Taiwan is confident U.S. president-elect Donald Trump will not abandon the Asian democracy to China because the United States is heavily reliant on the cutting-edge semiconductor chips it supplies to American manufacturers.
Taiwan deputy foreign minister François Chihchung Wu said Friday this indispensable supply of cutting-edge microchips would be cut off if the People’s Republic of China, which claims Taiwan as a breakaway province, ever seized the island.
“Mr. Trump wants to make America great again. I think without Taiwan, he cannot make America great again. He needs the semiconductors made here,” Mr. Wu said in an interview.
Taiwan produces more than 60 per cent of the world’s semiconductor chips and more than 90 per cent of the most advanced varieties, found at the heart of modern technology from smartphones to cars to medical devices. For semiconductor chips used in artificial intelligence, Taiwan is responsible for 100 per cent of the world’s supply, Mr. Wu said.
Back in 2022, Mark Liu, then-chair of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, warned that if the island were to fall to China, the chipmaking giant would be lost. An invasion would render every “TSMC factory nonoperable,” he told CNN in 2022.
Remarks Mr. Trump made during his 2024 presidential election campaign have raised doubts about his commitment to protect and defend Taiwan.
Incumbent President Joe Biden has four times said the United States would support Taiwan militarily if China invaded. In July, however, Mr. Trump told Bloomberg he “wouldn’t feel too secure if I was [Taiwan]” and suggested the island should pay the United States protection money for its defence.
“We’re no different than an insurance company,” Mr. Trump said at the time,” noting Taiwan is only about 110 kilometres from the People’s Republic of China. “A slight advantage, and China’s a massive piece of land, they could just bombard it.”
Taiwan’s Mr. Wu said the island would put in orders for more American defence equipment, where necessary, including advanced military gear such as F-35 warplanes that has so far been off limits to Taipei.
Taipei has nearly doubled its annual military spending in the past eight years and there is already a backlog of more than US$20-billion in U.S. military gear that Taiwan has ordered and is still awaiting.
“If Mr. Trump wants to sell us F-35s – most advanced weapons – I think Taiwan would be very welcoming,” Mr. Wu said. “In the future if Mr. Trump wants Taiwan to buy new weapons to defend ourselves, I think it will be very welcome” in Taipei, he said.
Like most countries, including Canada, the United States does not have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. The U.S., however, is Taipei’s most important military ally.
Mr. Wu said he believes the United States under Mr. Trump would still act to protect U.S. national interests in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. This he ventured, would likely include semiconductor chips for uses including artificial intelligence. “Without the advanced chips made in Taiwan, how can you assure the advance of AI in America?”
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry, in a Thursday report to Taiwanese legislators, has warned China may try to test the United States in the handover period with military exercises, cyberattacks or psychological warfare aimed at weakening the territory’s “internal stability and unity.” It said the government would be prepared for this.
“A peaceful transition between Biden to Trump is very important for us,” Mr. Wu said. He said Taiwan is afraid China might “take this opportunity to make some turbulence now in the Taiwan Strait.”
Since 2018, China has staged more than 10 military exercises around Taiwan, in an effort to intimidate the self-governed island that Beijing wants to annex. The Chinese Communist Party, which has never ruled Taiwan, has not ruled out using force to take the territory. The U.S. military has repeatedly said it believes China aims to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.
Mr. Wu said Taiwan’s strategy, including its rising military spending, can be described as a “not today” policy. He said the intention is to keep Chinese President Xi Jinping thinking, “every day when he wakes up that today is not the day to invade Taiwan.”
Mr. Wu also thanked Canada for its latest expression of support. Canada’s House of Commons on Wednesday passed a resolution rejecting a public relations campaign by the Chinese government that insists the United Nations voted to affirm Beijing’s claim to Taiwan in 1971.