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| When I first arrived in Taiwan as a college student in the summer of 1973, there was no ambiguity whatsoever about the American role on the island. |
| 1973年夏天，当我作为一名大学生第一次来到台湾时，美国在台湾的角色十分明确。 |
| Over the previous two years, President Richard M. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, had opened relations with the People’s Republic of China in Beijing. But a short distance away in Taiwan, which the People’s Republic considers a breakaway province, U.S. Air Force jets soared overhead. There was a U.S. base right in Taipei, within walking distance of my favorite bookstore. |
| 在那之前的两年里，理查德·M·尼克松总统和他的国家安全顾问亨利·基辛格在北京打开了与中国建交的大门。但在不远处的台湾，那个被中华人民共和国视为一个分离省份的地方，美国空军的战机在空中翱翔。台北有一个美国基地，从我最喜欢的书店可步行到达。 |
| After reading Chinese philosophy, I’d drop by the base canteen for a fix of cheeseburgers, Coca-Cola and rock ’n’ roll. At night, the local bars were often filled with hard-partying G.I.s, flown in from Vietnam for rest and recreation. |
| 我会读些中国哲学书，然后去基地食堂买芝士汉堡、可口可乐，听摇滚乐。到了晚上，当地的酒吧里经常挤满了从越南飞来休息和消遣的大兵，在这里休息娱乐。 |
| As an American in Taipei, you understood in a visceral way that you were living in an outpost of the American empire in Asia, protected by the American military. |
| 作为身在台北的美国人，你心知肚明，你生活在美国帝国在亚洲的一个前哨，受到美国军队的保护。 |
| Now, while Taiwan remains a close ally, it is also protected by something far more subtle — its absolutely central role in world markets. |
| 现在，虽然台湾仍然是一个亲密的盟友，但它还受到一种更隐蔽的保护——其在世界市场上的绝对核心地位。 |
| The ‘silicon shield’ |
| “硅盾” |
| More specifically, Taiwan is a colossus in the global market for semiconductors, the brains of modern electronics. Taiwan takes some comfort in what its president, Tsai Ing-wen, calls its “silicon shield” — its mastery of the manufacturing of the microchips that are as essential to the economy in the 21st century as oil was 100 years ago. |
| 更具体地说，台湾是全球半导体市场的巨头，半导体是现代电子产品的大脑。总统蔡英文提出的“硅盾”这个说法，让台湾感到宽慰——它在微芯片制造上的统治地位，对21世纪的经济至关重要，就像是100年前的石油一样。 |
| Taiwan produces most of the world’s highest-tech silicon chips — slivers the size of a fingernail, on which are embedded billions of microscopic transistors. The very best chips are made — “fabricated” is the term of art — at the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, which may be the most important company that most people in the United States have never heard of. |
| 世界上大部分最高技术水平的硅芯片都是台湾生产的——指甲大小的硅片，上面嵌入了数十亿个微型晶体管。最好的芯片是台湾积体电路制造公司（TSMC，简称台积电）做的——更专业的术语是“fabricated”（制造）。台积电可能是大多数美国人从未听说过的最重要的公司。 |
| Taiwan Semiconductor is the most valuable company in Asia and one of the dozen most valuable in the world, with a market capitalization of more than $400 billion. If you invest in international stocks through a broad, diversified mutual fund or exchange-traded fund, you probably own a piece of it. I do, through several Vanguard index funds in my retirement accounts. |
| 台积电是亚洲市值最高的公司，也是全球十几个市值最高的公司之一，市值超过4000亿美元。如果你通过广泛、多元化的共同基金或交易所交易基金投资国际股票，很可能持有台积电。我就有，在我退休账户中的几个先锋指数基金里。 |
| It has been a splendid investment. Over the 20 years through Wednesday, Taiwan Semiconductor returned 18.6 percent annually, including dividends, FactSet data shows. That thrashed the S&P 500, with an annual return of 10.3 percent, and Intel, the biggest American chip-maker, at 6.7 percent. |
| 这是一项极佳的投资。FactSet数据显示，截至周三，台积电在20年间的年回报率为18.6%，其中包括股息。这击败了年回报率10.3%的标准普尔500指数，而美国最大的芯片制造商英特尔则为6.7%。 |
| The magic of those chips |
| 这些芯片的魔力 |
| Taiwan Semiconductor isn’t a household name because it doesn’t sell its products directly to consumers. But its own customers certainly do. For a clue about the company’s commercial power, consider that the microchips it makes for Apple are the core of every iPhone sold. |
| 台积电并非家喻户晓，因为它不直接向消费者销售产品。但台积电的客户肯定很明白。要了解这家公司的商业实力，只需要知道，它为苹果生产的微芯片是每一部售出的iPhone的核心部件。 |
| The iPhone 13 mini in my pocket, as well as the new iPhone 14 models introduced on Wednesday, is built around chips that were designed by Apple in California; produced by Taiwan Semiconductor in Hsinchu, Taiwan; and shipped for assembly on mainland China or perhaps, these days, in another country. |
| 我口袋里的iPhone 13 mini以及周三推出的新款iPhone 14都是围绕苹果在加利福尼亚设计的芯片构建的；这些芯片在台湾新竹台积电生产；并运往中国大陆组装，如今也可能在另一个国家进行组装。 |
| China has made the production of its own state-of-the-art silicon chips a national priority, but it has been unable to catch up with Taiwan. The Biden administration is intent on making sure that it does not, imposing restrictions on the export of the most advanced chips — and chip-making equipment — to China. And with $50 billion from the new CHIPS and Science Act, the administration is trying to shift some of the fabrication of the best chips back to American shores. |
| 中国已将生产最先进的本土硅芯片作为国家优先事项，但一直无法赶上台湾。拜登政府一心要确保中国赶不上，对向中国出口最先进的芯片和芯片制造设备施加限制。而且，通过新的《芯片和科学法案》(CHIPS and Science Act)提供了500亿美元，政府正试图将一些顶级芯片的制造环节转移回美国本土。 |
| As my colleague David Leonhardt put it: “The most advanced category of mass-produced semiconductors — used in smartphones, military technology and much more — is known as 5 nm. A single company in Taiwan, known as TSMC, makes about 90 percent of them. U.S. factories make none.” |
| 正如我的同事大卫·莱昂哈特所说：“最先进的量产半导体类别——用于智能手机、军事技术等领域——被称为5纳米芯片。这种半导体约90%由台湾一家名为台积电的公司生产。美国工厂不生产。” |
| The structures etched on these microchips are vanishingly small. “Nm” is short for nanometer. Read this slowly: A nanometer is a millionth of a millimeter. |
| 蚀刻在这些微芯片上的结构非常小。仔细品味这句话：一纳米是百万分之一毫米。 |
| Chris Miller, a professor of international history at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, describes the microchips coming out of Taiwan eloquently in his forthcoming book, “Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology.” He points out that the coronavirus that began spreading around the planet in 2020 was only about 100 nanometers in diameter. The same year, Taiwan Semiconductor was etching shapes less than half that size onto scores of millions of chips for Apple. |
| 塔夫茨大学弗莱彻法律与外交学院国际史教授克里斯·米勒在他即将出版的《芯片战争：世界上最关键技术之战》(Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology)一书中对来自台湾的微芯片做出了生动的描述。他指出，2020年开始在地球上传播的新冠病毒的直径只有100纳米左右。同年，台积电为苹果公司在数百万芯片上蚀刻的形状大小不到病毒直径的一半。 |
| Back in the 20th century, I listened to ballgames on a transistor radio. Now, I watch them on my phone and iPad, thanks, in part, to the Apple A15 processor inside them, which contains 16 billion transistors, all etched in Taiwan. |
| 回想20世纪，我在晶体管收音机上听球赛。现在，我在手机和iPad上观看，部分归功于它们内部的苹果A15处理器，它包含160亿个晶体管，全部在台湾蚀刻。 |
| What’s more, modern weapons systems of all descriptions and the world’s telecommunications infrastructure, plus applications in artificial intelligence, self-driving vehicles and much more, depend on these exceedingly complex chips. |
| 更重要的是，各种现代武器系统和世界电信基础设施，以及人工智能、自动驾驶汽车等领域的应用，都依赖于这些极其复杂的芯片。 |
| As Dale C. Copeland, a professor of international relations at the University of Virginia, writes in Foreign Affairs: “China now has some capability to produce chips with transistors that are under 15 and even under 10 nanometers in size. But to stay on the cutting edge of technological developments,” China needs chips “measuring under seven or under five nanometers, which only Taiwan can mass-produce at a high level of quality.” |
| 正如弗吉尼亚大学国际关系教授戴尔·C·科普兰在《外交事务》中所写：“中国现在有能力生产小于15纳米甚至10纳米的晶体管芯片。但要保持在技术发展的前沿，”中国需要“7纳米或5纳米以下的芯片，只有台湾有能力大规模生产高质量的芯片。” |
| How long that tech gap can be sustained may be as important a geopolitical question as the nuclear, ballistic and antiballistic puzzles of the Cold War. |
| 这种技术差距可以持续多久，这样一个地缘政治问题的重要性可能不亚于冷战时期核武器、弹道和反弹道难题。 |
| The origins of Taiwan’s success story are difficult to explain in a nutshell, but I’ll try. |
| 台湾这个成功案例的起源很难一言以蔽之，但我会尽力。 |
| The Taiwan government wanted to develop a local Silicon Valley in the 1980s, and had cheap land, ready capital and a highly educated work force eager to work at much lower wages than companies in the United States paid. |
| 台湾政府想在1980年代发展本地硅谷，它拥有便宜的土地、现成的资本和受过高等教育的劳动力，他们渴望工作——以比美国公司低得多的工资。 |
| But it didn’t have the expertise until it brought in Morris Chang, a Chinese-born U.S. tech veteran, who realized that manufacturing chips, not designing them, would be Taiwan’s forte. Mr. Chang founded Taiwan Semiconductor, and the rest is history. |
| 但它没有专业知识，直到中国出生的美国技术资深人士张忠谋的到来，他意识到台湾的强项是制造芯片而不是设计芯片。张忠谋创立台积电，之后的事情就成为了历史。 |
| Stock prices and the Pelosi visit |
| 股票价格和佩洛西访台 |
| In a long Zoom conversation, Professor Copeland said a nation’s military power had always been built on its economic strength. |
| 在一次漫长的Zoom对话中，科普兰表示，一个国家的军事实力终归建立在其经济实力之上。 |
| “Cutting countries off from access to critical materials can cause a war,” he said, “but calibrating access carefully might be able to prevent one.” |
| “切断各国获取关键材料的途径可能会引发战争，”他说，“但仔细调整流通可能能够防止战争发生。” |
| In this sense, limiting trade in the most advanced semiconductors is, at a bare minimum, provocative to China, which dearly needs them. But permitting trade in “fairly advanced” semiconductors softens the blow and can promote prosperity, Professor Copeland said. That is essentially what the Biden administration is doing. |
| 从这个意义上说，限制最先进半导体的贸易至少是对中国的挑衅，因为中国非常需要这些半导体。但科普兰表示，允许“相当先进”的半导体贸易可以减轻打击，促进繁荣。这基本上就是拜登政府正在做的事情。 |
| What is most important is “a country’s expectations of future trade,” Professor Copeland said. If it is clear that China will be better off with a steady flow of chips from Taiwan, he added, peace is likely to prevail. |
| 科普兰说，最重要的是“一个国家对未来贸易的预期”。他还说，如果能清楚地看到，从台湾获得稳定的芯片供应对中国更有利，那么和平就有了希望。 |
| Taiwan is “the beating heart” of the global semiconductor industry, Professor Miller says. But China’s military exercises, in response to the Taiwan visit of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, illustrate how vulnerable the global economy has become. |
| 米勒表示，台湾是全球半导体产业“跳动的心脏”。但中国针对美国众议院议长南希·佩洛西访问台湾而举行的军事演习表明全球经济已变得多么脆弱。 |
| Were Taiwan’s semiconductor operations to be destroyed, Professor Miller estimated, the total worldwide economic damage could easily exceed the cost of the entire coronavirus pandemic. |
| 米勒估计，如果台湾的半导体产业被摧毁，全球经济损失的总和可能很容易超过整个新冠大流行造成的损失。 |
| “If you start looking at the role Taiwan plays in just about every industry, which is tremendous and which everyone relies on, you have to ask, ‘What could we produce without it if it were gone?’ |
| “台湾在几乎所有行业中所扮演的角色都是巨大的，所有人都依赖它，如果你开始关注它，你就会问，‘如果没有它，那我们还能生产什么？” |
| “In Year 1, we would face tremendous disruptions across all sectors of the economy. It would take years to recover and to replace that capacity, if it were destroyed.” |
| “在第一年，我们将面临经济所有部门的巨大混乱。如果这些产能被摧毁，恢复和替代工作将需要数年时间。” |
| That’s why I have been monitoring the share price of Taiwan Semiconductor carefully. From Aug. 2, the date of Ms. Pelosi’s arrival in Taiwan, through Thursday, the stock fell more than 5 percent. That’s not great, but it isn’t a sign of the apocalypse. |
| 正因如此，我一直密切关注台积电的股价。从佩洛西8月2日抵达台湾之日到上周四，该股下跌超过5%。这并不好，但也不是世界末日的征兆。 |
| The stock market seems unperturbed, but the situation is dicey. |
| 股市似乎没有受到影响，但形势很不稳定。 |
| Central problems in the U.S.-China relationship have never been resolved. Back in the Shanghai Communiqué of February 1972, which reopened diplomatic relations, the two sides agreed that there is only “one China.” Chinese leaders made it clear that “the Taiwan question is the crucial question obstructing the normalization of relations between China and the United States,” and, 50 years later, it remains an enormous problem. |
| 美中关系的核心问题从未得到解决。早在1972年2月重启外交关系的上海公报上，双方就同意只有“一个中国”。中国领导人明确表示，“台湾问题是阻碍中美两国关系正常化的关键问题”，而且，50年后的今天，这仍然是一个巨大的问题。 |
| China would prefer to achieve reunification peacefully but won’t rule out a military solution, if it comes to that. The United States remains committed to protecting Taiwan, but it cannot prevent China from degrading or destroying the semiconductor manufacturing capabilities of the island. |
| 中国更倾向于和平实现统一，但不排除军事解决。美国仍然致力于保护台湾，但无法阻止中国削弱或摧毁它的半导体制造能力。 |
| The Taiwan semiconductor industry’s extraordinary importance in world commerce may be the only thing capable of providing that protection. |
| 台湾半导体行业在全球商业中的非凡重要性可能是唯一能够提供保护的东西。 |
| Ideology and nationalistic fervor have led to war in the past, and Chinese leaders say the Taiwan question can’t be put off indefinitely. |
| 意识形态和民族主义狂热曾经导致战争，中国领导人说，台湾问题不能无限期地拖延下去。 |
| At the moment, though, just about everyone else is depending on the power of the silicon shield. |
| 不过，目前几乎所有人仍在依赖硅盾的力量。 |
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