How War With China Begins - TSMC

An extreme version of what an initial Chinese attack to take over Taiwan might look like, drawn from conversations with military planners and from a forthcoming book, “Defending Taiwan,” by Eyck Freymann of Stanford University.

Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=%2C+%E2%80%9CDefending+Taiwan%2C%E2%80%9D+by+Eyck+Freymann&crid=1EJBTLJWE7XTG&sprefix=defending+taiwan+by+eyck+freymann+%2Caps%2C102&ref=nb_sb_noss

 

Taiwan officials are (rightly, I think) more focused on “gray zone” moves on Taiwan that fall short of war. In this gray zone  try to bully the island into accepting a future as some kind of autonomous zone under China’s oversight.

If China succeeded in absorbing Taiwan, whether through war or peacefully through gray zone pressure and salami slicing tactics, China might also gain the highly advanced chip fabs of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company — in strategic terms, the most important corporation in the world.

Some Taiwanese acknowledge the dangers but don’t see any point to even trying to resist China, seeing it as hopeless. When I asked an old Taiwanese friend, a journalist, what the island should do if attacked by China, she didn’t hesitate. “Surrender,” she answered.

Why should Americans risk their lives and spend billions of dollars defending Taiwanese who aren’t clearly willing to make major sacrifices themselves? I asked Taiwanese officials about that.

Joseph Wu, the secretary general of the National Security Council, put it this way: “We can’t ask other countries to help Taiwan if Taiwan does not help itself.”

New York Times Jan. 17, 2026

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/17/opinion/taiwan-china-war.html

“If China takes Taiwan, they will turn the world off, potentially,” Donald Trump told Fox News recently, apparently referring to a potential seizure of one company that is central to, well, pretty much everything. 

Indeed, it’s arguably the most important company in the world.

The company Trump alluded to, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or T.S.M.C., is the only corporation I can think of in history that could cause a global depression if it were forced to halt production.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/opinion/tsmc-taiwan-china.html

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company TSMC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC

https://www.tsmc.com/english

Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow - Kuomintang, Nvidia, TSMC

https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/12/ukraine-today-taiwan-tomorrow.html