TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey called on Taiwan to believe it can defeat a Chinese invasion and to redirect its semiconductor and advanced manufacturing capabilities toward defense uses.
The Free Press invited Luckey to a panel hosted by Bari Weiss, editor-in-chief of CBS News, in Washington on Oct. 6. The video was posted on Saturday, per CNA. Weiss mentioned Luckey’s August speech urging Taiwan to use its technology to bolster its defenses, and asked why he felt it was important to send this message.
Luckey said that just as he thinks it is important for Americans that it is not too late for the US to change China’s decision to invade Taiwan, “you want Taiwan to believe the same thing.” He emphasized that “They need to believe that they could win that fight and that there are decisions they could make that would cause them to win it.”
He said the moment Taiwanese believe they cannot win is the moment China has already won. “If Taiwan really believes that they can't win, that this is inevitable, they're going to get rolled. That is the moment that China knows that they can get away with it,” said Luckey.
Therefore, he said, it is vital that Taiwanese believe they can win.
Luckey also said Taiwan is one of five countries in the world that could “credibly build their own industrial base to build weapons of their own design, own components from scratch from nothing that can go toe-to-toe with China.” The other countries on his list were the US, Japan, South Korea, and Germany.
He stressed that this is an exclusive list and said, “They need to be proud of that and they need to leverage the hell out of that.”
He suggested that Taiwan use its national industries to produce not only semiconductors for export but also semiconductors for defense. “Not just sensors for your smartphones and for digital cameras, but missile seekers. Not just carbon-fiber bicycles, but carbon-fiber cruise missiles,” said Luckey.
