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Nicholas Kristof
By Nicolas Kristof
Op-ed, reporting from Hsinchu, Taiwan
“If China takes over Taiwan, they’re going to potentially shut down the world,” Donald Trump recently told Fox News, referring to the potential seizure of a company that’s at the center of it all. In fact, it is without a doubt the most important company in the world.
The company Trump referred to, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or T. S. M. C. , is the company I can think of in history that could cause a global depression if it were forced to shut down production.
Today, it’s unimaginable to have a verbal exchange about geopolitics or economics without going back to T. S. M. C. , which makes about 90% of the world’s most complex chips. If the lamps were to go out here in Hsinchu, in the ultra-clean zone and in ultra-secure corporate buildings, you might not be able to buy a new phone, a new car, or a new watch. The military would possibly run out of precision-guided missiles and hospitals would possibly struggle to update complex X-ray imaging and MRI systems. This may also resemble the tenfold disruption of the chip origin chain brought about by Covid-19, and TSMC, unfortunately, is situated in a region where war is imaginable and can also threaten production.
“Taiwan Semiconductor is one of the largest and best-run corporations in the world,” Warren Buffett said last year. But he sold his $4 billion stake in T. S. M. C. because, he says, “I don’t like its location. “
Some believe — it appears this may be Trump’s view — that T.S.M.C. is so valuable that it might tempt China to try to grab Taiwan and then bring the world to its knees.
“The more you communicate about silicon, the less rational other people become,” Mark Liu, president of T. S. M. C. , told me.
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