WASHINGTON: If the United States loses Taiwan to a full takeover by China, it will lose its global leadership for the next century because for at least the next decade Washington desperately needs computer microchips manufactured in Taiwan to catch up with Beijing in the three crucial technological areas of space, artificial intelligence (AI) and hypersonic weapons, Hadrian CEO Christopher Power said on Tuesday.
“If we lose Taiwan, we lose global leadership for at least 100 years,” Power told the US House Foreign Affairs Committee. “We lose the three major technological races … [of] space, AI and hypersonics.”
Power explained that it would take at least another decade for US domestic industry to build up the necessary base to produce the microchips that it currently imports from Taiwan, reported Sputnik.
“No one seems to have any viable plans to catch up. The public is not aware of it. … Ninety-five percent of all factories in the US high tech defence industrial base are shutting down. America’s greatest manufacturers are asking, ‘Where are my parts?'” Power said.
The high-tech sector is in need of a serious intervention by the US government very quickly in the form of an immediate infusion of millions of skilled workers in metallurgy, engineering and welding, especially from India and from the allied “five eye” countries of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, Power added. – BERNAMA-SPUTNIK
