They surround us in our daily lives and we can no longer live without them, which is why they are crucial in determining world hegemony. We talk about the semiconductorsthe microchips that are in remote controls, mobiles, consoles, computers, credit cards, medical appointments and everything we can imagine.

The United States seeks to isolate China by allying with taiwanwhat’s wrong with it 92% of world production of advanced microchips. What’s more, Joe Biden approved regulations to restrict the Asian giant’s access to the most advanced processors.

emilio gonzalezProfessor of Economics at the Comillas University ICADE, assures that “we would have to auto stop everything” and go back to 1920. “The technology is American, but to lower labor costs, the factories were in China,” he says.

For his part, the director of the Raw Materials Research Center, Santiago Cuestaexplains that the United States controls the investment and design of microchips.”

As in many other issues, the pandemic made the global order itself reconsider, seeing how when China suffered a stoppage in the production of masks, that affected the rest of the globe.

In the middle of this war, we must take into account three countries that will be key in the global semiconductor industry: Netherlands, South Korea and Taiwan itself. The last two have a difficult position, close to historically hostile neighbors.