Business
Taiwan’s Chips: Caught in the Crossfire
Global tech’s delicate balance hangs precariously as a major island’s chips dominance becomes a flashpoint in the escalating economic tensions between two leading global powers. Both nations, despite their increasing economic divergence fueled by rising tariffs, share an undeniable and critical reliance: semiconductors produced by this key player. Navigating this intricate dependence is proving to be one of the most complex policy hurdles in their ongoing economic engagement.
Both leading economies view this island’s control over the world’s tech supply chain as a significant national security concern. Consequently, both have initiated efforts to bolster their own domestic chip manufacturing capabilities. However, as the sheer difficulty of replicating the sophisticated ecosystem built over decades by this island’s industry becomes starkly apparent, the two powers are adopting distinctly different strategies to manage their reliance on it and its leading chip manufacturer.
One major economy has recently launched a national security investigation into semiconductor imports, a move that could lead to the imposition of tariffs on the entire sector. A prominent domestic chip designer recently disclosed that it now requires government authorization to export advanced artificial intelligence chips to the other major economy. Public statements from its leadership have previously raised concerns about the island’s market position.
Conversely, the other major economy is taking a different approach. A recent directive from a state-backed trade organization there outlined exemptions for a significant portion of advanced chips from its tariffs on goods from the first major economy. Analysts suggest this move stems from a clear understanding of its critical need for these advanced components and a desire to prevent the ongoing economic engagement from hindering its access.
The result is that many cutting-edge chips, designed by companies in the first major economy but manufactured on the island, will not be subject to tariffs imposed by the second. While these chips might ultimately be acquired by companies in the first economy and then sold to entities in the second, for tariff purposes, the second economy will not consider these chips as originating from the first.
This marks a departure from conventional trade policy. Typically, the origin of a chip is determined by the location where the final stages of production, such as packaging, occur. However, the second major economy will now consider the location where the intricate circuits are etched onto the silicon wafers as the point of origin.
Much like its predecessor, the current leadership of the first major economy is actively trying to incentivize the island’s primary chip manufacturer and other foreign producers to establish more manufacturing facilities on its own soil. While previous approaches involved financial incentives, the current strategy includes the potential use of tariffs to encourage significant investment.
This diverging approach from the second major economy effectively presents a challenge to the long-standing efforts by multiple administrations in the first to revitalize its domestic chip manufacturing, according to a senior technology analyst at a prominent think tank. This is seen by some as a strategic maneuver with implications for tariff burdens and manufacturing locations.
A semiconductor research director at a leading analysis firm further noted that the second major economy’s strategy could also provide a competitive advantage to its own domestic chip manufacturers.
The production of advanced semiconductors is characterized by intricate and globally dispersed supply chains. Many electronics firms in the first major economy design the crucial chips for their devices but outsource the actual manufacturing to companies on the island. These manufacturers, in turn, procure essential materials like silicon wafers from nations such as Japan and specialized chemicals from the second major economy. The highly specialized machinery required for chip fabrication in Taiwan is often sourced from countries like the Netherlands. Subsequently, some of these chips are shipped to other nations, including Malaysia or the second major economy, for crucial testing before being integrated into consumer electronics or advanced computing systems assembled in places like Mexico or the second major economy.
The sourcing of materials is equally complex. Chemicals might undergo refinement in one country, be blended in a second, and finally be utilized in the production process in a third, as highlighted by a leading chip material consultant.
This intricate web of global dependencies makes the imposition of tariffs on the semiconductor industry a logistically daunting task, according to a director at a Taiwanese industry analysis firm. She emphasized that “chip making involves processing and reprocessing, assembly and reassembly, and layers of transportation.”
The vast majority of the world’s most advanced semiconductors are manufactured on this key island, where industry giants have invested billions of dollars over four decades to establish a sophisticated network of fabrication plants and supporting suppliers.
Analysts suggest that the second major economy’s decision to exempt chips made on the island is a clear acknowledgment of the profound reliance of its technology sector on this crucial manufacturing hub, despite previous concerns raised by the first major economy regarding the island’s market position.
The leading chip manufacturer on the island has not issued any official response to these developments.
The creation of a single semiconductor involves the participation of companies across numerous countries. As one major economy attempts to redefine the rules of international trade, each border crossing introduces the potential for tariffs, leading to a rapid accumulation of additional costs. The potential consequence of the ongoing tensions is a significant increase in the cost of chips and the consumer electronics that rely on them, according to industry experts.
“If the two largest economies in the world cannot come to an agreement, they will both drag each other down,” warned a chip material consultant. “Everyone is holding their breath.”
LevelUp Insight:
This intricate situation underscores a crucial reality in today’s interconnected world: even amidst significant economic tensions, technological dependencies can create unexpected alignments and strategic policy adjustments. The willingness of one major economy to make specific tariff exceptions highlights the indispensable nature of the other’s manufacturing capabilities in a critical sector. This isn’t solely about trade; it’s a clear demonstration of the deep integration of global supply chains, particularly within strategically important industries like semiconductors. For LevelUp readers, this emphasizes the delicate interplay between national economic strategies and international technological reliance, a key dynamic shaping the future of innovation and global economic power. Understanding these complex interdependencies is vital for navigating the evolving landscape of technology and international affairs.
Business
Who Really Pays for Luxury? Inside the Lives of India’s Artisans and the Fight for Fairness by Couture Brand Aksstagga
The Indian fashion and clothing industry has enamored the world for centuries, and currently, India holds a 63% share of the global textile and garment market. However, there is a side to fashion that rarely makes it into lookbooks or glossy campaigns. We all talk about big fashion houses and designers, but we almost never talk about the most important section of the industry: the hands that make the clothes—the artisans.
Across India, thousands of artisans spend hours stitching, embroidering, dyeing, and finishing garments that eventually sell for prices they could never afford themselves. Traditional embroidery techniques like Chikankari and Zardozi require hundreds of hours per garment, depending on complexity, because each stitch is done by hand and cannot be rushed. A single lehenga panel can take nearly a month to complete, demanding patience, strength, and extraordinary precision. Many home-based artisans work irregular hours around household duties, which means their embroidery work often extends late into the night. Their labour sustains the industry. And yet, despite forming the backbone of India’s luxury and couture ecosystem, their houses remain underpaid, and their contribution remains hidden behind garments that travel far beyond the neighbourhoods where they were made.
This is not a problem limited to one craft or one region. Nor is it unique to a handful of brands. The uncomfortable truth is that much of the fashion ecosystem, luxury included, has been built on structures that vastly undervalue this unfathomable labour that the artisans provide to bring the designers’ art to life. Low wagesare justified by “market rates.” Long hours are absorbed into informal systems. Middle layers that dilute payment before it reaches the hands that actually do the work. These practices are normalised so deeply that they are rarely questioned, let alone challenged.
Anjali Singh Goel, founder and creative director of couture brand Aksstagga, knows this world intimately. Being in the garment industry for more than two decades before starting Aksstagga, she has navigated these networks herself, moving from center to center, home to home, trying to understand how work flowed and where it stopped. What she discovered over time was not only a lack of fairness but also corruption deeply ingrained in the industry culture.
“Boutiques and fashion houses often assume artisans are being paid because money is leaving the brand,” she says. “But somewhere between the brand and the worker, it gets stuck. And the person doing the work never sees what they deserve.”
In many cases, women artisans are restricted by geography and circumstance. Travel is not always an option. Work has to happen within their neighbourhoods, often inside their homes. This decentralized system is not something brands created; it exists because it has to. However, what brands do control is how they engage with it. And that is where most fail. Because work happens out of sight, it becomes easier to look away. Timelines remain rigid. Payments remain inconsistent. The burden of adjustment falls entirely on the artisan. When delays happen, they are blamed. When quality is exceptional, it is taken for granted.
Aksstagga operates within this same reality but refuses to treat it as inevitable. Anjali believes artists can only produce superior quality art when they can work unburdened from the stress of livelihoods, when their minds are free to be creative. She insists on paying among the highest rates she can sustain, even when margins tighten. She actively seeks out trustworthy intermediaries and managers, knowing that removing middle layers altogether is not always practical, but monitoring them is essential.
Moreover, at Aksstagga, timelines are shaped around real lives rather than factory schedules. Many artisans the brand works with are widows or primary earners, supporting entire households through their craft. So, Aksstagga makes sure that their work is flexible enough to fit around caregiving, health, and domestic responsibilities.
Equally important is what Aksstagga does not do. It does not take shortcuts to cut costs, such as using machines for the majority of the stitching and calling the cloth “handcrafted,” as many other brands do. Every single stitch on an Aksstagga design is crafted by hand and done by artisans employed by the company. It also does not pressure artisans to meet impossible targets in the name of speed. These choices may seem bare minimum, but unfortunately, most brands in the market don’t treat them as such.
“There is a lot that happens in this industry that people don’t want to talk about,” Anjali exclaims. “But pretending it doesn’t exist doesn’t protect anyone.”
Anjali is also clear that long-term change cannot come from brands alone. Systemic change requires government involvement, training centers, social security, fair wage benchmarks, insurance, and formal recognition of artisans as workers rather than informal labor. Initiatives like ODOP, which recognize Chikankari as a defining craft of Lucknow, are steps forward, but they need deeper implementation.
“If we want this craft to survive,” Anjali says, “the people behind it need more than appreciation; they need protection from exploitation.”
Real change, Anjali believes, is rarely glamorous. It happens through difficult conversations, honest accounting, and daily choices that are easy to compromise and harder to uphold. By centering artisans within its ethics and building systems that acknowledge their reality, Aksstagga offers a vision of luxury that holds everyone from designers to policymakers accountable.
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