Chang, who founded Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co in the late 1980s, made the remarks at an event hosted by the Asia Society in New York. The company has helped the democratically governed island of Taiwan become the world's leading producer of advanced chips.
Chang, 92, said that cutting off China's chip industry from the rest of the world would affect other players beyond China. Chang said that the effects of such decoupling were already becoming clear and that many previous economic conflicts between established and emerging powers had ended in wars. Born and raised in China, Chang built a career in the US, where he become a naturalised citizen in 1962, before being recruited to build the chip industry in Taiwan. He is now regarded as a legendary figure in the industry that's caught in the middle of the geopolitical tension.