TAIPEI -- When TSMC Chairman and CEO C.C. Wei stood next to U.S. President Donald Trump early this month and announced the world's biggest chipmaker would be investing an additional $100 billion to build five more advanced chip facilities and an R&D center on American soil, many back home in Taiwan were worried about what it would mean economically and politically for the island.
Taiwan has long taken a measure of comfort in its "Silicon shield," the idea that its chip economy -- the second largest in the world -- makes it too important for the U.S. not to defend it should China ever invade.
