China’s ruling party has wanted to seize Taiwan for more than half a century. Many in Taiwan and elsewhere think one major deterrent has to do with the island’s critical role in semiconductor manufacturing. But now some Taiwan specialists and some of the island’s citi­zens are worried that this “silicon shield,” if it ever existed, is cracking. Despite its awareness that people are developing emotional bonds with the model, OpenAI appears to have been caught flat-footed by the fervor of users’ pleas for its return. Within a day, the company made 4o available again to its paying customers (free users are stuck with GPT-5).