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The destroyer USS Mustin slipped into the northern end of the Taiwan Strait on August 18, 2020, its five-inch gun pointed southward as it began a solo mission to sail through the Strait and reaffirm that these international waters were not controlled by China—at least not yet. A stiff southwestern breeze whipped across the deck as it steamed south. High clouds cast shadows on the water that seemed to stretch all the way to the great port cities of Fuzhou, Xiamen, Hong Kong, and the other harbors that dot the South China coast. To the east, the island of Taiwan rose in the distance, a broad, densely settled coastal plain giving way to tall peaks hidden in clouds. Aboard ship, a sailor wearing a navy baseball cap and a surgical mask lifted his binoculars and scanned the horizon. The waters were filled with commercial freighters shipping goods from Asia’s factories to consumers around the world. On board the USS Mustin, a row of sailors sat in a dark room in front of an array of brightly colored screens on which were displayed data from planes, drones, ships, and satellites tracking movement across the Indo-Pacific. Atop the Mustin’s bridge, a radar array fed into the ship’s computers. On deck ninety-six launch cells stood ready, each capable of firing missiles that could precisely strike planes, ships, or submarines dozens or even hundreds of miles away. During the crises of the Cold War, the U.S. military had used threats of brute nuclear force to d efend Taiwan. Today, it relies on microelectronics and precision strikes. As the USS Mustin sailed through the Strait, bristling with computerized weaponry, the People’s Liberation Army announced a retaliatory series of live-fire exercises around Taiwan, practicing what one Beijing-controlled newspaper called a “reunification-by-force operation.” But on this particular day, China’s leaders worr ied less about the U.S. Navy and more about an obscure U.S. Commerce Department regulation called the Entity List, which limits the transfer of American technology abroad. Previously, the Entity List had primarily been used to prevent sales of military systems like missile parts or nuclear materials. Now, though, the U.S. government was dramatically tightening the rules governing computer chips, which had become ubiquitous in both military systems and consumer goods. The target was Huawei, China’s tech giant, which sells smartphones, telecom equipment, cloud computing services, and other advanced technologies. The U.S. feared that Huawei’s products were now priced so attractively, partly owing to Chinese government subsidies, that they’d shortly form the backbone of next-generation telecom networks. America’s dominance of the world’s tech infrastructure would be undermined. China’s geopolitical clout would grow. To counter this threat, the U.S. barred Huawei from buying advanced computer chips made with U.S. technology. Soon, the company’s global expansion ground to a halt. Entire product lines became impossible to produce. Revenue slumped. A corporate giant faced technological asphyxiation. Huawei discovered that, like all other Chinese companies, it was fatally dependent on foreigners to make the chips upon which all modern electronics depend. The United States still has a stranglehold on the silicon chips that gave Silicon Valley its name, though its position has weakened dangerously. China now spends more money each year importing chips than it spends on oil. These semiconductors are plugged into all manner of devices, from smartphones to refrigerators, that China consumes at home or exports worldwide. Armc hair strategists theorize about China’s “Malacca Dilemma”—a reference to the main shipping channel between the Pacific and Indian Oceans—and the country’s ability to access supplies of oil and other commodities amid a crisis. Beijing, however, is more worried about a blockade measured in bytes rather than barrels. China is devoting its best minds and billions of dollars to developing its own semiconductor technology in a bid to free itself from America’s chip choke. If Beijing succeeds, it will remake the global economy a nd reset the balance of military power. World War II was decided by steel and aluminum, and followed shortly thereafter by the Cold War, which was defined by atomic weapons. The rivalry between the United States and China may well be determined by computing power. Strategists in Beijing and Washington now realize that all advanced tech—from machine learning to missile systems, from automated vehicles to armed drones—requires cutting-edge chips, known more formally as semiconductors or integrated circuits. A tiny number of companies control their production. We rarely think about chips, yet they’ve created the modern world. The fate of nations has turned on their ability to harness computing power. Globalization as we know it wouldn’t exist without the trade in semiconductors and the electronic products they make possible.