The development of Birmingham, an essay

It is no wonder that Craig Addison, the former editor of Electronic Business Asia magazine, wrote an essay for the International Herald Tribune (September 29, 2000), headlined “A 'Silicon Shield' Protects Taiwan from China.” He argued that “Silicon-based products, such as computers and networking systems, form the basis of the digital economies in the United States, Japan and other developed nations. In the past decade, Taiwan has become the third-largest information technology hardware producer after the United States and Japan. Military aggression by China against Taiwan would cut off a large portion of the world's supply of these products... Such a development would wipe trillions of dollars off the market value of technology companies listed in the United States, Japan and Europe.” Even if China's leaders, like former president Jiang Zemin, who was once minister of electronics, lose sight of how integrated China and Taiwan are in the world's computer supply chain, they need only ask their kids for an update ...»