Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology

by Chris Miller

De Gaulle was formalistic and ceremonious, a tradition-minded military man who saw himself as the incarnation of French grandeur. Ikeda, by contrast, thought his country’s voters were straightforwardly materialistic, and promised to double their incomes within a decade. Japan was nothing but an “economic power,” de Gaulle declared, huffing to an aide after the meeting that Ikeda behaved like a “transistor salesman.” But it wouldn’t be long before all the world was looking enviously at Japan, because the country’s success selling semiconductors would make it far wealthier and more powerful than de Gaulle ever imagined. Integrated circuits didn’t only connect electronic components in innovative ways, they also knit together nations in a network, with the United States at its center. The Soviets inadvertently made themselves part of this network by copying Silicon Valley’s products. Japan, by contrast, was deliberately integrated into America’s semiconductor industry, a process supported by Japanese business elites and the U.S. government. When World War II ended, some Americans had envisioned stripping Japan of its high-tech industries as punishment for starting a brutal war. Yet within a couple years of Japan’s surrender, defense officials in Washington adopted an official policy that “a strong Japan is a better risk than a weak Japan.” Apart from a short-lived effort to shut down Japan’s research into nuclear physics, the U.S. government supported Japan’s rebirth as a tech...