The Future of Taiwan: Semiconductors Alone Make the Island’s Continued Freedom Crucial to the United States

Despite being a tiny, 14,000-square-mile island of 23.5 million citizens, Taiwan plays an outsize role when it comes to America’s economic and national security interests. Taiwan is a key strategic ally, a fellow techno-democracy committed to the principles of free markets and free societies, and a critical economic partner whose technology companies play an important role in enabling U.S. competitiveness in advanced-technology industries.

As Stephen Ezell writes in Discourse Magazine, this is particularly true for the semiconductor sector. Many U.S. companies depend upon Taiwanese enterprises to produce the semiconductors designed in the U.S. As such, U.S. policymakers must recognize the pivotal role Taiwan plays in America’s East Asian security framework, and pursue a range of policies designed to deepen the economic, innovation, trade and security linkages between the two allies.