Is Destroying TSMC to Deter Chinese Invasion Insight or Ignorance？
The Storm Media Editorial, December 25, 2021
Some American scholars suggested Taiwan could use a “scorched earth strategy” by threatening to destroy facilities belonging to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to deter China from invading Taiwan and to accept the “status quo”. Is this “unheard of” suggestion from scholars an idea of insight or ignorance?
Parameters, a periodical of U.S. Army War College, recently issued an article titled “Broken Nest: Deterring China from Invading Taiwan” co-authored by two scholars. The article suggested that to prevent the technology of advanced semiconductor facilities from falling in to the hands of China, Taiwan could declare that if under attack Taiwan would initiate a “semiconductor self-destruct mechanism” to destroy related facilities including those belonging to the TSMC. This could make China realize that to start a war would confirm the Chinese proverb: “beneath a broken nest, how can there be any whole eggs”. That is to say that economic, political, and strategic cost of waging a war against Taiwan would be unbearable for China. So, China will be better off to accept the status quo and keep peace.
Many people in Taiwan call the TSMC “sacred mountain” guarding Taiwan. Although certain people believe that the TSMC’s world number one semiconductor manufacturing capabilities can oblige the United States and European nations to protect Taiwan from Chinese attack, yet trusting a “scorched earth strategy” of destroying semiconductor manufacturing industry can deter China from invading Taiwan is not just a “unheard-off idea”, but an idea that is off-topic and going too far.
This “unheard-off idea” is based on the premise that China wants to invade Taiwan because it wishes to obtain the world leading semiconductor manufacturing capabilities. The problem is this premise never exists.
China has made numerous announcements of its “One China” principle and Taiwan’s reunification. Any attempt to “separate” Taiwan or even a hint will be reputed relentlessly by China. This is buttressed by a fundamental nationalism and a firm ideology of national reunification and has nothing to do with Taiwan’s TSMC or semiconductor manufacturing industry. To be frank, unification and TSMC are totally unrelated.
Putting aside the “metaphysical” idea of nationalism and focusing on “actual national interest”, China’s attempt to reunite Taiwan is based on global geopolitical consideration.
During the Cold War, the United States controlled “the first island chain” to block China from entering the ocean. The first island chain is from the Kuril Islands, Japan, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the Philippines to Borneo. Taiwan is situated right in the middle and is irreplaceable strategically. Geopolitics scholar Robert D. Kaplan wrote in Monsson: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power that the first island chain can “block China from entering into the Pacific Ocean. The Chinese strategists feel angry when they see the map of Chinese Navy under blockade”. Even after the Cold War, the first island chain remains important, especially at a time of rising tensions between the United States and China. China needs to control Taiwan to break the first island chain. In Kaplan’s words, “the American great wall at sea and the sea chain it represents will be broken,” then “China can sail freely into the Pacific Ocean”. Moreover, if China let Taiwan separate, serious political problems will emerge including ethnic groups seeking independence (Xinjiang and Tibet).
Those professional scholars missed to see China’s major geopolitical gain and only saw Taiwan semiconductor’s minor gain. They even think the semiconductor gain could halt China’s invasion. This is not only failing to see the wood for the trees, but also straying far from the topic altogether.