Trump wrong to have Taiwan chip on his shoulder: Tech writer

Taipei, Oct. 25 (CNA) U.S. President Donald Trump got it wrong when he claimed that Taiwan had "taken about 100 percent of our chips business," technology reporter Owen Lin (林宏文) said Saturday.

"Taiwan creates more jobs for Americans and makes affordable, efficient chips for many American companies such as Apple, Nvidia, and Broadcom, allowing their products to be marketed worldwide," he said.

Lin made the remarks at a book launch event in Taipei for the English edition of his "Chip Champion: The Triumph of TSMC and Taiwan," in which he unravels the story behind the success of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) based on his close observation of the world-leading contract chipmaker since its founding in 1987.

Lin added that U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's ambition to have Taiwanese companies manufacture half of America's chips locally would be "difficult within 10 years," citing talent and culture as the two main challenges.

In its effort to revive domestic chip manufacturing, the United States "needs to collaborate with Asian allies such as Japan, South Korea, and especially Taiwan," which respectively hold advantages in equipment, materials, memory, and wafer foundry, Lin said.

While TSMC's significance has come under the spotlight in recent years amid rising geopolitical tensions, Lin noted in the Chinese edition that he aimed to reveal the keys to the company's success, which had long been overlooked.

"In my view, Taiwan's transformation into a 'chip island' is a testament to visionary leadership, strategic planning, and relentless innovation," he wrote in the English foreword.

Lin was joined at Saturday's event by former TSMC deputy spokesperson Elizabeth Sun (孫又文) and Alpha Ring International Chair Peter Kurz.

Sun, who retired six years ago from the world's largest contract chipmaker, said she found the book "entertaining" and "accurate in many things," especially in Lin's attribution of TSMC's success to government support, founder Morris Chang's (張忠謀) leadership, and the contributions of its employees.

However, Sun expressed her hope that the media would no longer "describe the company's hardworking employees as people who are willing to sell their liver to earn a living," saying such portrayals are "very disrespectful" because the staff work with "a sense of achievement, pride and mission."

According to Sun, TSMC is "a learning organization that learns from its mistakes" to prevent them from recurring. "When problems occur, people do not point fingers at each other but instead get to the root cause to fix it and make sure it does not happen again. That's TSMC's culture," she said.

That characteristic, which Sun referred to as a "solid DNA inside TSMC," is also detailed in Lin's book.

The English edition, published by Good Morning Press, is the fourth language version following the original traditional Chinese edition released in 2023 and subsequent Japanese and Korean translations.