Taiwan’s chip sector is vital to help the US maintain a technology edge over China, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a hearing of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington on Tuesday.
Senators quizzed Blinken about whether the US would help Taiwan if it were attacked by China, especially given the nation’s importance in the global semiconductor industry.
Blinken said that the US has a significant advantage over China in its ability to produce high-end semiconductors and there are a few countries, including Taiwan, that are critical components of that ability.
Photo: Reuters
The US is taking significant steps with Taiwan, Japan and the Netherlands, among others, to make sure “the highest-end semiconductors are not transferred to China, or China does not get the technology to manufacture them,” he said.
“Taiwan is integral to that,” he added.
The question from US Senator Robert Menendez, who said he was asked on a recent trip to Taiwan, Australia and Japan whether the US could meet the demands of its strategic competition with China without a clear economic and trade agenda in the region.
If China were to control Taiwan, which produces 90 percent of all high-end semiconductors, “the world would be in a world of hurt,” Menendez said.
Given those circumstances, if the US did not help Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack, it would send a message to other countries that if Washington “didn’t do it for Taiwan, they’re not going to do it for us,” he said.
US Senator Jim Risch urged Blinken to do more to help Taiwan.
“We started too late in providing security assistance to Ukraine,” Risch said. “We cannot make the same mistake with Taiwan. Supporting an island during the war is much more difficult. Our assistance must be there beforehand.”
Blinken said that the US is determined that Taiwan would have “all necessary means to defend itself against any potential aggression, including unilateral action by China to disrupt the status quo” that has been in place for many decades.
In addition to arms sales to Taiwan, the US has expedited third-party transfers to support an indigenous defense capability and is focused on helping Taiwan as it improves its asymmetric capabilities, he said.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
RSS