Convenience Big Store: The microchip secret that could save Taiwan

21 October, 2021

In the headlines

We may soon be swamped by 100,000 daily cases of Covid, says Health Secretary Sajid Javid. It's "tremendously reassuring" that he's not pressing the panic button by ordering mask mandates and working from home, says the Daily Mail. But what will trigger Plan B? The government seems to have no idea, says The Times: "Bluntly, there's a sense of drift." The world's biggest carbon emitters are trying to water down a UN report on climate change, says the BBC: a Saudi official has demanded that any mention of ditching fossil fuels "be eliminated" and Australia has rejected a call to shut down coal-fired power stations. Facebook is planning a name change, reports The Verge. Sure, says anti-Mark Zuckerberg congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "That'll fix it 🙄"

Comment of the day

A microchip factory in Taiwan. Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images

The microchip secret that could save Taiwan

I used to worry that Chinese industry would leave the West in the dust, says Thomas Friedman in The New York Times. "But I worry a little less now." To understand why, look at Taiwan and the microchip. Taiwan has the world's largest contract manufacturer of microchips – TSMC. The company has a global market share of more than 50%, is the main supplier for Apple and makes some of the most cutting-edge technology going. China, just 100 miles away across the straits, has nothing even remotely comparable. So "what is the secret of TSMC's sauce that China cannot replicate"? Trust.

As in so many industries, when it comes to microchips the best technologies are the most complex. They require countless parts and equipment. No one country has the best of every category, "so you need a lot of trusted partners". Taiwan has these in the Netherlands and the US. But, thanks to Xi Jinping's bullying, China does not. Trying to solve this problem by seizing Taiwan to get hold of TSMC would be "a fool's errand" for Beijing. It's this sort of aggression that drives other countries away. Those trusty international suppliers would withdraw. Xi should think carefully. One day his bullying will come back to bite him.

The crumbling of the American dream

The woke revolution isn't the fault of dumb "snowflakes", says Bari Weiss in Commentary magazine. It's a backlash against "major changes" in American life: the loss of religion; the collapse of American industry; crushing student debt; successive financial crises and the pandemic. Our social fabric has been torn apart; the American dream has become almost a joke as inequality grows ever greater. In 1949 Arthur Koestler wrote of his love affair with communism: "I became converted because I was ripe for it and lived in a disintegrating society thrusting for faith." The same could be said of this new revolutionary faith, which has 62% of Americans afraid to voice their true opinions.

The seeds of wokeism are planted in schools. Third-graders in California were asked to rate themselves in terms of their power and privilege, while maths has been deemed racist in Oregon. For children deemed "oppressed", it instils a deeply pessimistic view of the world, encouraging them to see malice in everything around them. They are "denied the dignity of equal standards and expectations". For children deemed "privileged", it creates a hostile environment where they are too intimidated to participate. We're living in a world where "you are guilty for the sins of your fathers" – and it's no good for anyone.

Noted

The pandemic is changing our attitude towards work, says Derek Thompson in The Atlantic. Americans are quitting their jobs in record numbers and the proportion of people who envisage working beyond 62 is at its lowest since records began in 2014. We shouldn't be surprised – crises of the pandemic's magnitude tend to "leave an unpredictable mark on history". World War Two "accelerated the development of penicillin and flu vaccines". The Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which razed nearly 20,000 buildings, "contributed directly to the invention of the skyscraper".

Gone viral

The new John Lewis insurance advert is far from sexist, says Sara Tor in The Times. With its "air of 1980s rebellion", the ad is "pure rock and roll" – something I, for one, have "never associated with John Lewis". Set to a Stevie Nicks song, it features a boy sporting blue eyeshadow and a dress destroying the family home as his mother and sister look grimly on. Oh come on, says Isabel Oakeshott in the Daily Mail. It's "sexist stereotyping writ large". No prizes for guessing "who will have to pull on the Marigolds at the end of the little darling's rampage".

Shopping

Interior designer Nicky Haslam has released his third "things Nicky Haslam finds common" drying-up cloth (not tea towel). The list includes books about Churchill, Soho House, two-bite canapés, Juliet balconies, saying "I hate having my photo taken", swimming with dolphins, Richard Osman and art. Yours for £28.

Snapshot

On the way out

Cash. Britons are now withdrawing £100m less a day from ATMs than they were before the start of the pandemic.

Snapshot answer

It's a glacier on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, the tallest peak in Africa at 19,340ft. A UN report has warned that climate change could melt it for ever within two decades – along with glaciers on Mount Kenya and in the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda. Mount Kenya's are likely to go first, which would make it "one of the first entire mountain ranges to lose glaciers due to human-induced climate change".