Taiwan-China: Taiwanese defence minister says the country will protect TSMC from US bombing

Taiwan’s Minister of National Defence, Chiu Kuo-cheng, made a remark about the country’s territorial integrity on Monday. According to Taiwan News, the Taiwanese minister stated that in the case of a confrontation with China, the island’s military forces would not tolerate any US attempts to destroy TSMC.

The geopolitical tensions between the United States, Taiwan, and China are essentially perplexing, with diverse ideals, understandings, ambiguities, and policies implying different things to different parties. We are accustomed to seeing the United States and Taiwan as allies, but a recent statement by US Congressman Seth Moulton may have gone too far.

On the subject of U.S. chip policy and China, Moulton recently told a political conference that “the U.S. should make it very clear to the Chinese that if you invade Taiwan, we’re going to blow up TSMC.” 

Openly discussing these measures appears to be frowned upon in Taiwan, as evidenced by Defence Minister Chiu’s response to the country’s media questions on Monday.

The minister told reporters that the military forces are responsible for defending the island country (and its people, materials, and strategic resources) against any invasion, regardless of its source. “If they want to bomb this or that,” the armed forces will not tolerate it, asserted Chiu.

U.S. Congressman Seth Moulton is a former Marine Corps officer and a Democrat, and his comments about destroying TSMC’s chip manufacturing fabs in Taiwan are not without precedent.

Last year the TSMC Chairman Mark Liu, told interviewers, “Nobody can control TSMC by force.” He reasoned that, “If you take a military force or invasion, you will render TSMC factories inoperable.” According to Liu, however, explosives would not be required since TSMC’s finely tuned operations would simply crumble as its real-time connections with the outside world vanished. However, we must keep in mind that China’s motivations should not be weighed against corporate logic. Instead, its decisions may be influenced by a leader desiring glory, destiny, or a legacy, among other things.

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