In a bid to curb new technology leakage to Russia, the Taiwan government has announced to tighten its export restrictions to Russia as part of sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine. The move looks to block technology and chips from Taiwan from being used for Russian military purposes.
Taiwan is a major chip supplier globally but just has symbolic direct trade between the island and Russia. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Cabinet said in an announcement that any companies wishing to export a long list of tech-related goods to Russia would need to seek permission.
The move has been made “in order to prevent our country from exporting high-tech goods to Russia for the production of military weapons”, the Cabinet added.
The list of tech-backed goods being put on the restrictive list for Russia includes equipment for making semiconductors, the production of which Taiwan is a world leader in, as well as lasers and navigation systems.
The Taiwanese Economy Ministry meanwhile, added that it “urges industry to follow the export control laws, conduct due diligence before exporting, and avoid exporting products from the ‘Russian export list’ that can be used for weapons proliferation to Russia without approval.”
It said it had produced the list based upon what other allied countries were doing and that in total it covered 57 ‘controlled items’.
A US official said last week that Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, had exited the Russian market, cutting off the Moscow Center of SPARC Technologies‘ access to Elbrus chips, which are widely used in Russian intelligence and military systems.
