Taiwan tech firms face pressure from China-US tension

Significance

Among these, Taiwan has a crucial and outsized influence in the global digital economy, in hardware manufacturing in particular. Growing China-US tensions now threaten to politicise a sector that has successfully navigated the ups and downs of cross-Strait relations for decades.

Impacts

• Technology-related economic questions will play a growing role in Taiwan’s relation with both the United States and China.
• Other countries can benefit from the diversification of Taiwanese firms away from China.
• It will take years for China’s semiconductor manufactures to close the gap with their Taiwanese counterparts, if they ever do.