Taiwan’s Chips Remain Core of Technopolitics
Taipei, Taiwan at night on March 19, 2019. (Steffen Flor, https://flic.kr/p/2fyJKZU; CC BY-SA 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)
Jiang Jinquan, a top Chinese policy official, wrote in a state media outlet on Jan. 25 that China’s choice to seek technological independence from the United States was “inevitable.” Jiang’s article is the latest Chinese publication to emphasize the role of semiconductors, which have taken center stage in the technological competition between the United States and China. Semiconductors are a key element in China’s plan for technological independence.
The field of cutting-edge chip manufacturing is narrowing, now occupied by just a handful of companies: U.S.-based Intel, Samsung of South Korea, Taiwan’s TSMC and China’s SMIC. SMIC lags TSMC in production, and Intel is falling behind too; on Jan. 21, Intel announced that it would outsource some chip production to Samsung and TS