Taiwan Strait Tensions
A potential conflict that would be the largest economic shock in modern history.
Severity score
54.4
Severe · default weighting
Trajectory
Worsening
What this is
Military activity around Taiwan has intensified year on year. No conflict is underway, but the concentration of advanced semiconductor manufacturing on the island means even a blockade would disrupt global production of almost every electronic device. The tail risk is nuclear.
Score breakdown
Loss of life
30Direct and attributable mortality, normalised across annual and cumulative tolls.
Lives negatively impacted
62People displaced, injured, food-insecure, exposed or otherwise materially harmed.
Financial cost
96Direct damage, lost output and health-system spend attributable to the event.
Environmental impact
18Emissions, habitat and biodiversity loss, contamination and irreversibility.
Trajectory
80Whether the situation is escalating, and how much worse it is plausibly getting.