TSMC Shines: Chen Shui-bian’s Remarks Bring Justice to KMT

 A Commentary

TSMC Shines: Chen Shui-bian’s Remarks Bring Justice to KMT

Source: Zhu Zhong-kang (祝仲康), a think-tank research fellow, UDN, and China Times

July 28, 2020

Yesterday, the stock price of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, closed at NT$424.5, hitting a new high, making it the world’s 11^th most valuable corporation with its market capitalization increasing to NT$11.74 trillion (approx. US$370 billion).

With regard to TSMC boosting the development of the semiconductor industry in Taiwan, former President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) referred to, on July 22, two major contributors behind the scenes, i.e., Sun Yun-suan (孫運璿), a former Premier, and Li Kwoh-ting (李國鼎), known as the “Godfather of Technology” in Taiwan, also a former minister of state without portfolio, both under the Chiang Ching-kuo administration. Chen went on to point out that Li and Sun jointly played the role of a midwife to the Hsinchu Science Park, praising them as “the major founders for the technology industry in Taiwan” and as “crucial backstage pushers for Taiwan’s economy.”

Chen’s remarks are pertinent and tantamount to bringing justice to the KMT. In the past, when talking about the KMT, the DPP always kept fixating on authoritarianism, the 2/28 Incident of 1947, and the White Terror. Therefore, Chen’s praise for Li and Sun not only has reinstated the KMT’s reputation, but also has made public the KMT’s great foresight and outstanding contributions to Taiwan.

[Editor’s note: Taiwan’s important supply chain to IT industries around the world would not have been so successful without another crucial factor, i.e., Taiwan’s joining GATT, (later the WTO) in the last decade of the 20th century.

[With all efforts, the KMT government strived against all odds to join GATT under the category of separate custom’s territory. At first, very few people gave the bold move much chance of success, but eventually Taiwan’s dream came true. Although the signing of accession was done in the year 2000 after the Chen Shui-bian government came to power, everybody knew that 99.9% of the groundwork had been accomplished under the KMT administration.

[By gaining a seat in the WTO, we automatically became a member of ITA, or Information Technology Agreement under the WTO, wherein all members of the WTO could trade in IT products without tariffs. In the difficult years in which the ROC did not have many diplomatic partners, nor signed meaningful free trade agreements, either bilateral or regional, it was extremely important for our IT industry to gain a foothold in the world market, expanding gradually into one of the global giants.]

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