In a year when American, Indian and British citizens will go to the polls, elections in Taiwan, the democratic island off the coast of China, may not attract too much attention.
But when voters in Taiwan choose their new president next Saturday, it could help determine the future of a critical cog in the modern economy.
The country, the size of Switzerland and with a population of 26m, is the fulcrum of the worldwide semiconductor industry, responsible for manufacturing the vast majority of microchips that feature in smartphones and high-powered computers.
It produces more than 60pc of the world’s semiconductors, and 90pc of the most advanced ones: components that we require not just for consumer electronics, but washing machines, cars and lightbulbs.
Semiconductors, and their reliance on a single country, have become a growing concern in recent years as technological tensions with China mount, then as the pandemic created a crippling shortage of chips, and more recently, as advanced chips became central to the artificial intelligence revolution.
Deteriorating relations between the West and a more assertive China have also raised jitters about Taiwan, which the Communist Party claims as its own. An invasion would give China control over a global electronics supply chain, and it is often rumoured that factories are booby-trapped to explode in such a case.
“Taiwan is, right now, a pretty irreplaceable player in the semiconductor supply chain,” says Chris Miller, a historian at Tufts University and the author of Chip War, which chronicles the geopolitical history of the technology.
“It’s going to remain a very, very important player for a long time.”
Just as Taiwan is crucial to the microchip industry, chips are central to the country’s economy. They account for 15pc of GDP and more than a third of exports. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chip manufacturer, makes up more than a quarter of the value of Taiwan’s stock exchange.
So inevitably, the country’s status as the world’s microchip factory has become a flashpoint in this week’s elections.
Next Saturday, voters will appoint a new president after eight years under Tsai Ing-wen, whose Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has maintained a policy of standing up to Beijing.
The new DPP candidate, William Lai, is seen as a more hardline independence advocate, and is deeply disliked in Beijing.
The main opposition, Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang (KMT) party, advocates closer relations with China; his running mate has called the election a choice between “war and peace”.
Both would represent a change at a delicate time: Xi Jinping used his new year’s message to call reunification a “historical inevitability”, and an unprecedented third consecutive term for the DPP, the most likely outcome according to polls, would agitate Beijing.
TSMC, which manufactures the central processors in iPhones and is known in Taiwan as the country’s “sacred mountain” due to its economic importance, has surfaced as a key issue.
In a vice-presidential debate last week, Hou’s KMT deputy Jaw Shaw-kong accused TSMC of prioritising investment outside of Taiwan: under pressure from overseas politicians worried about Taiwan’s future and dangling lavish subsidies, the company has promised giant chip factories in Arizona and Germany.
“Our TSMC wants to run off overseas,” Jaw complained, saying that the company now had a policy of “Taiwan plus one – one factory in Taiwan, one overseas, hollowing out our Taiwan”.
Jason Hsu, a former Taiwanese lawmaker and fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, says TSMC’s size has made it a political football.
“The spotlight gives TSMC a lot of pressure in terms of influencing their decision making,” he says.
“Whatever decisions regarding investment or business that they make, it is now interpreted as a political decision. For TSMC to invest overseas in the US, in Japan, in Germany, it means it’s not creating jobs domestically.”
Pressure on TSMC to prioritise domestic investment would directly contradict Joe Biden’s efforts to diversify the global supply of semiconductors.
The US president has pushed through a $53bn (£42bn) support package to encourage chip production in America, but the plan has faced early setbacks, with funding decisions criticised as slow and both TSMC and Samsung pushing back the dates at which their new megafactories will be operational.
Miller says criticism of the plan is premature, but that it will take time to bear fruit. “Taiwan will play a less critical role in the chip production process in 10 years’ time than it does today. But it’s a change that’s not going to happen overnight. It’s going to be a long and gradual shift, rather than an immediate change.”
Whoever becomes Taiwan’s new leader, its command over one of the world’s most important technologies will remain a source of tension – not just inside the small democracy, but for the billions that depend on it.