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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) finished her visit to Taiwan against China’s objections, heads to other Asian capitals before returning to Washington to a hero’s welcome. Washington, on both sides of the aisle, applaud Pelosi’s visit against a backdrop of Beijing’s threats, all because China has its sights of Taiwan. China knows that the U.S. has supported Taiwan since the days when Chiang Kai-Shek led a band of nationalists out of Communist China during the throes of the 1949 Maoist Revolution. China, before Mao’s Marxist-Leninist Revolution, was a capitalist society that didn’t always work for the vast majority of Chinese living in hunger and squalor for centuries, no matter what the dynasty. Mao promised to transpose Marxist –Leniniism to China, where the vast majority of peasants believed his utopia of a better life for rank-and-file Chinese citizens.

Taiwan has population of over 23.57 million, all with a shared ideology of free market capitalism, opposed to Communist rule. Since the Maoist Revolution, led by Chairman Mao Zedong, no premier of China called for the takeover of Taiwan. Taiwan developed independently of Mainland China, largely with the help of the U.S., eventually becoming one of the most prosperous economies in Asia. Taiwan’s biggest corporation by far is Taiwan Semiconductor [TSMC], founded in 1987, has a market cap of $436.67 billion, with annual revenue of $352.4 billion, making it one of the most valuable companies in the world. Led by 68-year-old CEO Mark Liu, TSMC is the world’s largest supplier chips including, Apple Computer, General Motors , Qualcomm, Broadcom, to name a few. Liu s aid yesterday that at Chinese takeover of Taiwan would disrupt 55% of the world’s chip supply.

Pelosi visited TSMC CEO Mark Liu in her two-day stay in Taiwan, leaving some to wonder whether she and her husband Paul own stock in Taiwan Semiconductor. Whether she does or not, it pretty clear to financial markets that TSMC is a major supplier of chips for U.S. and foreign corporations. “Our interruption will create great economic turmoil on either side,” said Liu,” who succeeded TSMC’s founder Morris Chang in 2018, “Suddenly their most advanced component supply disappeared,” said Liu, highlighting why a Beijing takeover of Taiwan can never occur. Pelosi’s visit raised more questions about a Chinese invasion. Watching the Ukraine War, Chinese President Xi Jinping watched while Russia has been alienated from the Western Alliance, leaving it in a costly war with Ukraine, while, at the same time, dealing with extreme financial sanctions harming the Russian economy.

Xi complained about Pelosi’s visit because it violated the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, signed into law by former President Jimmy Carter, guaranteeing China that the U.S. would only recognize Beijing, while, at the same time, ending the 1954 Sino-American Mutual Defensse Treaty. China demanded in opening up formal diplomatic relations with the U.S. that Washington recognize only one China, the one in Beijing. Yet since 1949, successive generations of U.S. presidents recognized the special independence of Taiwas, a democrat-run country. Carter made a big mistake forcing the U.S. government to stop recognizing the Republic of China [ROC], the one in Taipei. “Nobody in the business world wants to see a war happen,” said TSMC’s Liu. “Why do we jump again in another trap?” Liu asked rhetorically, knowing that the only way forward is to assure that Taiwan survives as an independent country.

President Joe Biden should respond to Beijing’s threats of a Chinese invasion to assemble a mutual defense treaty for Taiwan that includes Japan, South Korea, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. If Beijing understood that any attempt to invade Taiwan would trigger a mutual defense treaty, it would give up on threats to takeover the Island of Formosa. U.S. War College quarterly, “Parameters” James McKinney and Peter Harris argued that the “strategic ambiguity” doctrine must be replaced by a firm commitment to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. “This could be done most effectively by threatening to destroy facilities belong to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company,” McKinney and Harris wrote. Instead of threatening to destroy TSMC in a Chinese invasion, Biden should work to complete a new mutual defense treaty that protects the Island nation.

Issues related to a country’s wealth and prosperity have to take into consideration ongoing threats by Beijing to take over the Island nation. Chinese President Xi Jinping and the entire Chinese Communist Party [CCP] are kidding themselves that an invasion of Taiwan is feasible. “People of Taiwan have earned their democratic system,” Liu said. “They want to choose their way of life,” putting China on notice that they just can’t make idle threats without expecting a fight. Whatever the history with Taiwan, Xi must recognize that it’s not a renegade part of Mainland China but an independent state built on free market capitalism, much like the U.S. and South Korea. If Biden wants to clarify today’s “strategic ambiguity,” he needs to set up a new mutual defense treaty that allows Taiwan the right to live in peace with its own system of government. Unlike Hong Kong, Taiwan is its own independent nation.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.