ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the globalization of semiconductor production activities and its security repercussions with reference to a neglected case. It explores the migration of the Taiwanese semiconductor industry, which is one of the most competitive global players, to People's Republic of China (PRC), and the geopolitical implications of this migration for the triangular relationship between Taiwan, China, and the USA. Sectoral migration across the Strait has resulted in increasing globalization of microchip production activities. The first security implication of migration concerns the extent to which it has contributed to the build-up of a viable chip industrial base in China, thereby helping to modernize the programmable logic array (PLA) and to shift the balance of power in the trilateral relationship. The globalization of production activities in a strategic industry that has unfolded across the Taiwan Strait has generated vulnerabilities for key players involved in a more complex fashion than the Pentagon's original unexamined Realist claims have suggested.
