Taiwan has never been so strong and never been so threatened, and it is deepening its international cooperation through democracy and semiconductor capabilities to face the authoritarian threat, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with a German newspaper.
Wu was interviewed in Taipei by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the most influential newspapers in Germany, and the interview was published on Tuesday.
“Taiwan has never been so strong,” as its economy is worth more than US$800 billion and its is the seventh-largest trading partner of the US, but that achievement stands out as it has also “never been so threatened by China,” Wu said in the interview.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Regarding whether Taiwan-US relations have changed during US President Donald Trump’s second term, Wu said the US is a democratic nation, not like China under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who has unlimited power, and that close Taiwan-US relations are between two societies, not just their leaders, so Taiwan continues to trust in the US.
As Taiwan has 13 missions in the US and maintains normal institutionalized contact, there is no reason to believe the US would not inform Taiwan if it decided to make a major policy change, he said.
The deputy foreign minister said Taiwan has maintained close ties with the US by strengthening common interests and reducing its economic dependence on China — from 84 percent of Taiwan’s total foreign investment in 2010 to only 7 percent last year — and that foreign investment in the US accounts for almost 50 percent.
While Taiwan plays a crucial role in global semiconductor production, both Taiwan and the US play important roles in the semiconductor ecosystem, Wu said.
“If President Trump wants to make America great again, he cannot abandon Taiwan. He can’t push Taiwan toward China,” he said.
Asked about a potential meeting between Trump and Xi, Wu said that Taiwan would not oppose such a positive development in relations with China, as everyone wants a peaceful relationship with it, but “unfortunately, Xi wants to change the world.”
Asked to compare the Ukraine war to Taiwan’s situation in the Indo-Pacific region, Wu said that both face a superpower that wants to conquer a smaller nation to expand its territory and influence, but Taiwan is a long-standing, successful democracy and has advanced semiconductor expertise.
“If the world were to lose Taiwan and its semiconductors, it would be in a very difficult position,” he said. “China isn’t strong enough to challenge the US in the Pacific, but if Beijing were to acquire Taiwan’s industrial capabilities, especially its semiconductor capabilities, it would make China the strongest superpower.”
Wu said that Xi’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing last month shows that China has a plan to dominate the world and conquer Taiwan with military force, warning that the international community can no longer remain naive about Beijing’s ambitions.
Taiwan is pursuing a “not-today” policy — convincing the Chinese president every day that today is not a good day to conquer Taiwan, he said, adding that it maintains deterrence by increasing its defense budget to 3.3 percent of GDP next year and to 5 percent by 2030, boosting the credibility of the US and major European powers’ military in the region, and supporting Taiwan’s accession to international organizations
Describing Taiwan’s semiconductor industry as a “sacred mountain” that protects Taiwan, Wu said that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co setting up factories in the US, Japan and Germany does not weaken Taiwan, but incorporates like-minded nations into the protective net.
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