Taiwan has the world’s largest and most advanced microchip manufacturing industry, and China consumes more than half of these chips, and its demand is increasing with economic growth. Some analysts fear that the current global “chip shortage, coupled with U.S. sanctions on China’s technology exports, is causing China to turn its attention to Taiwan and could even prompt it to commit Taiwan by force.
In a Fox Business News television report Saturday, Martijn Rasser, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank, said whoever controls the design and production of these microchips will lead the 21st century. By controlling Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, China will control the global market,” Rasser said. They would have access to the world’s most advanced manufacturing capabilities and would be more valuable than controlling the world’s oil.”
Last month, a senior general in the U.S. Army’s Indo-Pacific Command warned as he left his post that China could commit Taiwan within six years.
Taiwan or one of the biggest Indo blasts facing the Biden administration would force him to provide defense protection to Taiwan, in part to preserve the vital semiconductor industry.
Recently, China has sent dozens of military aircraft to fly near the island of Taiwan.
A global pandemic of the new crown virus has triggered a chip shortage that has hurt production of everything from electronics to cars. Ford said it expects to cut production of 1.1 million vehicles this year.
Russell told Fox Business News that semiconductors are the ground zero of global technological competition because they are an integral part of everything we need to run the society we live in.
In a joint address to Congress last week, President Biden said he delivered a message to Chinese leader Xi Jinping during discussions with him. We don’t seek conflict, but I say absolutely unequivocally that we will defend America’s interests across the board,” Biden said.
The Trump administration late last year added dozens of Chinese companies to its list of entities, including China’s largest chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International. The Biden administration has continued its tough stance on Chinese companies in the technology sector. Two weeks ago, the White House added seven Chinese companies to the list of entities and stopped TSMC, the world’s largest chipmaker, from selling advanced chips to China. Those chips could be used to make advanced weapons.
Russell was quoted by Fox as saying that China has been trying to get its hands on Taiwan’s chip-making equipment, but so far has been unsuccessful. So you can easily imagine a scenario where Beijing decides it’s worth the risk and actually invades Taiwan to gain control of this important industry,” he said.
Seventy percent of the world’s chips are made in Taiwan and South Korea.
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