Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs says the island’s chip sector will see “no significant impact” from China’s newly expanded rare-earth export controls, in comments first reported by Reuters on October 12. Those reassuring words come just days after Beijing added a fresh batch of heavy rare earths to its licensing regime — including holmium, erbium, thulium, europium, and ytterbium — and widened the scope to cover associated materials and processing tech.
Officials in Taipei were quick to note that these specific metals aren’t used by TSMC in wafer production, and that Taiwan already sources most of its rare-earth derivatives from allies in Europe, Japan, and the United States.
