Even a humble keyboard is now political in Taiwan

Chinese manufacturers are advertising how they dodge tariffs, and tech leaders know they’re in a new world

Computex Every time I attend Taiwan's Computex exhibition I see dozens of stands hosted by Chinese vendors who sell utterly unremarkable keyboards and mice, and wonder how they turn a profit.

This year, a Chinese keyboard vendor's stand stood out from the rest because it featured a large sign that read "FACTORY IN VIETNAM."

I asked a staffer about the sign and what she hoped Computex attendees would understand when they saw it. "To avoid tariffs," she said, because visitors to the sprawling technology show would fear that products from Chinese vendors are likely to become more expensive due to the USA's new trade policies.

Intrigued, I started trying to identify more Chinese vendors at Computex, to ask how tariffs have impacted their operations. None were authorized to go on the record with media.

A couple told me they already have manufacturing plants outside China, and swung production and export operations to whichever of their factories emerged with the lowest tariffs after Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcement.

A rep from one company told me it shifted production to Vietnam and then moved it back to China after Beijing and Washington agreed a mutual 90-day tariff easing pact earlier this month. The company rep I spoke to then shrugged in exasperation at the prospect of having to move production again if tariffs change.

A manufacturer of mini-PCs offered a different take: Smugness at having long ago chosen to target Asian and European markets rather than customers in the US, meaning they've dodged the trade war.

Another Chinese company I looked into for The Reg's traditional "weird stuff from Computex" roundup also has a tariff story: Its website includes a notice that states it is able to satisfy about half of US demand from a warehouse in California, and therefore without tariffs. The company also tweaked its site to include tariffs in prices of goods it ships from outside the USA.

Developers are now factory workers

Tariffs aren't the only geopolitical concern at Computex.

Speaking on a panel ahead of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's keynote address, Trend Micro CEO Eva Chen noted that as the industry currently refers to GPU-dominated datacenters as "AI factories," perhaps software developers can be considered manufacturing workers.

"If Jensen can convince Trump," she said, "then Trump's dream of moving manufacturing back to the US is already done."

Chen is clearly aware of the current political climate.

So is Foxconn chair Young Lui, who used his Computex keynote to warn world leaders that AI is going to shrink the manufacturing workforce and they should revisit policy accordingly.

Jensen Huang also waded into political waters by offering both criticsm and praise for evolving US trade policy.

The politics of tech even reached street level at Computex, in the form of the sticker depicted below that I spotted on a lamppost near the convention center that houses the event.

Sticker protesting Nvidia's sales to China spotted at Computex 2025 – click to enlarge

Whoever created and posted that sticker is clearly aware that Nvidia wins a curiously large percentage of its revenue in Singapore and that US lawmakers worry GPUs sold there could make their way to China.

The sticker's creator also knows that Chinese president Xi Jinping has an ambition to re-unify with Taiwan – perhaps by force.

And that ambition means Computex, whose purpose is to promote the Taiwanese tech industry upon which the world has become utterly reliant, will remain an event at which politics and tech must mix. Even on a humble keyboard. ®