While many “awakened” young people are thrilled that mainland China’s Huawei is being suppressed by the United States, aren’t they forgetting that Taiwan was already beaten down by US Section 301 sanctions long ago, leaving us with no choice but to do contract manufacturing?
Moreover, when Taiwanese discovered how profitable contract manufacturing could be, the US stepped in and suppressed us several more times, simply to extract maximum profits. When we couldn’t extract enough, they even threw company executives in prison for years, never worried about whether companies would listen to them.
So what exactly are these awakened youth celebrating?
Besides, even if Huawei’s phone exports from mainland China are severely suppressed, resulting in drastically reduced global shipments, do these awakened youth really think the production capacity freed up will go to Taiwanese companies like ASUS, HTC, and other small manufacturers?
Remember, South Korea’s Samsung is America’s primary protégé.
Even if Google’s Android phones won’t let Huawei manufacture them, those orders will only be transferred in large volumes to South Korea’s Samsung. And Samsung has its own vertically integrated production chain—they can produce massive quantities of phones without relying on Taiwan at all.
We can see this clearly from the classic example of Apple’s use of chips from both Samsung and TSMC in their phones.
There were frequent reports of Samsung phones exploding that once shocked the world and became taboo in global aviation. The whole world’s experts have already determined that TSMC’s quality far surpasses Samsung’s, yet why does Apple insist on using a high proportion of Samsung chips?
The tie between mainland manufacturing industries and Taiwan runs deepest. Many of our small and medium-sized enterprises and high-tech industries derive considerable revenue from manufacturing in mainland China. You can hate the Communist Party, but you can’t treat the entire world’s factories as invisible.
Taiwan might still be able to maintain its footing through the rivalry between mainland China and America, relying on our own strength (though the current Tsai Ing-wen government has shifted so strongly to one side that we’ve lost this flexibility). South Korea, however, is 100% dependent on looking to America’s face to act in collusion.
How many times have America and South Korea cooperated to suppress Taiwan’s industries? Has everyone forgotten?
Right now, as America wages its trade war to suppress mainland markets, Taiwan’s market is being squeezed in exactly the same way. Not to mention we still have to pay money to buy America’s discarded weapons.