Advertisement

Supported by

Nicholas Kristof

By Nicholas Kristof

Opinion Columnist, reporting from Hsinchu, Taiwan

“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.

These days it seems impossible to have a conversation about geopolitics or economics without coming back to T.S.M.C., which makes about 90 percent of the world’s most advanced chips. If the lights went out here in Hsinchu, in the company’s ultraclean and ultrasecure buildings, you might not be able to buy a new phone, car or watch. Armies could run out of precision-guided missiles and hospitals could struggle to replace advanced X-ray and M.R.I. machines. It might be like the Covid-19 supply chain chip disruption — times 10 — and T.S.M.C., unfortunately, is situated in a region where war is possible and could threaten production.

“Taiwan Semiconductor is one of the best-managed companies and important companies in the world,” Warren Buffett said last year. But he sold his $4 billion stake in T.S.M.C. because, he said, “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 talk about silicon, the less rational people become,” Mark Liu, the chairman of T.S.M.C., told me.

So........

© The New York Times