It is undoubtedly the most strategic place of this island which resists the wills of reunification of China: the “Taiwanese Silicon Valley”. Here, an hour’s drive south of the capital Taipei, there are dozens of ultra-hi-tech factories. This is the headquarters of TSMC, the world’s number one semiconductor company. Access is extremely controlled.
By choosing to invest in this sector in the 1980s, Taiwan took a lead that no one has managed to catch up with. Taiwanese factories are capable of large-scale etching of chips with an accuracy of 3 nanometers (3 millionths of a millimeter). Sold all over the world, these chips equip our cars, trains, planes, refrigerators, telephones (90% of the latest generations of smartphones, all brands combined)… there’s no way to do without them. Whether in Asia, the United States or Europe, the biggest brands have become ultra-dependent on Taiwanese semiconductors.
Know-how that serves as life insurance?
For Taiwan, this know-how has become a kind of life insurance. “It’s anti-aggression insurance, confirms Pascal Viaud, a Frenchman living on the island and very good connoisseur of the sector. The Taiwanese speak of a deterrent. If there is no longer a TSMC factory overnight, or if TSMC loses its know-how, we no longer know how to manufacture that – but also weapons, but also cars, but also the whole of ‘world electronics.’
The United States, among others, therefore did not “no interest at all in TSMC going under Chinese control, [à ce que la Chine] master these technologies overnight, he develops. Finally, TSMC, here, serves the rest of the world, in this somewhat bizarre geopolitical position, but which suits everyone.
Excerpt from “Dying for Taiwan?”, a report to see in “Special Envoy” on September 1, 2022.
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