America’s Hoped-For Asian Semiconductor Pact Looks Tricky

The vision of a “democratic semiconductor supply chain” is not implausible. But creating chip networks rather than fuelling chip wars will require careful co-ordination within individual governments, between allied governments and across public and private sectors. Taiwanese and South Korean chipmakers are locked in a fierce contest to produce next-generation chips. Differences over history poison relations between Japan and South Korea—and have spilled over into the chip trade in the past. None of the countries’ bureaucrats are well-equipped to handle the complexity of semiconductor supply chains. The Chip 4 alliance itself reflects “limited thinking on this”, argues Martijn Rasser, a former senior American official: “How can you have a real conversation about semiconductor supply chains without the Netherlands and probably Belgium?”

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