If China were to impose a blockade on Taiwan, global economic output would fall by US$2.7 trillion within a year and global GDP would fall 2.8 percent, the latest Global Peace Index showed.
The loss would almost double the effects of the 2008 global financial crisis, following which global trade dropped by more than 17 percent, the report published on Wednesday by the Sydney-based Institute of Economics and Peace said.
A blockade would lead to a fall in investment and consumption, increased volatility in financial markets, a substantial drop in global trade and lower productivity and output in any sector dependent on semiconductors, the report said.
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Almost 60 percent of the loss after a blockade would occur in China and Taiwan, whose economies would shrink by about 7 percent and 40 percent respectively, it said.
Countries in Southeast Asia, including Australia, Cambodia, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam, would be heavily affected, with falls in GDP ranging from 3 to 6 percent, it said.
The effect of a blockade would be especially strong on trade in computers and electronics as countries such as China, South Korea and Japan are highly dependent on imports of computer and electronic components from Taiwan, which is the global leader in semiconductor production, it said.
On the level of peacefulness, Taiwan was ranked 33rd among 163 countries around the world and categorized as “high” in peacefulness, the report showed.
Iceland remained the most peaceful country, a position it has held since 2008, followed by Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand and Austria.
Afghanistan was listed as the least peaceful country in the world for the eighth consecutive year, followed by Yemen, Syria, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The average level of global peacefulness deteriorated by 0.42 percent, the ninth consecutive year that measure has fallen, the report said, adding that the war in Ukraine had a significant effect on global peace.
“Over the last 15 years the world has become less peaceful,” with only two years recording year-on-year improvements in the level of global peacefulness, the report said.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
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