The Strait That Runs the World Economy

More than half the world's advanced logic chips are fabricated on an island the size of Maryland, inside artillery range of a rival great power.

That single fact reshapes every calculation in the Indo-Pacific. Deterrence here is not abstract. It is measured in fab capacity, in shipping insurance premiums, in how many days of chip inventory Apple and the Pentagon keep on hand.

Washington calls it strategic ambiguity. Beijing calls it a core interest. The market calls it the single largest concentrated risk on the planet, and it prices a little more of that risk in every time a jet crosses the median line.