The US War Against Prejudice. . . . . . in the Taiwan Straits

How the US fights itself in the mirror in the name of protection.

America has already had the war on poverty and the war on drugs; isn’t it about time to have the war on prejudice? In this light, what can we make of our military surrounding of Taiwan to protect it from China?

The military operation to arm Taiwan and make it an American zone of “freedom” could not be more ironic. Certainly, we will use our weapons of choice, airplanes, ships, missiles and rockets which are major export items as the military comprises over half our federal budget*. The concern is that Taiwan is the home to the most fantastic chip fabrication foundry in the world. Everybody needs those tiny efficient chips from Taiwan that go in your refrigerator, your watch, your car–even the military runs on them. Indeed, the military has become dependent on these tiny efficient things. It upsets them, for they make the error of assuming the Chinese think just like we do. Our military is acting like China is making an empire of dominance, just like our western model of empire. Thus, they want to “protect” Taiwan from its mother culture. Confused? Yes, it is confusing. The military is directed to go there by the Whitehouse. The military is holding exercises half way around the world to protect Taiwan from China even though the One Country Two Systems policy has been written into the Chinese constitution since the 80s. This is an issue, in my opinion that is not within the US purview to revoke.

The irony is so thick you can cut it with a knife. That genius factory, the chip foundry in Taiwan had the business plan to be so trustworthy in the manufacturing of chips that different corporations could use them. There would be no fear of their designs being stolen. Imagine that for a business environment! It seems crazy as seen from the land of “intellectual property.” To fabricate chips from a variety of designers and corporate entities, and get really, really good at it, and not get into the weeds of design, or more specifically what the designs do.

You might want to ask what was the secret sauce that allowed an island to create this vessel of such great integrity, skill, and big money? The answer would be a Chinese gentleman. This particular person was born in the coastal city of Ningbo just up the coast from Taiwan on the mainland side. Born in 1931 he had to leave due to the Sino-Japanese war. He later went to school at Harvard, MIT, and Stanford. He might be a little smart. He was so good he became head of a fab at Texas Instruments. He then wanted to be CEO. They said, sorry Chang, you’re Chinese. You will never be CEO.

So, this gentleman, Morris Chang, one really literate and genteel engineer, kept looking for possibilities and found that the government of Taiwan wanted to give him a boost. They recognized a really bright industrialist and wanted to set him loose on their island. That was back in 1985 when the Silicon Forest here near Portland, Oregon was a mere garden patch. The author worked within it in the boom times in Oregon of the 90s while Morris was growing the business he founded, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company or TSMC. He originated a new business model: a chip foundry. It is based on integrity and trust. Not competition. No cornering a patent or fuddling with “intellectual property.” Simply honoring the many designs and making those things so well that you probably have one on your person now. A cellphone, iPad, watch; yes, thank you Morris. He has done a remarkable job of making all these energy sipping devices so well and inexpensively that 90% of modern chips are made there. TSMC has started a foundry in Arizona, but found due to land prices, red-tape, and worker quality that the chips from there cost twice as much. So, the problem now seems that the Supremacy model, the “Carry a Big Stick” model, the petro-dollar backed up by guns model wants to “protect” Taiwan.

Well honestly, does the US give a fig about an island off the coast of China? Nope. The people there? I do not think so. Do Americans actually care or think about the people who live on Formosa? Honestly?

I have lived long enough to see war fever hit before. And yet I understand why our military does not want anyone making military strategic equipment with whom they could see themselves in contention. That is the military mind set. But, for me this is consternating. The author worked in the fab business when it was thriving here around Portland, where it still thrives, but not to the extent that it was before it found it was cheaper to farm everything out. We were making those cool things here, in my back yard. Now we want to threaten a nuclear war because Morris beat us at our own game of cheaper is better.

Morris really wanted to show his stuff, here in the USA, in Silicon valley. Sorry, Chang, not in this white man’s country. OK, he said, in his very balanced way, I will seek opportunity where it can work for me. He did not name that prejudice, nor would he. He is the epitome of a Chinese gentleman.

The irony of this slow moving drama of prejudice is backlit by this very week’s (4–7–23) expulsion of two black representatives from the Tennessee capital of Nashville for breaching decorum. They wanted to emphasize the madness of allowing children to be machine gunned down at school in the name of gun rights. “We must have decorum,” the Super Majority leader said in ejecting them. Similarly the US must surround this island which is part of China that accepted this Chinese genius when America could make no place for him.

Can you see how this is a war on prejudice? In its most stark form ask yourself if you are willing to go to war with China because, um, we are prejudiced against Morris Chang? Our own prejudice in America is against the Chinese. We may sell it as a war for freedom. . . but really? We want that Chip Foundry. And we are afraid that China’s version of empire is the same as ours, and we are afraid of that. We don’t want to be dominated. But we are so entangled in our western thinking.

I do not consider myself a “China hand” although I have studied Chinese thought for over half a century. I do not read characters. Understanding Chinese medicine has allowed me good health with no pharmaceuticals now that I have outlived the average American male. But I am nothing special, for now the average Chinese is expected to do the same as of 2020. Same with the average Taiwan male living to 77.5 and female to 83.9. Taiwan has single payer healthcare as mainland China has universal health care like most advanced countries, and spends on average about $900 vs the US nearly $11,000 a year on health per capita. You might see one reason why they may not look forward to being “liberated.”

I know China has been an empire from time to time over the millennia and yet not of our western colonial variety. They take the long-term view, and the quality of mutual benefit is enduring. Our view of empire is a vision of dominance, taken from the European colonial model and as any reader of history can see, it is pocked with wars as regular as the seasons. China too has had its wars but is not hooked on the dependence/dominance view with which we keep our allies in the net. With us, if you want oil, you had better buy it with dollars. If you suggest that it be bought with any other currency (Hello Iraq, Hello Iran, Hello Russia, Hello Libya), you will have some military consequences. My interpretation of China’s view of empire is different. I know more about how those wise ancient Chinese think or thought than I know about their history. I have studied them because I believe they think well. And yet, wow, is their thinking ever different from ours. It has taken a while.

So how to put the point on our fighting ourselves in the mirror? We are trying to ‘liberate’ the island of Taiwan because an American educated Chinese gentleman runs an extraordinary chip foundry there. And we wish to ‘hold the bag’ of essentials of modern life which was oil and will be those tiny energy sipping chips in the future. The petro-dollar is getting long in the tooth.

Sorry, Morris Chang, that we could not make a place for you within our business culture. Does this mean we must go to war with China? Even as we force China to buy oil from Russia. As you might guess, this does not make much sense from where I sit. The Chinese can understand strategic ambiguity which looks like a paradox to us. But to me, this US version of surrounding China as if it is going to go somewhere is . . cockiesquabble, it makes no sense. They like that spot. Their name for us is ‘Meiguo’ or Beautiful Kingdom. One must ask, what is our aim?

Well, you can see why I call this a War against Prejudice. or Fighting Ourselves in the Mirror. What would you call it? More importantly, how do we stop it?

Confessions of the Author

I have loved things Chinese since I was a boy when on special occasions I got to eat at Chinese restaurants on Grant Avenue in Chinatown. I have only been to China once and never to Taiwan, but I helped establish the Suzhou-Portland Sister City relation from which the Portland Chinese Garden arose, a placid place, renewing to the soul.

My visit to China was back in 1986 just after Mao had died and the USSR was then led by M Gorbachev to end the cold war for which he would receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The Chinese health expenditure per capita then was $24 a year. Their lifespan was 68.5 then, now it is 77.5. Ours today is just 76.4 and falling. My fascination centered around Chinese Medicine for I built an acupuncture clinic in 1981 led by a young gentleman who had studied in Taiwan which is how I came to understand it as a distillation vessel for Chinese wisdom. His understanding was the Classical Chinese Medicine (CCM) view, as opposed to the cookbook version of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Tibetan Llamas went to this guy when he was a mere 33. This ancient knowledge sure has served me well and I am trying to apply their relational philosophy of health to the economy. Those Chinese stay put and have wonderful deep soil. We westerners of the desert religions tend to leave deserts behind somehow. We may attribute that to a love of travel, but I see a twinge of colonialism within it.

While I believe we are a social animal, as we speak languages together and feed one another, I am not especially intrigued with communism nor capitalism and what they have done to the landscape. Our economy has not yet digested robots, even as they swallow our farmland. Yet, yes there is, and always has been autocratic rule. China is so much bigger than communism, just as I hope America is better than capitalism. I know we cannot manufacture our way out of our assault on the environment just as I do not see us saving the liberty of man by having a fight over the relation of China and Taiwan. I just want the seasons to get back on their axis which will be done by a change from industrial farming and forestry practices and less burning, burning, be it caused by arms, bombs, fossil fuels or forest fires, each of which shortens the prospects for humanity.

End

• *yes we exited the twenty years war in Afghanistan last year, but our war budget is even higher now.
• Morris Chang is 92 and does not deserve the world’s slings and arrows. He has created an energy efficient jewel you likely have in your pocket. Please offer him good will, and offer peace in retracting our US military fangs.