An attack on Taiwan would be catastrophic for the global economy, and the US should help the nation, which manufactures most of the world’s microchips, develop “porcupine” defense capabilities, RAND Corp president and chief executive Jason Matheny said.
A Chinese attack could see Beijing control or destroy Taiwan’s microchip production, and either scenario would bring about a “global catastrophe,” Matheny wrote in an article published by The Atlantic magazine on Sunday.
In the first scenario, China could limit access by the US and its allies to advanced chips, significantly eroding the US’ technological, economic and military advantages, he said.
Photo: CNA
In the second scenario, it could cause a worldwide recession the scale of the Great Depression, said Matheny, a national security expert who heads the US-based global policy think tank RAND.
The US has put forth two plans aimed at preventing a meltdown in Taiwan’s chip production, he wrote.
One is building its own chip supply chain, as evidenced by the enactment of the CHIPS and Science Act in August, and the other is leaping to Taiwan’s defense should it come under Chinese attack, as US President Joe Biden said in an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes that aired on Sept. 18.
However, the US has underestimated the time it would require for these plans to work, Matheny said.
Taiwan has a “40-year head start” with its chip industry, and decades of investment on the scale of that stipulated in the CHIPS and Science Act would be needed before the US could domestically produce most of the chips it requires, he said.
At the same time, Taiwan’s “coastal-based microchip factories” could have already been destroyed by China by the time US forces responded, he wrote.
“The US does have a third option: make it too costly for China to invade Taiwan by enabling Taiwan to defend itself,” he said.
“For about a tenth of the investment of the CHIPS Act, Taiwan could build up a so-called porcupine defense with a ‘large number of small things,’” he said.
The US could achieve this goal by supplying Taiwan with large numbers of small, mobile and resilient weapons, such as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), drones, loitering munitions, anti-tank missiles and sea mines, he said.
The US has supplied some of those weapons to Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia, with some success, he wrote.
The US government in October 2020 approved the sale of 11 HIMARS to Taiwan, which is scheduled to send a team of people to the US in April next year to undergo training in preparation for receiving the system, the Ministry of National Defense said.
Matheny’s views echoed those of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who in an interview with 60 Minutes that aired on Sept. 25 warned of “devastating” effects on the global economy if Taiwan was attacked by China.
“Taiwan itself, were anything to happen, it is where virtually all the semiconductors are made,” Blinken said.
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