Is China seeking to copy Iran’s Strait of Hormuz blockade around Taiwan?

# Why This Matters A sustained Chinese blockade of Taiwan would represent one of the most consequential geopolitical shifts in decades, effectively severing the island's access to the roughly $2 trillion in annual trade that flows through its ports and threatening the global semiconductor supply chain that underpins everything from smartphones to military systems. Unlike Iran's Strait of Hormuz strategy, which affects energy exports, a Taiwan blockade would create immediate economic shock across democracies dependent on advanced chips, potentially triggering a global recession while forcing the United States and its allies into an unprecedented choice between accepting Chinese hegemony over a crucial democracy or risking direct great-power conflict. The military implications are equally stark: demonstrating the capacity to isolate Taiwan without triggering intervention would fundamentally alter security calculations across the Indo-Pacific, emboldening China on other territorial disputes while signaling to allied nations like Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines that U.S. security guarantees may be unreliable. If China believes it can execute such a blockade with limited international response, the strategic environment shifts from deterrence to coercion at scale.