Media Mention: Council President talks about Taiwan on CNN International

US-Taiwan Business Council President Rupert Hammond-Chambers appeared on First Move with Julia Chatterley on CNN International on August 3, 2022. He talked about the visit to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the potential economic and political implications of tensions in the Taiwan Strait for U.S. businesses.

Most technology companies at some level are engaged with Taiwan, given its prowess in the technology supply chain. [They have to] deal with the tensions in the Taiwan Strait and the differences between China and Taiwan politically. And yet they have still deployed billions and billions of dollars’ worth of capital, and money continues to flow in. … It can look contradictory given what’s just happened, or is happening, around Mrs. Pelosi’s trip.

 

There’s also a COVID piece to supply chain disruption and how companies are looking at supply chains that run into China. That’s also hugely important in the changes that companies are making. … In respect to how capital is deployed for businesses and how they look at Taiwan, it is partly tensions in the Taiwan Strait, and it’s partly a broader lesson learned post-COVID – what companies should do about putting too many eggs in one basket, the China basket, and how they might necessarily shift investment into South Asia, Southeast, Asia, and perhaps Europe. … Actually, capital is also returning to Taiwan. We’ve seen a significant expansion, particularly from supply chain partners for the big tech guys, back into Taiwan.

 

I think the concern from our organization is the potential for regression to pre-2017, when we had a bipartisan accommodationist approach to China. [We] had the U.S. and our policy interests on the back foot, with China assertive and ascendant. That was a significant problem for businesses. … But what it really meant, as a practical matter, was that China was in the driver’s seat. IP was being stolen, trade secrets were being stolen, we had real problems with the Chinese where there was just wasn’t significant pushback from 2000 through to 2017. Mr. Trump comes in, there’s a shift – it is bipartisan, Democrats supported that shift – and in fairness to Mr. Biden, it continued through most of last year.

 

But now we’re starting to see a worrying shift that we may be entertaining the notion that China’s considerations, its interests in the Strait, are going to be ascendant again in U.S. policy. That worries U.S. investors because we, the U.S. business community, wants to feel like the U.S. government has its back in investing in Taiwan. … And when that isn’t the case, it causes concern all the way up and down the companies.

Source: CNN

CNN’s First Move with Julia Chatterley – Interview with Rupert Hammond-Chambers