An Operation Paperclip for Taiwan

One reason China may soon invade Taiwan is to capture the island’s uniquely valuable semiconductor production facilities. Taiwan’s crown jewel of chip manufacturing, TSMC, produces more than 90% of the world’s cutting-edge semiconductors. China could hold the United States and its allies economically hostage if it took the island democracy. Deterring the invasion of Taiwan is a daunting military and diplomatic undertaking alone, but the U.S. must think about how to avert economic disaster should deterrence fail. One way to mitigate the threat to the global economy would be to evacuate Taiwan’s most skilled engineers when war appears imminent.

Bringing a couple of thousand engineers to the United States would deny Chinese occupiers the full value of TSMC’s chip factories post-invasion and secure the sufficient talent to lead the herculean national effort to save the U.S. economy by crash-building a TSMC based in the United States. Taiwanese engineers would staff the factory floors and management offices of the new American semiconductor industry. 

This plan would have to be treated with utmost secrecy. The U.S. government can identify Taiwan's top engineers with unique knowledge gleaned from practical experience that only they have mastered. Once it becomes clear China is mobilizing for an attack, Washington would then engage with Taipei to gather the targeted engineers and quietly fly them to the United States. America would likely only win Taiwanese support by simultaneously delivering lethal aid for the island’s defense and preparing the U.S. for war with China. 

There is historical precedent for this idea. In Operation Paperclip immediately after World War II, the United States and its allies evacuated more than 1,500 scientists and engineers from Germany. German scientists were years ahead of their American and their Soviet counterparts in fields like rocketry, aeronautics, and synthetic fuels. In the concluding months of the liberation of Europe, the allies had only a few months to transfer many scientists stationed in Eastern Germany to the US before those areas fell under Soviet control.

Operation Paperclip energized the American scientific establishment in its competition against its incipient Soviet rival at the dawn of the last Cold War. Recruits like Wernher von Braun - known as the Father of Space Travel - led a team filled with other German scientists to design the Saturn V rocket that brought the first humans to the moon. Without these scientists’ advanced knowledge in rocketry and ballistic missiles, the United States might have lost the Space Race. The American technological edge so crucial to the military balance in the Cold War would have been more tenuous, too.

The free world may soon face the same dilemma it did in 1945. The United States and its Communist rival are racing to take the technological edge in an emerging Cold War. Taiwan’s semiconductor engineers would play a comparable role as German scientists in a contemporary Space Race to construct an advanced and secure chip supply chain. The success of an Operation Paperclip for Taiwan could be the decisive factor for the democratic world’s victory over its authoritarian adversaries.  

There are differences between the German Operation Paperclip and its potential Taiwanese variant, as well as immense risks. The United States would face a shorter window of opportunity as it prepares for a looming war. Washington also enjoyed the organizational advantages provided by its wartime army and intelligence operation on the ground in Europe following WWII, something we do not have in Taiwan. American policymakers would have to convince Taiwan of the idea, a massive diplomatic hurdle. Chinese intelligence would be determined to sniff out and leak details of the operation, which could devastate Taiwanese morale and raise doubts about American intentions. Experts believe that the United States and Taiwan would have a month of warning prior to an invasion, leaving little room for error. 

All the more reason for the U.S. to plan for this crisis now. Putin’s unprovoked aggression in Ukraine must force the United States to realize that the same is possible for Taiwan. Losing the island to China would represent more than the tragic death of Taiwanese democracy and a military disaster for the United States - it would also hit at the heart of the American economy. It is time for us to look to the beginning of the last Cold War for ways to ensure that even if deterrence fails, the American economy won’t. 

Ben Noon writes about US-China rivalry and American strategy in Asia. His work has been featured in publications such as War on the Rocks, American Purpose, and RealClearDefense.

Allison Schwartz is a research associate at the American Enterprise Institute focused on US-China competition and a co-editor of Defending Taiwan.