Taiwan's shipping routes turn a local war into a global shock

Operation Overlord offers a useful comparison because wartime Normandy did not sit between two dense streams of neutral commercial shipping. Taiwan does, with some of the world's busiest routes passing on both sides of the island. Combat and rerouting would disrupt microchip supplies, financial markets, and the goods on which consumer economies depend even before sanctions began. The resulting economic losses would give governments far from the fighting a direct interest in who started the crisis and how quickly shipping could resume. Economic contraction also carries human costs through pressures such as health-care expenses and stress, while failed economic forecasts give politicians reasons to blame whoever caused the disruption.