According to a statement made by the highest-ranking intelligence officer in the US, if China were to invade Taiwan, it could cause the world’s largest advanced chipmaker to stop production. This could potentially lead to a loss of up to USD 1 trillion per year from the global economy within the first few years.
Haines claimed that although Chinese President Xi Jinping is moving towards a “peaceful” unification with Taiwan, he is also planning for potential military action to accomplish that goal, according to Taipei Times.
“I think we continue to assess that he [Xi] would prefer to achieve the unification of Taiwan through peaceful means,” she said.
If a Chinese invasion prevented TSMC from making those chips, “it will have an enormous global financial impact that I think runs somewhere between USD 600 billion to USD 1 trillion on an annual basis for the first few years,” the expert predicted.
If there were such an invasion of Taiwan and [TSMC’s production] was stopped, Haines warned, “it will also have an impact on [US] GDP.” According to Taipei Times, Haines claimed it would also significantly affect China’s economy.
At the insistence of Washington, TSMC is spending USD 40 million to construct two very advanced wafer fabs in Arizona in order to mitigate that danger.
According to Taipei Times, two fabs, one utilising the more sophisticated 3-nanometer technology and the other using the 4-nanometer technique, are set to start mass-producing chips in 2019.
After US Senator Rick Scott expressed alarm about a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, citing Xi’s comments from the previous year that seemed to indicate he was preparing the Chinese people for a fight against Taiwan, Haines responded.
Xi has instructed the Chinese military to “provide him with a military option, essentially, to be able to take it without concern of [US] intervention,” which is anticipated to “have a meaningful impact on his capacity to do so,” according to Haines.
According to Taipei Times, US Defence Intelligence Agency Director Scott Berrier, who was present at the hearing, expressed more significant anxiety than Haines about a potential invasion of Taiwan, claiming that Xi’s rhetoric has been “picking up” since he began his third term in office.
Berrier published a list of potential invasion dates from 2025 through 2049. He has instructed his troops to be prepared, Berrier added.
Haines also mentioned that the relationship between the US and China has grown “more difficult,” noting a speech by Xi in March in which he accused Washington of repressing Beijing, demonstrating his mistrust of the US and his conviction that Washington was attempting to limit his nation. (ANI)