Taiwanese national security officials want to force Apple supplier Foxconn to unwind an $800mn investment in Chinese chip company Tsinghua Unigroup, as Taipei seeks to align itself more closely with the US in the face of escalating threats from Beijing.
The investment by Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer and the biggest private-sector employer in China, was announced last month and made the group the second-largest shareholder in Tsinghua. But the deal put one of Taiwan’s biggest companies at the centre of Beijing’s growing technology competition with the west.
“This will definitely not go through,” said a senior Taiwanese government official involved in national security issues.