Semiconductor powerhouse TSMC is under increasing pressure to expand abroad and play a security role for the island. Those two roles could be in tension.
One winter afternoon in a conference room in Taipei, a pair of twentysomething women dragged their friend across the floor. Lying on the ground in checkered pants and a brown sweatshirt, she was pretending to be either injured or dead. One friend picked her up by her arms, the other grabbed hold of her legs, and they managed to move her, despite momentarily breaking character to laugh at the awkwardness of the exercise. The three women had paid approximately $40 to spend their Sunday here, undergoing basic training to prepare for a possibility every Taiwanese citizen has an opinion about: Will China invade?
Taiwanese politics increasingly revolves around that question. China’s ruling party has wanted to seize Taiwan for more than half a century. But in recent years, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has placed greater emphasis on the idea of “taking back” the island (which the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, has never controlled). As China’s economic and military might has grown, some analysts believe the country now has the capacity to quarantine Taiwan whenever it wants, making the decision a calculation of costs and benefits.
