manufacturing to China was correct.
He also urged Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to focus on China’s economic and not “territorial expansion.”
Taiwan’s economy is forecast to grow 7.37 percent this year, “while international financial institutions estimate China’s growth to be only a little above 4 percent,” he said.
“China’s economy is indeed struggling,” Lai added. “We sincerely hope that as China faces economic pressures, President Xi Jinping will focus not on territorial expansion, but on improving the well-being of the Chinese people.”
He also called on leaders around the world to work together to “take steps to prevent AI [artificial intelligence] from becoming a bubble,” so that the industry can drive long-term global growth.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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