The success of the semiconductor industry would widen Taiwan’s wealth gap, increasing populism and negative sentiment toward the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), an Academia Sinica academic said on Saturday.
Wu Jieh-min (吳介民), a distinguished research fellow at the academy’s Institute of Sociology, told a conference organized by the Koo Kwang-ming Foundation that he generally views the development of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry in positive terms.
However, the better Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and the chip sector perform, the more there would be a “relatively poorer” group of people who “hate” the DPP, creating a “hotbed” for populism and provocateurs, he said.
Photo: CNA
“Voters want to oppose China ... but they need to have their basic needs met,” Wu said, adding that the DPP needs to make up its mind to address the wealth gap, or it would lose the 2028 national elections.
The richest 20 percent of households in Taiwan held 66.9 times more wealth than the bottom 20 percent as of the end of 2021, up fourfold from 16.8 times the wealth in 1991, the last time such a report was released, a report released last year by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics showed.
If TSMC and its peers are performing so well, why are Taiwan’s science parks “full of engineers who hate the DPP and support the Taiwan People’s Party?” Wu said.
The comments on wealth contrasted with the largely positive tone of his speech, in which he praised the government for shifting Taiwan’s economy away from China and toward the US, Japan and Europe.
Geopolitically, the country has also moved from the periphery to the “core” of the so-called global north, he added.
Wu downplayed the security risks of TSMC building more factories in the US, saying that it is more important to keep the company’s research and development headquarters in Hsinchu County and pursue a global layout that benefits Taiwan.
Increasing TSMC’s overseas chip production would ease pressures on Taiwan’s environment, power and water supply, and give Taiwan its first multinational corporation, he said.
DPP legislators Puma Shen (沈伯洋) and Fan Yun (范雲), and Taiwan Economic Democracy Union convener Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強) also attended the conference on “passing the generational baton and reassembling civic force.”
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