Francesca Tavares | On War and the West [Part II]: All eyes on Taiwan

In the preceding analysis of the global crisis, the focus remained on the "head of the snake" in Tehran and the erosion of Western institutional integrity. However, to view the instability of the Middle East in isolation is to miss the broader architecture of modern power. 

As of last Thursday, May 14, 2026, the road to a secure future, for the Caribbean and the wider world, is increasingly paved with silicon and defended by a resolve that currently appears in short supply.

THE MICROSCOPIC GATEKEEPER: UNDERSTANDING THE SEMICONDUCTOR

To the uninitiated, the semiconductor (or "chip") may seem a distant technicality. In reality, it is the most consequential piece of matter in the modern age. A semiconductor is a tiny sliver of material, usually silicon, that acts as a microscopic gatekeeper for electricity. It allows an electrical current to be switched on or off, or to flow in one direction but not the other.

This simple function allows a machine to "think" in binary. Without these chips, the modern world ceases to function. There would be no smartphones, no modern medical equipment, no GPS, and no sophisticated defense systems. 

For the Caribbean, the stakes are existential. The regional economy, built on the pillars of tourism, digital finance, and maritime logistics, relies entirely on the invisible flow of these components. If the supply is severed, the ability to process a credit card or land an aircraft would vanish.

TAIWAN: THE KINGMAKER STATE AND THE BEIJING SUMMIT

The global reliance on this technology creates a "kingmaker state": Taiwan. This island produces roughly 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors – a concentration of power known as the "Silicon Shield".

At the summit between President Trump and Xi Jinping last week in Beijing, the world watched a collision of two vastly different ambitions. As Niall Ferguson observes, while Trump may seek a "Détente" (i.e., a grand deal to stabilise the global order), Xi Jinping’s eyes remain fixed on the island of Taiwan. 

The West often suffers from a dangerous naivety, a lack of wariness that mistakes a tactical pause for a change of heart. For a totalitarian regime, "peace" is merely the period required to prepare for the next phase of expansion. Taiwan, importing 97 per cent of its energy and holding only 11 days of LNG reserves, remains the most precarious pivot in history.

CHINA’S WAR AGAINST GOD: THE CASE OF PASTOR ZHANG SEN

The true character of a regime is revealed not in its diplomatic communiqués, but in how it treats its own citizens. The Chinese state has embarked on a systematic campaign to nationalise the human spirit. A chilling testament to this "war against God" is found in the fate of Pastor Zhang Sen of Maizhong Reformed Church in Fuyang, among many many others facing a similar unknown plight.

Following his arrest in July 2025, Zhang has been detained for more than 300 days without a verdict. According to ChinaAid, the absurdity of his persecution reached a peak during a previous detention. After praying with released believers outside a detention center, police presented photographs of his prayers as criminal evidence. When Zhang asked, “Could it be that I have committed the crime of praying?” the officers replied, “Because your prayer was unregistered”.

For the Caribbean observer, this is a profound warning. In the regional experience, the church has historically served as the final sanctuary of the individual, a site of resistance against the dehumanisation of slavery and state neglect. In China, the state recognises that a person with a loyalty to the Divine is a person who cannot be fully possessed. The dismantling of the underground church is the dismantling of the last line of human defense against the state.

THE IDEOLOGICAL PINCER: THE RED-GREEN AXIS

The world is currently facing an ideological pincer movement: a fusion of Marxist "oppressor-oppressed" binaries and Islamist eschatology. This "Red-Green" axis seeks to dismantle the foundations of modernity under the guise of "decolonisation".

This effort is subsidised by hidden actors. Qatar, while masquerading as a neutral mediator, leverages its massive wealth to pump anti-Western, self-loathing propaganda into the veins of Western youth, through Western influencers, propagandists, and state-owned media masquerading as independent international news (Al Jazeera, anyone?).

Virtues such as tolerance and self-critique have been turned into weapons. The intent is to foster a belief that the West is the primary engine of evil, ensuring that when the time comes to fight for freedom, the proponents of liberty will be too busy apologising to pull the trigger.

THE PANOPTICON AND THE NECESSITY OF DETERRENCE

The alternative to Western hegemony is visible in the Social Credit System, a digital panopticon where every action is scored by an algorithm of obedience. This influence is not confined to the Pacific. The "white ants" of political subversion – exemplified by the recent guilty plea of a Californian mayor acting as an unregistered foreign agent – are hollowing out democratic institutions from within.

As Shadi Hamid argues in ‘The Liberal Case for American Power’, a vacuum created by Western retreat will be filled by those who do not share even a nominal commitment to human rights. There is a pervasive fallacy that war is the greatest possible evil. This perspective ignores the reality that a distaste for war by good men is the primary invitation for evil men to act. 

The preservation of peace depends on a simple, uncomfortable truth: good men must be more skilled in violence than those who seek to destroy freedom, and they must be unafraid to use it as a deterrent.

Victory in the Middle East is inextricably linked to the fate of Taiwan. If the West lacks the clarity to defend its values in the Levant, it will lack the will to protect the Kingmaker in the Pacific. 

The summit in Beijing may have offered the language of diplomacy, but the reality is one of cold, hard power. Justice requires the dispassionate application of that power to ensure that the masters of the "unregistered prayer" do not become the masters of the future.

All eyes are on Taiwan. May there be wisdom and discernment in times to come.

- Francesca Tavares is an Attorney-at-Law. Email feedback to [email protected]