TSMC Chairman Warns
Mark Liu, chairman of Taiwan’s TSMC which is the world’s largest foundry company, stressed that China's invasion of Taiwan will not only stop TSMC’s factories but cause a tremendous economic chaos in both countries and destroy the world order.
In an interview with CNN on Aug. 1 (local time), Liu warned, “If China invades Taiwan, the war brings no winners, everybody's a loser." Liu had the interview amid rising tensions between the United States and China ahead of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
Liu argued that a Chinese invasion will render TSMC factories non-operable, which means that "Nobody can control TSMC by force." It is necessary to consider the extreme sophistication of TSMC’s factories, which require real-time connectivity with partners around the world, from raw materials to components and software.
Liu said that if TSMC’s production is halted due to such an invasion, China will inevitably suffer an economic chaos as it depends on TSMC for 10 percent of its semiconductor demand.
Noting that all countries involved in the Russia-Ukraine war, including Western countries, are all losers, Liu said this lesson should be applied to Taiwan. “Nobody in the business world wants to see a war happen,” he said. “Why do we jump again into another trap?”