Can Taiwan use its chipmaking industry to strong-arm Donald Trump?
Illustration: Chloe Cushman
AROUND THE world, friends and adversaries of America are reaching the same, bleak conclusion. To earn President Donald Trump’s respect, show that you can hurt him. None of America’s security partners is foolish enough to threaten Mr Trump openly. But all of them watched Iran gain leverage over a stronger adversary by closing the Strait of Hormuz, and some were taking notes. Iran’s abuse of this choke point is simply appalling, such allies tut-tut. How do we get one of our own?
This line of reasoning can even be heard—albeit quietly, and behind closed doors—from well-placed folk in Taiwan, an island of 24m people that China claims as its own. It is a high-risk discussion. Taiwan’s survival as a self-ruled democracy relies on decisions made by America’s president. America is not treaty-bound to defend Taiwan from attack by China. Instead, successive commanders-in-chief, including Mr Trump, have left open the possibility that they might send in the Seventh Fleet if China tries to take the island by force. For decades that ambiguity has deterred Communist Party chiefs from making their move.
Mr Trump frightens Taiwan. True, he has sold the island weaponry in record-breaking quantities. But he has also mocked it as a tiny place outgunned by mighty China. During a state visit to Beijing in May, he emerged from hours of talks with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, parroting Chinese talking points. Mr Trump more or less accused Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, of provoking China by seeking independence for the island. That is a red line for Chinese leaders, though Mr Lai’s actual position is waffly and cautious. Taiwan wants America to “travel 9,500 miles to fight a war”, Mr Trump grumbled. “I’m not looking for that.” He calls future arms sales to Taiwan a bargaining chip in negotiations with China over trade and Chinese-refined minerals used by American firms.
Taiwan knows that it needs leverage. After it embraced democracy 30-odd years ago, Taiwan won friends in Washington by talking up its status as a bastion of liberty, menaced by autocratic China. When despot-praising Mr Trump took office, Taiwanese officials quickly learned to downplay talk of shared values. They watched in horror when Mr Trump scorned Ukraine as a small country that had foolishly sought to defend itself against larger Russia. That could be us, Taiwanese shuddered.
Instead, Taiwan leans on two arguments about its strategic value to America. One involves Taiwan’s location in the “first island chain”, Pentagon jargon for the archipelago that hems in mainland China, running from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines. The other involves Taiwan’s indispensable role as a global centre for making chips, including around 90% of the most advanced semiconductors. For some years Taiwanese politicians have called their chip industry a “Silicon Shield” or—in their more flowery moods—a sacred mountain that makes Taiwan too valuable for China to attack, or for America to abandon.
Other countries take a dimmer view of Taiwan’s chipmaking dominance. Even friendly governments resent their dependence on an earthquake-prone, typhoon-lashed island that imports almost all its raw materials and energy. Even before Mr Trump, Taiwan was being pressed to build chipmaking foundries overseas, notably in America, Japan and Germany. Mr Trump goes further, falsely charging Taiwan with stealing America’s chip industry decades ago. He has browbeaten TSMC and other leading firms to expand operations in Arizona, Texas and other states.
In Taipei, the capital, some policy types fret about the silicon shield being weakened over time, and about talented engineers being deployed to build and run foreign fabs. Others, though, suggest ways to turn Taiwan’s defensive shield into a weapon, right now. Taiwan has its own strait. The channel between the island and the mainland, spanning about 160km, carries some of the world’s most precious cargoes each day, including silicon chips.
To date, Taiwan’s focus has been on defence, and protecting itself from Chinese invasion fleets or naval blockades. But in Taipei well-placed people suggest that their indispensable role in global commerce can be used to coerce both America and China. They predict that Taiwan would stop exporting chips in the first hours of a crisis, throwing global markets and supply chains into chaos. The trigger would be an energy crisis. Electricity would soon run short if China blocks imports of coal, gas and oil. Chipmaking uses lots of power, and the government would prioritise hospitals and other civilian services. That gives Taiwan a moral argument for holding the world economy hostage. At that point, the gloomiest sorts imagine Mr Trump ordering Taiwan to surrender, after talks with China from which Taiwan is excluded. Optimists counter that such a sell-out would leave China controlling the world’s most important chipmakers. How would that be compatible with America’s quest for AI dominance, they ask?
Cashing in its chips
In short, Taiwan has a choke point. Indeed, Mr Trump’s bluster about Taiwan stealing America’s chip industry is a form of backhanded compliment. Taiwan has cards and Mr Trump knows it. If this is blackmail, it is in a noble cause. A war over Taiwan between America and China would be terrifyingly dangerous. A Chinese takeover would snuff out a thriving, if chaotic, democracy, ushering in a nightmare of repression, show trials and mass re-education for millions of Taiwanese. The best way to avoid such disasters is for America to continue deterring China.
In Washington, Trump apologists credit him with reviving Ronald Reagan’s doctrine of “peace through strength”. That is an insult to the Gipper. Actually, other countries scent weakness in Mr Trump. They are learning from another Reagan saying: if you can’t make someone see the light, let ‘em feel the heat. ■
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논증 분석
유형: analysis
핵심 주장
Taiwan의 반도체 패권—세계 첨단 반도체의 약 90%를 생산하는 TSMC를 중심으로—은 순수한 방어적 자산(‘실리콘 방패’)에서 America과 China 모두를 향한 공세적 강압 도구로 전환될 수 있으며, Donald Trump의 거래적 안보관이 그 전환을 촉진하고 있다.
논리구조
- 진단—취약해진 안보 보장: Donald Trump는 역대 최대 규모의 무기를 Taiwan에 판매하면서도 동시에 Taiwan을 조롱하고 Xi Jinping의 대만 관련 논리를 반복했다. 이는 미국의 방위 공약에 대한 신뢰를 심각하게 훼손했다.
- 배경—이란의 선례: Iran이 Strait of Hormuz을 장악해 더 강력한 적국에 대한 레버리지를 획득하는 것을 목격한 미국의 동맹국들은 ‘경제적 고통을 가할 수 있음을 증명하는 것’이 워싱턴의 존중을 얻는 방법임을 학습했다.
- 실리콘 방패의 전략적 논리: 대만은 미국 전략에서 두 가지 가치를 주장해왔다—‘제1도련선’상의 지정학적 요충지로서의 가치, 그리고 세계 첨단 반도체 생산의 불가결한 거점으로서의 가치. 후자가 ‘실리콘 방패’다.
- 방패에서 무기로: 대만 정책 커뮤니티 내에서는 유사시—특히 China의 봉쇄로 에너지 위기가 발생할 경우—반도체 수출을 즉시 중단함으로써 글로벌 공급망을 마비시키는 시나리오가 조용히 논의되고 있다. 에너지 배급이라는 도덕적 명분이 이를 정당화한다.
- Taiwan Strait의 초크포인트 가치: Strait of Hormuz처럼 Taiwan Strait도 세계에서 가장 가치 있는 화물—실리콘 칩—이 매일 통과하는 전략적 병목이다.
- 반론과 재반론: 비관론자들은 Donald Trump가 대만을 배제한 미중 협상에서 대만에 항복을 강요할 수 있다고 우려한다. 낙관론자들은 그럴 경우 중국이 세계 최대 칩 제조사를 통제하게 되어 AI 패권을 추구하는 미국의 이익과 양립 불가능하다고 반박한다.
- 결론적 비교: Ronald Reagan의 ‘힘을 통한 평화’ 독트린이 트럼프 지지자들에 의해 인용되지만, 실제로 다른 국가들은 트럼프에게서 약함을 감지하고 레이건의 또 다른 격언—“납득이 안 되면 고통을 느끼게 하라”—을 학습하고 있다.
결론
Donald Trump의 거래적 동맹관이 Taiwan의 전략적 계산을 근본적으로 바꾸고 있으며, Taiwan은 ‘실리콘 방패’를 수동적 억지력에서 능동적 강압 수단으로 재정립하는 위험한 논의를 시작했다. 이는 미중 경쟁에서 Taiwan이 단순한 분쟁 대상이 아닌 독립적 전략 행위자로 부상하고 있음을 시사한다.