China has sought to “cheat” and “steal” its way to matching Taiwan in chip technology, but has yet to succeed despite investing huge sums, Representative to the US Alexander Yui said on Wednesday, while holding out the prospect of more Taiwanese semiconductor investment in the US.
In an interview with Reuters, Yui, who arrived in Washington in December last year, cast doubt on reports that China’s chipmakers are on the cusp of making next-generation smartphone processors, and refuted charges by former US president Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate for the US presidential election in November, that Taiwan was taking American semiconductor jobs.
“They don’t really follow the rules. They cheat and they copy, etc. They steal technology,” Yui said of China’s chipmakers, adding that he had doubts about whether they could make viable next-generation processors as early as this year amid US efforts to curb Beijing’s development of advanced technologies.
Photo: Screen grab from Reuters’ Web site
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the US said such a claim “has no common sense” and is ill-intentioned.
“China’s scientific and technological achievements are never made through ‘cheating’ and ‘stealing.’ Our development is always built on our own strength, and we are confident of continuing to strengthen China’s capability to seek self-reliance and technological innovation,” embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu (劉鵬宇) said.
Washington said China uses its huge market and control over supply chains to coerce countries to transfer strategic technology, and that its extensive cybertheft makes it the top threat to US technological competitiveness.
Taiwan’s spy catchers have investigated numerous Chinese companies suspected of illegally poaching semiconductor engineers and other tech talent.
US companies are restricted by Washington from providing technology without a special license to certain Chinese chipmakers, including Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), over their alleged work with China’s military.
“Those companies that they have spent billions of dollars on have basically floundered,” Yui said.
Trump last year told Fox News that Taiwan, which is the world’s leading producer of advanced chips, had taken away US business in the industry and should have faced US tariffs.
Some analysts have speculated that his comments reflected a desire to curtail US support for the nation should he be elected.
Trump’s administration nonetheless approved billions in defense sales to Taiwan.
“Actually we are partners... And it’s not the way Mr Trump has said,” Yui said. “Our companies are looking at new ways to strategically reposition themselves in different countries, and we were happy to see our companies are considering the United States, for example — TSMC [Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, 台積電] in Arizona. And I think there will be more to come,” he said.
TSMC is the world’s largest contract chipmaker.
Yui declined to say whether Taiwan had sought to engage with the Trump campaign, but said the nation enjoyed the friendship and support of both Democrats and Republicans.
A sweeping international security assistance package that includes billions of dollars for Taiwan has been stalled in the US Congress by Republicans’ insistence that it also include an overhaul of US immigration and border security policy.
“We welcome any help that comes from the United States, from Congress and the administration, to beef up Taiwan’s defense capabilities,” Yui said.
The US military is looking to partners in the Pacific for secure locations to stockpile equipment and munitions in the event of any conflict with China.
While the US president is permitted under law to create a regional contingency stockpile of munitions and defense articles for Taiwan, Yui downplayed the possibility they would be placed on in the nation.
“The stockpiles won’t happen in Taiwan, I think,” he said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS