This talk explores Dr Lee Chun-Yi’s ongoing research on semiconductor design and production in the United States, Taiwan and China, as well as the inter-connections between them in the global semiconductor supply chain. Drawing from concepts such as the national security state (Weiss, 2014) and the ‘techno security state’ (Cheung, 2022), it asks whether the semiconductor industry is a junction for the intersection of industrial policy and economic statecraft. Semiconductors are a dual use technology, meaning they have both civilian and military applications (Patrick, 1986). As a result, the semiconductor industry can serve as an instructive case study when thinking about the divergence – and convergence – of national industrial and economic policies in contexts of inter-state competition and collaboration.
The selected case studies embody different models of how states relate to private industry, ranging from authoritarian ‘state capitalism’ in China (Naughton and Tsai, 2015), to Taiwan, which has embraced a free market economy after a period spent as a developmental state (Greene, 2008). Meanwhile, the role of industrial policies in the US (as another free-market economy) is subject to debate (Graham, 1992). Data for this research was taken from semi-structured interviews in Taiwan and the US, and material from nine different Chinese media outlets. Taking an approach founded in IPE, this research shows that the semiconductor industry complexifies our understanding of the state’s involvement in industrial and technology policy.