Fresh off a trip to Taiwan despite admonishment from the Chinese government, US congresswoman Elissa Slotkin of Michigan said it was crucial that the United States rallied allies to solve the semiconductor shortage and compete with the global superpower. The Democrat joined four other members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee – chair Mark Takano of California, Colin Allred of Texas, Sara Jacobs of California and Nancy Mace of South Carolina – on the bipartisan trip, tacked on Thursday and Friday to a Thanksgiving visit to US troops in South Korea and Japan. Slotkin said her office received a “blunt” email from the Chinese embassy Thursday urging her not to visit Taiwan, which has a democratic government and insists it is not a part of any other nation. She and the other members decided to go anyway, she said, with the backing of the State Department and the Department of Defence. “I’m not going to be bullied,” Slotkin said, adding that the visit underscored the need for a more comprehensive plan to counter China on the global stage. “What I want to do is make sure that we have a real strategic plan to deal with their bullying, and that’s what I’m going to be urging the administration to do,” she said. The White House is tracking China’s increased military aggression toward Taiwan, “but I’d like to see a more thoughtful strategic plan that includes our military levers, our economic levers, our agricultural levers and our cultural levers”. The group’s trip came amid an ongoing shortage of semiconductor chips that is expected to cost the global car industry an estimated US$210 billion in 2021, according to consulting firm AlixPartners, and as China ramps up aggression toward the island it considers a rogue territory that must be reunited with the mainland. “I was able to speak in human terms about what the cost has been to our auto workers, to our automakers and to our economy in Michigan that we cannot get a hold of these microchips,” Slotkin said. “These are partners; this is someone who wants to be helpful to us.” Taiwan is home to around 65% of the world’s semiconductor foundries, and the shortage has prompted calls to strengthen the supply chain for the component that’s crucial for autos, consumer electronics and more. US lawmakers raise China threat in semiconductor subsidy push Slotkin said she and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen discussed plans for expanding chip production, about Congress’ efforts to fund such projects in the US, and about the importance of Taiwan working with the US, Japan, Korea and others to show “a united front against China”. “This isn’t just about the United States and what we can do, it’s about rallying our friends,” she said. “When it comes to pushing back on a bully, the group that has the most friends is better off.” Most of Michigan’s members of Congress, including Slotkin and Republican congressmen Fred Upton and Peter Meijer, have urged their colleagues to approve US$52 billion in funding for domestic semiconductor chip production that passed the Senate earlier this year. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo also visited Detroit on Monday to push the legislation, which is part of a bill aimed at increasing US competitiveness with China. The Chinese government has warned Congress that it could retaliate should the legislation become law, and experts have said that could have an impact on multiple sectors of the American economy. It is an added stressor for businesses that are already on edge over instability in the Taiwan Strait, which in the case of war with China would have a wide-ranging impact on the automotive and other industries. But Slotkin noted the countries economies are so reliant on one another that war “would be economically bad for both of us”. In addition to the risks to semiconductor chips, the US relies on China for critical minerals and China relies on the US for agricultural products. “There are dependencies both ways,” she said. “One of my significant lessons learned from this trip is that while the military temperature is going up (and China is becoming more aggressive), we need to not just think about this as a military competition. We have to think more broadly about how we have a range of tools in the toolkit to exercise leverage over the Chinese, and we haven’t really done that. That’s on us.” US lawmakers arrive in Taiwan for surprise visit Economic competition between the US and China has exacerbated complications over the fragile diplomatic relationship between the two superpowers and the island of Taiwan. The US policy of “strategic ambiguity” allows the US to remain a close ally of Taiwan while retaining official diplomatic ties with China. In addition to talking about semiconductor supplies, the delegation identified areas “where we can work on innovation together” such as autonomous vehicles and virtual reality, and to thank them for personal protective equipment donations amid the pandemic. But experts say officials in Beijing are beginning to fear that the United States sees Taiwan not just as an important trading partner, but as a strategic asset that can be used to weaken China, making officials sensitive to visits from delegations such as Slotkin’s. The Chinese embassy sent an email to Slotkin’s chief of staff on Thanksgiving urging her to skip the trip because it would “seriously violate” this diplomatic principle, according to a copy of the memo provided to The Detroit News by Slotkin’s office. “We strongly urge the Congresswoman immediately cancel the planned visit to Taiwan, and not to support and embolden separatist forces of ‘Taiwan independence’, lest it cause huge damage to the China-US relations and the peace and stability of Taiwan Straits,” the note read. The Chinese embassy did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday. But Slotkin argued the trip was necessary to return to the US-Taiwan pre-pandemic relationship, to make headway on supply chain issues – and to show support for the island’s democratic government: “It was inspiring to hear someone else, another government who’s under more physical threat every day than we are, speak clearly and confidently about how important democracy is to the world.”