A Taiwanese official has asked Australia to support its bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) pact, saying Taiwan can boost high-technology trade flows and demand for Australian minerals.
Support for Taiwan’s bid would also “send a strong message” to Australian businesses affected by China’s boycotts of Australian products, Representative to Australia Elliott Charng (常以立) yesterday told a parliamentary committee in Canberra.
“Economic sanctions imposed on Australia by China reinforce the argument of engaging with Taiwan more closely and more deeply,” he told the committee.
Photo courtesy of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Australia
Each member of the 11-nation CPTPP has to approve new members and the committee will recommend Australia’s response.
The regional trade group, formed in 2018, includes Canada, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. It has received applications from Britain, Taiwan and China to join. The bids by Taiwan and China in the past month have sparked tension, with Beijing opposing Taiwan’s application, and Taiwan accusing Beijing of bullying.
China is Australia’s largest trading partner, with exports reaching a record A$19.4 billion (US$14.3 billion) in July on the back of iron ore demand. However, diplomatic relations have soured in recent years.
Australia was Taiwan’s third-largest source of agricultural goods, worth US$607 million last year, and the CPTPP would provide structure to do business and enhance cybersecurity cooperation, Charng said.
“The opposition from China is not unexpected. China will use every way to avoid Taiwan participating in any international organizations,” he said.
China on Monday said it had lodged stern representations with Australia over “inappropriate” comments by former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott who last week visited Taiwan in a personal capacity and met Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
Abbott told reporters on Friday that Taiwan met the criteria for joining the CPTPP, but “fear of upsetting China” could cause some members to object to Taiwan’s application.
He urged countries to move beyond “rhetorical support” for Taiwan and provide practical support.
China has also lobbied the Australian parliament committee to help it join the CPTPP, describing the strength of Chinese trade with Australia and avoiding mention of billions of dollars in punitive sanctions imposed by Beijing.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) quarterly sales topped estimates, reinforcing investor hopes that the torrid pace of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending would extend into this year. The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported a 39 percent rise in December-quarter revenue to NT$868.5 billion (US$26.35 billion), based on calculations from monthly disclosures. That compared with an average estimate of NT$854.7 billion. The strong showing from Taiwan’s largest company bolsters expectations that big tech companies from Alphabet Inc to Microsoft Corp would continue to build and upgrade datacenters at a rapid clip to propel AI development. Growth accelerated for
RSS