BT held “war games” to prepare for the disruption from a potential conflict between China and Taiwan, in a sign of companies’ growing unease over escalating tensions in the region.
Staff at the telecoms group’s Dublin-based procurement business took part in the two-day exercise last year, during which they modelled how they would secure BT’s supply chain against the fallout of a military clash, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The simulation was held after the then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August, prompting China to stage unprecedented military drills around the island. The BT exercise involved a scenario where Beijing sank a ship near Taiwan, a key supplier of semiconductors to the telecoms industry, one of the people said.
Beijing’s threats towards Taiwan have prompted concerns about a rupture to the global supply chain that for years has relied on smooth global trade.
Taiwanese chipmakers, which produce semiconductors for Apple, Google and other tech groups, are responsible for more than 60 per cent of the world’s contract chipmaking capacity, while they dominate cutting-edge semiconductor production, according to a US…
