RAND Corporation president Jason Matheny in an article published by The Atlantic on Monday said that destruction, or loss to China, of Taiwanese microchip fabs in an invasion would be a “global disaster.”
Taiwan produces 92 percent of the world’s advanced chips, and if its chip-manufacturing facilities were captured by China, US access to chips might be severely limited, he said, adding that destruction of the facilities would cause a major global recession.
Matheny said that the US should act now to better protect Taiwan from invasion.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) in August said in an interview with CNN that the company sells 10 percent of its chips to the Chinese consumer market and that an interruption to its operations “would create great economic turmoil in China — suddenly their most advanced component supply disappears.”
In the interview, Liu did not consider that China might take over Taiwanese chipmakers, saying: “Nobody can control TSMC by force ... because it is a sophisticated manufacturing facility that depends on the real-time connection with the outside world.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken took a similar stance in an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes on Sept. 25, saying that if Taiwanese production of semiconductors were disrupted, “the effects that that would have on the global economy could be devastating.”
Given the consensus on the global importance of Taiwanese chips, the nation should be pressing the world to do more to support its defense and to pressure China into reducing its aggression. China has everything to gain if it leaves Taiwan alone to determine its own path and everything to lose if it interferes.
Matheny’s suggestion was that the US “make it too costly for China to invade Taiwan by enabling Taiwan to defend itself.” This should be done by arming Taiwan with systems “such as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, drones, loitering munitions, anti-tank missiles and sea mines, [which] might be able to do the job at relatively low cost,” he said.
There appears to be growing interest in the US in better arming Taiwan, as evidenced by the proposed Taiwan policy act, which would provide billions of dollars in loans or grants to Taiwan for weapons purchases.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has said that Taiwan would not rely on others for its defense, which is a good attitude, but hopefully if push comes to shove, the US would commit its military to defending Taiwan, which US President Joe Biden has said on multiple occasions it would do.
US Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo also told Nikkei Asia on Wednesday that the US military alone could defeat a Chinese blockade of Taiwan with its firepower and “superiority in key domains.”
It will be crucial for the US to do so if a blockade occurs, because otherwise, Taiwan might find itself unable to export its chips, which would be as bad for the global economy as if Taiwan’s ability to produce the chips were hampered.
Taiwan and the US should expedite efforts to arm and train Taiwan, and the US should have a contingency plan.
With each passing day, the threat of a People’s Republic of China (PRC) assault on Taiwan grows. Whatever one’s view about the history, there is essentially no question that a PRC conquest of Taiwan would mark the end of the autonomy and freedom enjoyed by the island’s 23 million people. Simply put, the PRC threat to Taiwan is genuinely existential for a free, democratic and autonomous Taiwan. Yet one might not know it from looking at Taiwan. For an island facing a threat so acute, lethal and imminent, Taiwan is showing an alarming lack of urgency in dramatically strengthening its defenses.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US