– They (the USA, journ.anm.) should do everything they can to help the Ukrainians. We still have time.
That’s what Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s former president, said at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada, this weekend. She believes that further US support for Ukraine will act as a deterrent to China, and is the best way to avert an attack on Taiwan from the Chinese mainland, among other reports Politico.
The move came in response to a statement that US Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of the Indo-Pacific US military force, made on Tuesday. He believes that US arms exports to Israel and Ukraine put a brake on how much assistance the US can provide if the situation between Taiwan and China were to escalate.
– Up until this year, when the majority of deployed American weapons have been limited to artillery and short-range weapons, I would say “not at all”, Paparo answered when asked whether US arms contributions internationally have reduced the US’s ability to supply its allies in Asia with weapons, according to Business Insider.
– But now, considering the Patriot missiles being deployed, together with other anti-aircraft missiles, it is eating away at our stocks. To say otherwise would be dishonest, Paparo continued.
A Patriot missile is an anti-aircraft missile that is fired from ground level and can stop both enemy missiles and aircraft.
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Focus on China
The US president-elect, Donald Trump, believes that Europe must take greater responsibility for European security. This should take place in the form that the whole of Europe should collectively spend as much on defense as the USA, Trump believes, according to the Washington Post.
– The US is focused on China, and we will see that more clearly in the coming years. It has a lot to say for our safety. After all, we have made ourselves very dependent on the USA for a long time, said Ingrid Fiskaa, parliamentary representative for SV and member of the foreign affairs and defense committee to Dagsavisen earlier this fall.
Congressman Mike Waltz of Florida, who is appointed by Donald Trump as a national security adviser in the incoming US government, can give a further indication of where the priorities lie.
Waltz has served as a colonel in the National Guard. He is a sharp critic of China, including of the country’s activities in the Pacific region, and has advocated that the US must prepare for a possible conflict in the area, writes NTB.
Waltz co-wrote with former Pentagon strategist, Matthew Kroenig, in The Economist that the US should ensure negotiations in Ukraine as soon as possible so that they can shift their focus to China and Taiwan.
They write that Trump can increase exports of liquefied natural gas and crack down harder on Russia’s oil exports in order to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table as soon as possible, should he be unwilling. If this cannot be done, however, they propose to increase arms support to Ukraine, and further ease the restrictions on the use of American weapons laid down by President Joe Biden’s government. Trump himself suggested this in a interview with Fox News in 2023.
Recently, Biden opened up that American weapons could be used on Russian soil. This came as a response to that Russia has brought in thousands of North Korean soldiers standing ready to fight the Ukrainians in Russia’s Kursk region. The Ukrainians have occupied parts of the Kursk region since August, writes, among others, the BBC.
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Have to pay more
The Biden government, for its part, believes that the US support for Ukraine does not limit the US’s ability to assist Taiwan should they need it, writes Politico.
But just like Trump’s expectation that Europe must provide and pay for its own security to a greater extent, he makes similar demands on Taiwan. In an interview with the Washington Post says President-elect Trump that Taiwan should also spend more on defense. Today, the country spends 2.6 percent of gross national product on defense, Trump believes they should spend closer to 10 percent.
– We would have had difficulty determining a completely arbitrary sum like that without further ado, the former Taiwanese president is said to have said, without commenting on Trump’s actions directly, according to Politico.
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Vital semiconductors
Much of the reason why Taiwan is a strategically important partner not only for the USA, but also for Europe, is that over 90 percent of the world’s most complicated semiconductors are produced in Taiwan, according to The Economist.
Semiconductors are essential components usually made of silicon in, among other things, computer chips used in everything from cars, mobile phones, rockets and planes, but also something as simple as dynamic durability markers on, for example, packages of chicken fillet.
Even the giant Apple does not produce its own semiconductors, as the process is extremely difficult and expensive. In his book “Chip Wars – The fight for the world’s most critical technology”, historian and author Chris Miller describes how the entire modern digital world could practically come to a halt if access to these semiconductors were to disappear.
“The modern economy cannot function without a bunch of these pieces,” Miller said on New York Times journalist Ezra Klein’s podcast, “The Ezra Klein Show.”
President Biden received in 2022 through a political decision called “CHIPS and Science Act” – a decision that guaranteed billions of dollars for domestic American production of both computer chips and semiconductors, in the form of loans and subsidies to American companies. But gathering both knowledge and production capacity takes time.
Trump has criticized Biden’s decision, and would rather introduce sky-high tariff walls on semiconductors and computer chips from abroad to force international players to produce their products within the US borders, writes the New York Times.
Furthermore, Trump accused Taiwan of having “stolen” the computer chip industry of the United States, which in 1990 accounted for about 37 percent of the production of semiconductors in the world, compared to about 10 percent today.
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