Joseph Jye-Cherng Lyu on Taiwan, Wisconsin, and what each owes the other:
A Taiwanese banker turned trade envoy came to Madison to sign an agreement and, in the course of explaining why it mattered, told a short history of how Taiwan learned to make semiconductors. American aid rebuilt the island after the war. An American company licensed it the technology in 1976. Engineers trained at IBM, AT&T and Texas Instruments went home and built an industry. His argument is that what looks to some like a supply chain problem is better read as a debt coming due, and that Taiwan intends to repay it by helping rebuild the manufacturing base that America let thin.