The U.S. Has a Microchip Problem. Safeguarding Taiwan Is the Solution.
A Chinese attack on the island would imperil the world’s supply of semiconductor components. Here’s how to offset that threat.
Taiwan’s domination of the microchip industry has been a boon to the global economy, but it now presents an acute challenge. Taiwan today manufactures most of the world’s microchips, which are in practically everything: cars, coffee makers, combine harvesters. The whole world hums with microelectronic components—including about 92 percent of all advanced microchips—that are made largely in a handful of factories on an island less than one-tenth the size of California. Little more than 100 miles away across a strait lies mainland China, which views Taiwan as a breakaway region and has vowed to bring it back under its control.
