Taiwan Hemmed In By Xi Jinping’s Angry China
On display, the growing divergence between two models of governance
NG WENG HOONG in Vancouver
June 30, 2024, Sunday, 11.20 pm. Word count: 734
In an alternate universe, Taiwan is a thriving laboratory for political and social ideas, an incubator of trillion-dollar companies, and a nation state grounded in practical policies and democratic ideals.
In the real world, it is constrained by the hegemonic shadow of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its angry Emperor who thinks he has nice clothes to hide the deformities of its naked body politic.
The alternate universe gave a stunning reminder of its existence when one of its exports grew a start-up into the world’s most valuable company worth US$3.3-trillion at its peak on June 14. Jensen Huang, 61, born in Taiwan, partly raised in Thailand, and educated in the United States, has led Nvidia Corp since its formation in 1993.
After six years of rapid growth, the supplier of software, high-end computer chips and artificial intelligence made it to the New York Stock Exchange. In Huang and his two American partners, Nvidia is a symbol of contemporary America, a fusion of Yankee capitalism and Asian adventurism. Even after the recent market correction, it remains a US$3-trillion company, four times the size of Taiwan’s GDP.
Nvidia is not the only success story in the global semiconductor industry with deep Taiwanese content.
According to Wikipedia, the island state of just over 24 million people has produced other world beaters that are creating the artificial intelligence parts and infrastructure to run tomorrow’s economy.
“TSMC and United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) are the two largest contract chipmakers in the world, while MediaTek is the fourth-largest fabless semiconductor company globally. ASE Group is also the world’s largest Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) provider,” says the Wikipedia entry.
And there are many others that don’t make the headlines. They all have strong ties with the West, giving them access to the world’s major consumer and capital markets, and top universities, research institutions, and talent pools.
China could and should have been part of that success story. For most of the past four decades, it had those links with the West, particularly the U.S.
Instead, under Xi Jinping, who took over his country’s top job as General Secretary of the CCP in late 2012, China has chosen to create its own new world order. He has overseen the rapid dismantling of his country’s friendly relations with the West. Since the start of his second five-year term in 2018, ties have grown increasingly tense to the point that talk of war between China and the U.S. is now normalized.
As Nvidia and Huang reached superstardom status, China’s once mighty tech giants, Alibaba and Huawei, have been reduced to fractions of their former selves. The contrast in the fortunes of these companies is only one of many indicators of the diverging standing of China and Taiwan on the world stage.
Alibaba has fallen to US$72 from its peak of US$305 in October 2020. Back then, Nvidia was worth a bargain basement price of US$12, compared with US$123 last Friday. Today, Alibaba’s market capitalization is less than six percent of Nvidia’s. Chinese stocks and China itself are increasingly viewed as un-investible.
Faced with a slowing economy, Xi’s China is on a roll picking fights with its immediate neighbours to add to worsening ties with the West. Foreign expatriates are no longer queuing up to work in the world’s second’s largest economy. Instead, wealthy Chinese are moving their money out of the country, while the middle class has joined poor South Americans to try and sneak into the U.S. In contrast, Taiwan is becoming both a magnet for talents from Asia and an exporter of capital and investments to the region.
Taiwan is by no means a paradise as it has its own set of problems with youth unemployment, housing affordability, corruption, and a host of social issues. China’s harassment and constant threats to invade the island, which it regards as a renegade province, are a part of the regular Taiwanese list of worries.
Yet, it is China that feels more threatened by Taiwan than the reverse.
For most countries, Taiwan offers freedom, entrepreneurial opportunities, and the hope for change through better governance. China offers Xi Jinping Thought, the recently concocted ideology of the supreme leader, and the lure of business opportunities that are conditional on being subservient to Beijing.
Below, Charlie Smith, the editor at www.Pancouver.ca, offers a glimpse into some of Taiwan’s attractions that China will struggle to replicate.
Source: https://pancouver.ca/taiwan-can-help-an-island-nations-offer-to-the-world
Taiwan Can Help: an island nation’s offer to the world
Charlie Smith, Pancouver, May 22, 2024
President Lai Ching-te says that he wants Taiwan to become the MVP of the democratic world.
#TaiwanCanHelp. It’s a simple hashtag that sums up the spirit of an island nation.
This phrase, “Taiwan Can Help”, turns up in a Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs brochure introducing President Lai Ching-te (a.k.a. William Lai) to the world. On May 19, officials distributed this English-language document at a dinner in Burnaby held to celebrate Lai’s swearing-in ceremony.
But what does “Taiwan Can Help” really mean? And is it reflected in how this democratic nation of 23.5 million people interacts with the world?
On the cultural side, Taiwan has provided a haven for indie musicians from several Asian nations.
“Taiwan is one of the foremost cultural powerhouses of East Asia,” wrote Dante Scaglione in a research report for the New York-based India China Institute. “Taiwan’s popular music is one of its most significant cultural exports.”
In addition, Scaglione noted that the island nation “has been the world’s largest producer of Mandarin language pop music (Mandopop) since the 1980s”.
With the lifting of martial law in 1989 and full freedom of expression in 1992, Taiwan emerged as a hub for indie music production. Artists recorded songs with brazenly political lyrics, emboldening young fans. Many of them became supporters of Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party.
Scaglione attributed the rise of Taiwanese indie music to three developments: the interplay between various groups of Aboriginal, Japanese, and Chinese peoples on the island; the history of occupying regimes in the 20th century; and the suspension of martial law and opening up of economy and political life.
“These factors all play a decisive role in the musical styles, languages, attitudes, and politics found in modern Taiwanese music,” Scaglione stated.
Politicians from several parties joined Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vancouver director general Angel Liu at the dinner in Burnaby.
Writers thrive with help from Taiwan
In recent years, Taiwan has also offered a refuge for writers and poets from Hong Kong seeking to escape Chinese government crackdowns. In April, writer Desmond Hok-Man Sham highlighted this in Taiwan Insight, which is published by the Taiwan Research Hub at the University of Nottingham.
“After the ‘exodus’ of Hongkongers since 2019/2020, I have also observed that Hongkonger diasporic communities use different methods, such as organising markets, festivals, and exhibitions, setting up community libraries, and creating artworks and cultural products, as a way to preserve Hong Kong culture, express Hong Kong identity, and communicate with the local and the wider Hong Kong diasporic communities,” Sham wrote. “How overseas Hongkonger identity will evolve is something worth further observing and examining.”
Taiwan has also been a haven for outspoken authors from China, such as Alison Zhao. Furthermore, writers from several other countries—including New York-born Esther Kim , Canadian-born John Groot, Korean-born Rex How, Vietnamese-born Nguyen Thu Hang, and Indonesian-born Justto Lasso—have all felt free to pursue their craft in Taiwan.
Taiwan also has a thriving film sector, which is gaining attention around the world. At last year’s Taiwan Creative Culture Fest convention, government representatives of France and Taiwan signed an agreement to advance cooperation between the two countries’ film and TV industries.
‘We have the same philosophy of a cultural exception and commitment to democratic values,” said the director of Bureau Francais de Taipei, Franck Paris, according to Variety.
Film conveys Taiwan’s fighting spirit
Meanwhile, the 2023 film Invisible Nation tells how Taiwan’s transformed from authoritarianism to freedom. Directed by Vanessa Hope, the documentary shows Lai’s predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, galvanizing the public to protect Taiwanese democracy. The VIFF Centre will offer eight screenings of Invisible Nation in Vancouver between June 7 and June 15.
The director, Hope, points out in her film that Taiwan has been repeatedly colonized throughout its history. The Netherlands, Spain, Ming and Qing dynasties, and Japan all oversaw part or all of the island at different times. Moreover, Chinese nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek moved en masse to Taiwan and imposed control after losing the Chinese Civil War.
In the film, Chinese president Xi Jinping menacingly declares that he will not renounce the use of force against Taiwan. Despite or perhaps because of Xi’s belligerence, the Taiwanese people re-elected Tsai in 2020. Four years later, her vice president, Lai Ching-te, succeeded her, marking the first time that the same party had won three consecutive presidential elections. Both Tsai and Lai insist that Taiwan has always been independent.
This Democratic Progressive Party campaign ad was a hit with Taiwanese voters.
The phrase “Taiwan Can Help” emerged in English in a big way during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic when Taiwan had an extremely low number of confirmed cases and deaths. This occurred despite its proximity to China, where the virus originated.
According to the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada, Taiwan “enacted laws, formulated policies, and established institutions to empower experts during epidemics, which has improved its epidemic preparedness”.
“Much of this work occurred after Taiwan’s SARS outbreak in 2003, in which 73 people died,” wrote Asia-Pacific Foundation post-graduate research scholar Yoel Kornreich and junior research scholar Yiwei Jin.
President studied public health
In 2020, Taiwan generously donated half a million masks to Canada to help it deal with COVID-19. It’s in keeping with the Taiwanese record of helping countries needing emergency relief. The Taiwan-based Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, for example, has provided secular relief care in 133 countries.
President Lai is a former physician with a master’s degree in public health from Harvard University. But despite Taiwan’s sophisticated approach to health and its demonstrated track record, the World Health Organization refuses to grant the island nation observer status at the World Health Assembly, which begins on Monday (May 27).
Taiwan can help. However, the WHO won’t allow this for fear of alienating the Chinese Communist Party–controlled government in Beijing.
But the phrase “Taiwan Can Help” goes well beyond public health and arts and culture. It’s also apparent in the business world where its largest corporations help others succeed rather than shining a spotlight upon themselves.
The leading example of this, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), is the world’s second-most valuable corporation in its sector. TMSC designs and manufactures semiconductors for AMD and NVIDIA—both headed by Americans who were born in Tainan, Taiwan. Other TSMC clients include Apple, Broadcom, Marvell Technology, and Qualcomm.
TSMC’s know-how helps others succeed. The same can be said for another successful Taiwanese company, Foxconn, which is the world’s largest manufacturer of electronics products. By making iPhones, iPods, and iPads, it has helped Apple become the second most-valuable public company in America.
Last year, Germany’s minister of education and research, Bettina Stark, Watzinger, visited Taiwan—and enraged China—by signing a science and technology accord. She also pushed TSMC to establish a facility in Germany’s state of Saxony.
TSMC invests tens of billions in America
In April, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pledged one trillion yen (CDN$8.7 billion) for a reliable supply of chips. This came during a visit to a TSMC-controlled plant in southern Japan.
Germany and Japan aren’t the only countries seeking TSMC’S help. In 2020, the corporation promised a US$12-billion investment in an advanced semiconductor manufacturing fabrication plant in Phoenix, Arizona. In 2022, the company announced another US$28-billion investment for a second plant in Phoenix. Then with US$6.6 billion in funding under the CHIPS and Science Act, TSMC promised a third plant in 2024—adding up to total direct investment of US$65 billion.
Then there’s Taiwan’s international assistance. The island nation is offering significant humanitarian aid to Ukraine, which is also near a larger and hostile neighbour that wants to crush its national identity. This, too, is highlighted in Invisible Nation.
President Tsai says in Invisible Nation that all Taiwanese have a duty to share their nation’s story with the world.
In his inaugural address, President Lai did precisely that. He pointed out that Taiwan was the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. Lai also maintained that democracy outperforms authoritarianism in fighting pandemics.
“As for international affairs, we will continue working with other democratic nations to form a democratic community, and share our experiences across a range of fields,” Lai said. “We will work together to combat disinformation, strengthen democratic resilience, address challenges, and allow Taiwan to become the MVP of the democratic world.”
In effect, President Lai is saying that “Taiwan Can Help.”
Judging by recent agreements and investments, this message clearly resonates with France, Germany, Japan, and the United States. Is Canada also willing to take the new president up on his offer?