The June 2026 U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding resolved almost nothing: Iran kept its nuclear program, missile stockpile, and regime. By threatening to choke the Strait of Hormuz and outlasting the political will of the United States, Tehran secured promises of nearly $344 billion in sanctions relief.
The People’s Republic of China noticed. Beijing would now not require a traditional naval blockade to exert pressure on Taiwan. A campaign involving mines, DF-21D and DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missiles, cyberattacks, and maritime harassment could cut the island’s sea lanes without a single Chinese marine setting foot in Taipei. A People’s Liberation Army naval blockade of Taiwan would be more consequential for the world than what Tehran did in the Strait of Hormuz.
A People’s Liberation Army naval blockade of Taiwan would be more consequential for the world than what Tehran did in the Strait of Hormuz.
Today, Taiwan accounts for over 90 percent of the world’s advanced logic-chip production and roughly 60 percent of global foundry capacity. A naval blockade of Taiwan or a repetition of Iranian-style blackmail in the Strait of Hormuz, cutting shipments of photoresists, specialty gases, spare parts, and finished microelectronics, would cripple the global electronics industry and the automotive sector and hamper global artificial intelligence and defense production. The global economy could shrink by around 5 percent, with an annual bill of around $10 trillion.
The most sophisticated chips processed at under seven nanometers cannot be pulled from a warehouse or supplied by another producer. Changing design, testing, and qualifying alternate sources, and retrofitting production lines can take years. The United States, European countries, Japan, South Korea, and other allies depend on advanced microelectronics and other materials produced exclusively in Taiwan. Disruption of these supply lines would be devastating.
China knows this. A successful naval disruption in the Taiwan Strait might test whether Washington really means it when it speaks in defense of its allies, and whether the U.S. alliance system in the First Island Chain has meaning in times of hardship.
The record shows that Washington has not taken the challenge seriously and certainly not with the urgency it deserves. Taiwan’s ability to endure the initial stages of such a blockade and to coordinate with its allies, meanwhile, may not be up to the task.
Israel’s tech industry requires global supply chains, including reach into Taiwan. Israel cannot resolve Tawain’s vulnerability itself but it could help by providing the asymmetric capabilities and the practical experience needed to make a Chinese quarantine of Taiwan harder, slower, and more expensive. Israel, a small state that lives in an unfriendly neighborhood, has spent decades maintaining the security of its maritime approaches in the face of ballistic and cruise missiles, drones, sabotage, and proxy warfare from hostile neighbors.
Israeli Arrow-family interceptors were developed to address the challenges posed by the DF-21D and DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missiles. Israel has learned lessons in distributed sensing, electronic warfare, fast targeting, civil-defense continuity, and military operations in a state of permanent risk.
Israel’s unmanned naval vessels, including the Seagull class, might offer insights into a Taiwan Strait characterized by minefields, small, unmanned surface vessels, and militia swarms. The Jewish state’s cyber experience would offer insights into defending ports, energy storage, communications, and industrial infrastructure, especially semiconductor fabrication plants and assembly facilities. The same intelligence methods Israel uses to track Iranian proxy networks could help identify gray-zone coercion before it escalates into open conflict.
Traditional direct arms transfers from Israel to Taiwan are out. Jerusalem’s “One China policy,” along with its need to preserve lines of communication with Beijing, makes overt military cooperation unpalatable. China remains Iran’s main economic lifeline. If an accommodation between the United States and Iran takes root, then Chinese clout will rise in Tehran. Therefore, Jerusalem has every reason to keep open one avenue to pressure Beijing over Iranian nuclear activity, missile transfers, or proxy operations.
But Israel does not have to stand still. One option would be to provide seabed acoustic sensing and data fusion technology. Israeli companies are accustomed to protecting offshore gas fields in the Mediterranean and to monitoring approaches to the Red Sea. Through a Singapore-registered commercial firm in partnership with Taiwanese oceanographic authorities, similar systems could be offered to Taipei as oceanographic climate sensors. A passive sensor network could still provide early warning of minelaying, mini-submarine activity, and unusual military strategic positioning. While China may object, scientific and commercial agreements are harder to brand as military partnerships.
The objective is straightforward: extend the operational life of essential facilities during a crisis while ensuring that Beijing does not achieve an overnight economic victory.
A second option lies in logistics. Israel has learned how to sustain its supply lines in the face of rocket and drone attacks. Through a United Arab Emirates-based firm with connections to commercial networks within the emerging Abrahamic security network, Israeli specialists could help Taiwan develop contingency shipping routes, virtual inventories, and emergency logistical plans for photoresists, specialty gases, and other resources critical to semiconductor manufacturing. The objective is straightforward: extend the operational life of essential facilities during a crisis while ensuring that Beijing does not achieve an overnight economic victory.
Finally, a cutting-edge doctrine lies with India. A discreet Israeli-Indian-Taiwanese line of communication could share knowledge on missile defense, maritime surveillance, dispersed logistics, and hybrid coercion without publicly binding Jerusalem to Taipei. India would bring diplomatic protection, increasingly capable naval forces, and, in turn, its own strategic interests in curbing Chinese dominance in the Indo-Pacific. At the same time, Taiwan might use these lessons to deepen its relationships with Pacific island states and Southeast Asian partners, whose ports, early-warning radars, and political support could be vital to Taiwan’s endurance.
The more resiliency Taiwan shows, the less chance of an invasion. Beijing may not want a powerful Taipei, but it understands that a long war that involves American, Japanese, or even Indian forces will lead to disastrous consequences for its economy and its standing. It wants a lightening-strike victory; Israel can help Taiwan prevent this.
