The Taiwanese government has accused Communist China of waging economic warfare against the island nation so it could acquire Taiwan’s semiconductor industries.
Taiwan is the home to the world-leading semiconductor industry and for years China has been waging economic warfare against Taiwan’s tech sector by stealing technology and at the same time issuing threats of invasion with its massive military.
Taiwanese Executive Minister Lo Ping Cheng said that “Beijing was enticing Taiwan’s advanced-tech personnel and engaging in theft of national critical technologies, circumventing regulations, illegally investing and operating in Taiwan causing the nation a huge loss in IT security and industry competitiveness,”.
Semiconductors or ‘chips’ are now the backbones of the tech industry and any disruption in the supply chain will essentially stall advancement in technological innovation and economic development.
Due to the shortage of microchips that are ubiquitous in all electrical devices including smartphones, electronic vehicles, hypersonic armaments, airships, pacemakers, etc could lead to loss of business worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
With the advent of emerging hybrid technology, the demand for semiconductors has never been this high and the demand is only going to get higher.
Microchips are essential for emerging new technologies like quantum computing, wireless communications (5G), the internet of things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), all requiring highly advanced semiconductor devices.
The US was the pioneer in the semiconductor industry for decades and is home to 8 of the 15 world’s biggest semiconductor enterprises. And in the last twenty years, China became the biggest importer of semiconductors and that led to its relying on foreign manufacturers for its supply, especially the United States.
China wants to change all that now and things are only getting worse due to the continuing trade disputes between China and the US as Beijing is finding it difficult to fulfill the needs of its domestic semiconductor industry and the US has also been tightening semiconductor export controls with stricter licensing policies, especially toward China.
Chinese economy depends upon its manufacturing sector and that is its weakness and any shortage of semiconductors will adversely affect its economy.
That led to the Chinese government implementing its National Integrated Circuit Industry Development and Made in China 2025 initiative to reduce its reliance on the US and to accelerate the development of its domestic semiconductor industry.
But it is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) that produces the most advanced chips in the world catering to both Chinese and American firms such as Qualcomm, Apple, Broadcom, and Xilinx, and the People’s Republic of China consider Taiwan as its territory under its one-China policy.
China is not only trying to invade Taiwan it also wants its skilled tech workforce and know-how in the chip industry and the Taiwanese government in the last few years has reported many charges concerning the theft of chip trade secrets by Chinese organizations.
China is home to the majority of the world’s computers and smartphone manufacturing units, however, still depends on the imports of almost all the semiconductors needed to run these gadgets.
So China wants to get rid of this technological dependence, and that is why it engages in industrial espionage and other coercive activities in an effort to develop its own semiconductor industry.
The Investigation Bureau of Taiwan under the administration of the Ministry of Justice recently rounded up 60 Chinese nationals on the allegation of stealing trade secrets and poaching tech employees from Taiwan reported The HK Post.
The list of companies investigated by the Taiwanese authorities includes Vimicro, GLC Semiconductor, Analogix Semiconductor, Beijing Yinxing Technology among others.
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