Taiwan’s Invisible Empire
Twenty-three million people.
A slip of land off China’s coast.
And yet…this island holds the switch to the modern world.
Its weapon isn’t oil, gold, or guns.
It’s silicon.
Through a single company – TSMC, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company…Taiwan produces over 90% of the world’s most advanced microchips: the silent circuitry inside iPhones, fighter jets, AI data centres, and nuclear systems.
When you say technology, you’re really saying Taiwan.
Every iPhone, Tesla, and F-35 fighter depends on its chips.
Even the most powerful nations can’t replicate them.
Each TSMC “fab” costs tens of billions to build, takes years to complete, and operates at atomic precision.
The machines that make those chips…built by a single Dutch firm…are rarer than moon rockets.
That’s why Washington and Tokyo guard Taiwan not just out of principle, but out of necessity.
If the fabs stop, the world stops.
Your phone, your car, your missiles, your markets…dark. Overnight.
It’s called the Silicon Shield:
Taiwan’s dominance is its defence.
Destroy it, and you collapse the nervous system of civilisation.
Behind the headlines of war drills and diplomatic visits lies a harder truth:
Every government on Earth is hostage to a factory floor in Hsinchu.
One island.
One company.
The world’s most fragile empire.
Global Ledger | thebritishledger.com/global