Vanguard eyeing M&A for expansion

HARD PRESSED: The company said it is unable to meet some customers’ demand as rising 5G smartphone penetration and an auto sector recovery drive up chip demand Vanguard International Semiconductor Co (世界先進) yesterday said it is seeking new merger-and-acquisition (M&A) opportunities and other ways to expand capacity, as increasing 5G smartphone penetration and a pick-up in the automotive sector are fueling demand for its chips. The company is also counting on a rebound in the global economy, which is forecast to grow 5 percent this year after contracting by an estimated 4 percent last year, amid optimism that the COVID-19 pandemic would be tamed as vaccinations spread, it said. Vanguard, which makes power management chips and driver ICs for flat panels, is feeling the robust demand. The chipmaker said its factories are already running at full capacity and are unable to fill some customers’ demand. It has recently implemented a new pricing scheme, charging higher prices if customers want to secure additional capacity that still needs to be built. “Demand for 8-inch wafers is pretty strong, mainly driven by the work-from-home, remote learning and stay-at-home entertainment trends, amid the pandemic,” company chairman Fang Leuh (方略) told reporters during the year-end media gathering in Taipei. Demand for driver ICs for flat panels used in TVs, notebooks and other devices are all on the rise, causing widespread supply constraints, Fang said. Overall, the demand for power management chips outpaces supply by more than 10 percent, estimates by some industry researchers showed. “Vanguard will continue to invest in new capacity expansion to support customers’ demand and growth,” Fang said. “Seeking a merger-and-acquisition deal is a direction the management is looking at.” Aside from M&As, Vanguard plans to add a capacity of 10,000 8-inch wafers at its Singapore fab this year and is also considering boosting the capacity of a local fab. A run-up in the penetration rate of 5G smartphones this year is giving a further boost to semiconductor demand, Fang said. Globally, 5G smartphones are forecast to account

Price drops key to 5G handsets’ rise: Samsung

The nation’s 5G smartphone penetration rate is forecast to climb to 80 percent by the end of the year, as more affordable handsets become commercially available, Samsung Electronics Taiwan Co (台灣三星電子) said yesterday. “The price of entry-level 5G handsets will probably drop to NT$7,000 to NT$8,000 by the end of the year,” Samsung Taiwan vice president Jacob Chen (陳啟蒙) told reporters during the launch of the company’s new flagship S21 5G smartphone series in Taipei. That represents a significant price drop from NT$12,000 at present, he said. Samsung is lowering handset prices as 5G component supply chains mature, Chen said, adding that folding phones are also likely to see a price drop. Prices for the S21 series are NT$4,000 to NT$7,000 lower compared with the previous generation. Samsung expects sales of the new 5G phones to increase 20 percent compared with the S20 series, Chen said. “The sales of flagship handsets were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020,” he said. However, market penetration for 5G accounts would lag significantly behind handset penetration, he said. “Telecoms have been proactive in encouraging users to upgrade to 5G, but so far we haven’t seen a ‘killer app,’” he said. Following the debut of 5G services last year, about 35 percent of Taiwanese mobile users are forecast to upgrade to 5G services by the end of this year, Chen said. Noting that handsets priced at more than NT$20,000 account for 40 percent of the Taiwanese market, but make up 70 percent of the market value, Chen said the focus for Samsung is on the flagship model market. “We aim to be No. 1 in the Taiwan high-end Android market,” he said. The S21, S21+ and S21 Ultra are to go on sale on Jan. 29 in Taiwan.

Bank advises caution on investing

Investors are advised to remain cautious and avoid stocks with high price-to-earnings (PE) ratios, weak cash flows and low earnings growth, as equity markets are overheating, Standard Chartered Bank Taiwan Ltd (渣打台灣銀行) said on Tuesday. “We do not think that major stock markets are in a bubble now, although some securities’ PE ratios have been pushed too high as their share prices advanced,” head of investment strategy Allen Liu (劉家豪) told the Taipei Times at a meeting in Taipei. Liu was referring to the ratio of a company’s stock price to its earnings per share. Companies with high PE ratios are often regarded as overvalued. “However, given ample funds due to governments’ relaxed monetary policies and quantitative-easing programs, companies with high PE ratios are not necessarily bad targets,” Liu said. Companies with high PE ratios could still be worth a look if their earnings are expected to grow this year, as higher earnings per share would drive down their PE ratios to a more reasonable level, he said. Besides, firms that would benefit from future economic trends, such as digitalization or self-driving vehicles, could be good targets as their growth momentum could last longer, he said. That is why some local tech stocks, whose profits have not risen significantly, have kept on advancing, as investors are banking on them benefiting from these trends, Liu said. “It is safer and more important to buy the right stocks at a higher cost than buying cheap, but wrong stocks,” he added. Investors should also check companies’ cash flow, he said. A company that forecasts rising profits, but has cash flow problems might not be trustworthy, he said. HSBC Global Asset Management Taiwan Ltd (匯豐中華證券投信) chief investment officer Julian Lin (林經堯) on Wednesday also said that stock markets are not in a bubble yet, as governments’ quantitative easing programs are forecast to continue. Given

EDITORIAL: CECC data must not fuel threats

The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Wednesday announced the public locations that a doctor and his girlfriend who were recently diagnosed with COVID-19 had visited after being infected.Contact-tracing efforts have helped Taiwan stay a step ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, but is all the information that gets released to the public about infected people necessary? A New Zealand pilot who was diagnosed with the virus made international headlines after he in December last year visited public places following his mandatory three-day quarantine, spreading the infection to others. Although the CECC did not publish his name, announcing his nationality and employer was enough for people to track down his identity and plaster the Internet with his picture. The CECC might have wanted to inform members of the public about a heightened risk of infection in some public places at certain times. However, some people directed their anger at all New Zealanders, or even all foreign residents in Taiwan. The information released by the CECC also led to a Taiwanese woman being attacked on social media after she was mistakenly identified as the woman who the pilot allegedly had an extramarital relationship with. In the same month, a Filipino migrant worker also made international headlines when he was fined NT$100,000 for briefly stepping into the hallway of his quarantine hotel. His actions might have put workers at the hotel at risk, but he did not pose much risk to the public beyond that limited group. The report merely served to demonize an already marginalized group of people. Comments on Chinese-language news about COVID-19 cases among migrant workers have often been xenophobic, with people lambasting the government for allowing them into the country and accusing them of sapping medical resources. It is questionable why the nationality of a person infected with COVID-19 has to be revealed,

Virus exposed Taiwan, China, US

The year 2020 will go down in history. Certainly, if for nothing else, it will be remembered as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic and the continuing impact it has had on the world. All nations have had to deal with it; none escaped. As a virus, COVID-19 has known no bounds. It has no agenda or ideology; it champions no cause. There is no way to bully it, gaslight it or bargain with it. Impervious to any hype, posturing, propaganda or commands, it ignores such and simply attacks. All nations, big or small, are on a level playing field when facing it. They either handle it or grapple with the consequences. However, for Taiwan, China and the US, three nations that have had a complex triangular relationship since the end of World War II, there is more. For them, it will also be remembered as the year of new exposure and unmasking; it has proven to be a turning point in their relationships. As the source of the virus, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the most unmasked. At first, its leaders, in true authoritarian fashion, tried to hide its existence. Just as with SARS, they hoped to contain the damage before it would spread far and wide, and the virus would realize its danger. That failed. As COVID-19 spread, the next step was to try to shift the blame to its neighboring nations and hide the body count while punishing whistle-blowers. The true number of deaths in China is still unknown and will probably never be known. The PRC has published figures, but they are unreliable; the credibility of the PRC is gone. How could the most populous country in the world, where the virus originates and which has allowed it to spread, rank 82nd among all nations

Empathy for those with depression benefits all

Responding to recent tragedies on university campuses, the National Taiwan University (NTU) Student Association proposed an “accommodated study” system — a mechanism allowing students to apply for specially adapted course requirements and student guidance from specialists — and a university affairs meeting on Saturday last week passed a resolution adopting it. When students experience mental illness or have serious emotional trouble that affects their studies to the point of keeping them from completing their course requirements, the system would allow them, through an interview and evaluation by specialists, to be granted adapted requirements. These could include extended deadlines for handing in coursework or the permission to take a break halfway through an exam, thus giving students with mental illness equal study opportunities. The changes would greatly benefit the students. However, a society that has a poor understanding of mental illness, even stigmatizes it, complicates running such a system effectively without complementary measures. In clinical situations, we often encounter students with depression whose emotional troubles prevent them from studying as well as their classmates. Consequently, their professors and classmates look down on them, or regard them as peculiar. We also encounter students with suicidal ideation who are told to be more strong-willed, but this can hurt students even more by making them feel that they are not strong-willed enough. In view of this, the NTU Student Association, as well as proposing this “accommodated study” system to the university, could also link up with psychiatric services and specialist organizations such as the Mental Health Association in Taiwan to launch two campus awareness campaigns. The first campaign would help the campus learn about depression, and its purpose would be to destigmatize it. The campaign would tell everyone that people who are depressed have an illness in the brain that makes it difficult for them to regulate their emotions,

N Korea parades new missiles

SHOW OF STRENGTH? Pyongyang’s display of new weaponry is aimed at sending a message to the US ahead of its presidential inauguration, analysts said Nuclear-armed North Korea unveiled a new submarine-launched ballistic missile at a military parade in Pyongyang, state media reported yesterday, in a show of strength days before the inauguration of US president-elect Joe Biden. The parade came after the five-yearly congress of the ruling Workers’ Party, at which the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, decried the US as North Korea’s “foremost principal enemy.” “The world’s most powerful weapon, submarine-launch ballistic missile, entered the square one after another, powerfully demonstrating the might of the revolutionary armed forces,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. Pictures showed at least 12 of the missiles with black-and-white cones being driven past flag-waving crowds. Ankit Panda, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment on International Peace, said that it was a previously unseen weapon. “New year, new Pukguksong,” he wrote on Twitter, using the name for the North’s submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Kim oversaw the display, which included rockets with a “powerful striking capability for thoroughly annihilating enemies in a pre-emptive way outside the territory,” KCNA said, implying a range extending beyond the Korean Peninsula. Images showed the parade ending with what appeared to be a new solid-fuel short-range ballistic missile — which are more mobile and more quickly deployed than liquid-fueled versions. “They’d like us to notice that they’re getting more proficient with larger solid rocket boosters,” Panda tweeted. Analysts say that the North is using the congress to send Washington’s incoming administration a message of strength in an attempt to extract concessions. Kim and US President Donald Trump had a tumultuous relationship, engaging in mutual insults and threats of war before an extraordinary diplomatic bromance featuring headline-grabbing summits and declarations of love by the outgoing US president. However, little substantive progress was made, with the process deadlocked after a February 2019 summit in Hanoi broke down over sanctions relief and what Pyongyang would be willing to

China possibly committed ‘genocide’: US commission

China has possibly committed “genocide” in its treatment of Uighurs and other minority Muslims in its western region of Xinjiang, the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China said in a report on Thursday. The bipartisan commission said that new evidence had last year emerged that “crimes against humanity — and possibly genocide — are occurring” in Xinjiang. It also accused China of harassing Uighurs in the US. China has been widely condemned for setting up complexes in Xinjiang that it describes as “vocational training centers” to stamp out extremism and give people new skills, which others have called concentration camps. The UN says that at least 1 million Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained in Xinjiang. Faith leaders, activist groups and others have said that crimes against humanity, including genocide, are taking place there. Beijing denies the accusations and the Chinese embassy in Washington said that the commission was “obsessed with making up all sorts of lies to vilify China.” “The so-called ‘genocide’ is a rumor deliberately started by some anti-China forces and a farce to discredit China,” an embassy spokesperson said. The report called for a formal US “determination on whether atrocities are being committed” in Xinjiang, something required within 90 days of US legislation passed on Dec. 27 last year. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in his final days in office before US president-elect Joe Biden succeeds US President Donald Trump on Wednesday next week, has already been weighing a determination. However, given the current turmoil in Washington, officials have played down the possibility of an announcement before that. US Representative Jim McGovern, a Democrat who cochairs the commission, called China’s actions to crush human rights “shocking and unprecedented” and urged Congress and the incoming Biden administration to hold Beijing accountable. “The United States must continue to stand with the people of China in their struggle,

Bangladesh refugee camp fire leaves thousands homeless

A huge fire on Thursday tore through a Rohingya refugee camp, destroying more than 550 shanty homes. While 3,500 people were left homeless, no casualties were reported, aid agencies said. The blaze started when most people in the sprawling Nayapara camp were asleep. Tens of thousands of members of the Muslim minority who in 2017 fled a military crackdown in neighboring Myanmar live in the overcrowded camp. International aid agencies said in a joint statement that it took firefighters two hours to bring the “devastating” fire under control. “Very fortunately, no deaths or serious injuries have been reported, and the few people with minor injuries have been released after initial treatment,” the Inter-Sector Coordination Group said. The agencies estimated that some 3,500 people had been left homeless after more than 550 of the tin and bamboo shelters were destroyed along with a community center and several shops. The fire started at about 2:00am and was suspected to have been caused by a cooking cylinder, Bangladeshi Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Rezwan Hayat said. About 10 people had been injured, he said. Residents quoted by aid workers said that huge flames quickly engulfed the shanties. “We have immediately supplied hot food and bamboo and tarpaulins to the affected people to reconstruct their homes,” Hayat said. Nayapara is one of a string of camps in the Cox’s Bazar district of southeastern Bangladesh where more than 900,000 Rohingya live. About 700,000 fled across the border in 2017 after the Myanmar crackdown that the UN has said could be genocide. Save the Children country director in Bangladesh Onno van Manen said that the fire was “another devastating blow for the Rohingya people who have endured unspeakable hardship for years.” The fire was “another ghastly reminder” that children in the camps “face a bleak future with little freedom of movement, inadequate access to education, poverty, serious

Cycling Shorts: If you build it, they will ride

A new section of Taipei City bike path will open soon along the southern bank of Jingmei River (景美溪). Discovery of this missing link by members of Skeleton Crew, a Taipei-based group of cyclists that grew out of off-season training by dragon boat racers, reignited debate about how many kilometers of bike path there now are in Taipei. Their guesstimates ranged from 60 to almost 400 kilometers, though calculations used different criteria and definitions. Some said “Taipei means Taipei City,” others that this would be silly since it was too easy to cross unknowingly into New Taipei City, Keelung City or even Taoyuan County. Yet others raised the problem of non-contiguous sections, such as short lengths along the north coast or that along Daiyujue River (逮魚崛溪) in New Taipei City’s Pinglin District (坪林), which, passing blossoming banks and echoing with birdsong, is often touted as the area’s nicest ride. This led to debate about the relative aesthetic merits of various rides, and best places to stop for snacks, meals and beverages. Map apps were downloaded, estimates revised but, ultimately, it was decided there was only one way to measure the entire network: the Skeleton Crew would cycle a route along all the rivers in and around the Taipei area that was contiguous and never doubled back on itself. Normally the Skeleton Crew wouldn’t consider riding riverside bike paths on weekends when they teem with other cyclists, many on rentals and YouBikes, often in large groups chatting or veering randomly and stopping suddenly, never imagining there might be 100 kilograms of lycra-and-steel hurtling behind them at 30kph. And so it should be, because the riverside bike paths are a wonderful way for non-cyclists to get a safe taste of this healthy, economic, convenient, non-climate-change-gas-emitting means of transportation. After all, one of the key

Highways & Byways: Beigang: A tale of temples, dogs and frogs

Decapitated and eviscerated, the two frogs lay on their backs in a clear broth. Noticing that other diners didn’t hesitate to pile toothpick-thin bones and bits of mottled skin on their tables, I set to work with chopsticks and spoon. I was winding up a day trip to Beigang (北港), the religious capital of Yunlin County, when I strolled east onto Minjhu Road (民主路) from Wenhua Road (文化路) and came across this eatery. I’d gone to the intersection to see an obelisk that honors the man regarded as Beigang’s founding father. The Yan Si-ci Pioneering of Taiwan Monument (顏思齊開拓台灣紀念碑) celebrates the arrival in 1621 — or possibly 1622 or 1624 — of Yan Si-ci (顏思齊), a Chinese trader who’d been living in Japan. Some say he left Japan because he took part in an unsuccessful uprising against the shogunate. Others think that changes to the business environment forced him to seek pastures new. Whatever Yan’s motives, the 13-ship convoy he led dropped anchor here. His followers unloaded their supplies, and did their best to establish themselves in a place that the local Aboriginal people called Ponkan. The new arrivals recorded this toponym as Bengang (笨港, literally “stupid harbor”). It wasn’t until well into the 19th century that this odd place name was replaced by the insult-free Beigang (“north harbor”). CHAOTIAN TEMPLE I’d begun the day at the house of worship that gives Beigang its cultural and spiritual significance. Chaotian Temple (朝天宮), founded in 1694, is a key center of the Matsu cult. The pious come from all over southern and central Taiwan to pray to the sea goddess. However, because of a falling out between the leaders of Chaotian Temple and those in charge at Dajia Jenn Lann Temple (大甲鎮瀾宮), the famous annual multi-day pilgrimage that honors Matsu each spring no longer passes through

Some shining lights to cheer up dark nights

Music of all genres can provide hope and inspiration, cheer us up when we are down or encapsulate our despair when we are feeling low and just want to wallow for a while. Songs are the hallmarks by which we measure life’s passages. Tunes from Broadway musicals serve this role well, which is why five artists with backgrounds in musical theater and opera, who found themselves safely ensconced in Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic, decided to do something to cheer people up. The result is Bright Lights for Dark Nights (曙光再現 音樂劇之旅), billed as “an international musical extravaganza,” which opened at a performance space in Taipei’s Nangang Bottle Cap Factory last night for a four-show run, featuring songs from musicals of the past 50 years. The two-act production starts with songs from darker musicals to symbolize the angst that so many people felt last year, with songs from well-known productions such as The Phantom of the Opera, Wicked and Hamilton to those from shows that might not be as well known to local audiences, such as Spring Awakening, Hadestown and Bonnie and Clyde. Act 2 focuses on the light at the end of the tunnel and the bright lights of Broadway with songs such as Don’t Rain on my Parade, Bring Him Home, Move On and Songs for a New World. Australian Paul Whiteley, an actor/singer/musician turned event promoter, is one of the producers of the program as well as a performer. His resume includes Australian productions as well as international tours of shows such as The Phantom of the Opera. Bonnie Lin (林姿吟) is a bel canto soprano with a background in opera and musicals as a performer and choreographer, as well as a television show host. Mandarin Wu (吳曉清) is a professional singer and dancer and has taught musical theater, dance and choreography

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SPEAK UP ! 雙語會話

The toys we had when we were young (5/5) 我們小時候玩的玩具（五） A: And then later, when we were teenagers, we put away the toys and played with games consoles instead. B: Ah yes, simplistic game scenarios and block graphics, with low quality audio and visual effects. A: That’s right. And they came on tapes that wore out after a couple of months because we played the games every night after school. B: They’re not a fraction of the quality or sophistication of the current generation of computer games, but I used to love playing those. A: It was just the generation we were in, I guess. B: That’s right. And if you had been born into this generation, you would be staring intently at your mobile phone. Like those two over there. A: 然後我們變成青少年以後，就把玩具丟掉，開始玩遊戲機了。 B: 喔，對呀，那種遊戲場景非常簡單，圖形解析度超低，聲音和視覺效果的品質都很差。 A: 沒錯，而且這些遊戲是用錄音帶輸入，卡帶兩個月就壞了，因為我們放學回家每天晚上都在玩。 B: 它們無論是品質或是精緻度，都遠遠比不上現在的遊戲，可是我那時候好愛玩那些遊戲喔。 A: 我猜這只是因為我們是處在那個世代吧。 B: 沒錯。如果你是生在這個世代，你現在就會聚精會神地看著手機，就像那邊那兩位一樣。 （Paul Cooper, Taipei Times／台北時報林俐凱譯） English 英文: Chinese 中文:

SPEAK UP ! 雙語會話

A: Some toys were cool, some were badly conceived and some were toxic. B: Toxic? What do you mean? A: I had a collection of cartoon figurines. They were part of a promotion from a gas station. It turns out there was lead in the paint used on them. They had to be withdrawn. Lead paint is toxic. B: I remember those. They later reintroduced them with non-toxic paint, didn’t they? And the ones with the safe paint had a little blue spot on the base of the foot to distinguish them from the poisonous ones. A: That’s right. So I built up a second collection. I came home from school one day to find my younger brother had used them to enact a battle scene, and had stained them with red paint to represent blood. That was another set ruined. B: Well, your brother was using his imagination. I thought you just said that was a good thing. A: 有些玩具很酷，有些設計得不好，也有些有毒。 B: 有毒？這是什麼意思？ A: 我收集了一些小的卡通人物模型，這是一家加油站的促銷活動送的。結果後來發現這些模型用的塗料含有鉛，他們只好把這些模型召回。含有鉛的油漆是有毒的。 B: 我記得這件事。後來他們又開始送使用無鉛塗料的玩具，對吧？這些使用安全塗料的玩具底座就有一個藍色的點，用來跟那些有毒的玩具做區別。 A: 沒錯。所以我就收集了第二套。有一天我放學回家，發現我弟用這些模型來扮演戰爭的場面，在上面灑了紅色油漆來代表血。所以我第二套收集也毀了。 B: 嗯，你弟弟是在運用他的想像力啊。你剛剛不是說運用想像力是件好事嗎？ （Paul Cooper, Taipei Times／台北時報林俐凱譯） English 英文: Chinese 中文: