My Take | Two titans of tech are offering two very different views of Taiwan
- For TSMC founder Morris Chang, war is unlikely while Foxconn’s Terry Gou believes it is possible even as he casts himself as the party for peace
Two tech titans, two views of Taiwan. Who’s right? That’s the trillion-dollar question about war and peace.
In a new interview with The New York Times, Morris Chang, founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) who is often called the godfather of the island’s tech industry, said he didn’t think there was likely to be a war across the Taiwan Strait.
“The chance of China invading Taiwan, amphibious warfare and all that stuff, I think that’s a very, very low probability,” he said. “A blockade of some kind, I think I still put it as low probability, but it’s still a chance and I want to avoid that.”
We all hope he is right but of course, he would say that. After all, some Washington politicians have openly declared that at the first sign of conflict, the US military would blow up all of TSMC chip foundries to deny them to the mainland Chinese.
So, however such a conflict turned out, Chang’s lifework could be the first to go up in smoke.