The Republic of China wants to develop an industry, the drone industry, that the People’s Republic of China currently dominates.
The ROC sees an opportunity because U.S. companies that have been dependent on China-provided drone parts realize that the relationship “has become untenable, particularly as Beijing shows it is willing to cut off their access to essential supplies.”
There’s a problem, though. An additional problem. American drone makers “Fear Beijing’s Wrath” if Taiwanese companies become an important source of an alternate supply chain (Wall Street Journal, January 19, 2025).
Recent examples of Beijing punishing companies for their ties to Taiwan have made U.S. businesses cautious in their efforts to avoid China in the production of drones, an industry where commercial ambitions and national security intersect….
“It’s not just let’s swap out of China and go to Taiwan,” said Mike Sims, co-founder and chief executive of U.S. startup Empirium, a marketplace that helps companies including drone makers find China-free parts and services. “It’s essentially just a delicate business environment.”
The delicacy of working with Taiwan is a challenge to Taiwan’s aspirations to become a powerhouse drone-parts supplier and build a drone army to defend itself against a potential invasion by China, which claims the island as its own.
Is “Beijing’s Wrath” about the wrath of a government that is already indelicately imprisoning Americans and other foreigners in China and indelicately launching massive cyber assaults on U.S. and other companies, among the many indelicate things that China is doing around the world?
If the retaliation that U.S. companies fear is loss of ability to do any business at all with China, this is not a reasonable concern. These firms should be disentangling themselves from China and the Chinese Communist Party in every respect anyway. They should also allow themselves to be motivated by the hope that their patronage will indeed help Taiwan to defend itself from China.
The entire world—all governments, institutions, companies, and commentators—should stop acceding to China’s demand that everybody pretend that the Republic of China is not a country and that nobody deal with it in any way. Since the world will not stop appeasing China all at once, some persons and organizations must lead the way.
