When I lived in Taiwan back in the early 2000s my parents were terrified the thousands of missiles pointed at the island would one day take their only son out.
I was never scared because I knew America had a commitment to keep the Chinese from invading. Also the island of Taiwan is like an aircraft carrier sitting out in the Pacific Ocean and would be very difficult to invade without serious losses for an opposing army. I lived in Taiwan as China started to really open up to the world. The Taiwanese were major investors in factories and businesses throughout China and I remember a statistic which said 20 percent of the population of Taiwan lived in the Mainland and Hong Kong. It would make no sense to kill the golden goose that was helping China become an economic power.
I even opened a fairly successful business on the island which I would never have done if I thought there was any real danger of China coming over.
When I lived on the Mainland in the 2010s, there was hardly any real talk about China attacking Taiwan unless there were noises of the island nation wanting to declare independence.
It is here I have to give a little history lesson.
Taiwan has never been under Communist China’s control.
When the Communists beat Chaing-Kai Shek’s Army in 1949, the island of Taiwan had only been in Chinese hands for four years. Prior to that, Japan had Taiwan as a colony for about 100 years. The Japanese put in the railroads and quite a lot of infrastructure that is still being used. For its time, Taiwan was fairly modern thanks to Japan.
In the 1970s, the island hosted U.S. military forces in the war against Vietnam. There are still quite a lot of remnants of the U.S. being on the island from airports to huge swimming facilities.
I have always said living in Taiwan is like being in a mix of USA, China and Japan.
Until the late 1980s, the island was basically run by Chaing-Kai Shek’s descendants. Then it became a democracy for the most part. The people who fled Communism were artists, business people and those who wanted freedom from the new regime. Taiwan became one of the four tigers in the 1990s (Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia) and this little island with about 20 million people became an economic powerhouse in the region, especially in the tech world.
It is because of their standing in the manufacturing of chips, it would be a catastrophic mistake to let China control Taiwan.
The most advanced category of mass produced semiconductors, used in smartphones, military technology and much more is known as 5 nm, a chip fabrication. One company in Taiwan, known as TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), makes about 90 percent of the chips. U.S. factories make none.
Forget Taiwan’s strategic importance in the Pacific. Forget the island has one of the most vibrant democracies in the region and the place has strong ties to the U.S. Having China in control of the world’s supply of these chips would not bode well for the United States or any country the Chinese see as unfriendly.
I know I have a bias from living on the island and making it my home for many years and having friends who live there. I certainly don’t want any of them to get caught in the crossfires as China makes a land grab. Still, until the Western world has the capability to mass produce and manufacture these chips, it would be technological suicide to let Taiwan come under China’s control.
I have made my feeling known that Chinese President Xi is not a friend to the West. I find it troubling that he is saying China and Russia have a strong relationship that can’t be destroyed.
Xi has raised the rhetoric about how China will use force to bring Taiwan into China’s fold in the past decade. He actually seems a bit obsessed to me. Like Russian leader Putin has been about the Ukraine
I have a friend, Darby Doll, a Carbon County native who lives around the city of Taichung. He has told me the Taiwanese air force is constantly scrambling planes as the Chinese come into the island’s air space. He is not ready to leave the island, but he is watching what China is doing on a daily basis and is troubled by China’s constant provocations. He believes the Taiwanese military would give the Chinese a good fight. I have personally seen beaches with barbed wire along the rocky coast. Military is compulsory for young men. The government buys quite a lot of sophisticated weapons from the U.S. and other countries besides having some home grown weapons themselves.
Like I said, it will be a good fight, but I worry these plants manufacturing the chips will be a target.
Biased guy that I am, believes we have to make the Chinese government understand, if they attack Taiwan, it will result in the U.S. coming to the island’s aid and we will not accept the mainland Chinese being in control.
Honestly, I don’t think we have any choice at this point.
I am not ready to lose my cell phone or computer just quite yet or another place that believes in freedom for its people.
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