It’s a hedge for ifwhen things get difficult over Taiwan.
The USA without cheap Chinese manufacturing is basically dead in the water. It is approximately unfathomable how much of the comfortable and cheap way of life enjoyed in the US is directly dependent on trade with China and mindbendingly cheap Chinese manufacturing labor.
The ~most valuable company in the country is 100% beholden to Chinese manufacturing to make the most popular product that makes all of their money. They are doing their best to replicate manufacturing capacity in India but you can’t make 50,000 iPhones an hour without years of build-up and thousands upon thousands of trained staff.
If China invades Taiwan, the USG is basically game theoretically forced to make Americans endure some significant hardships until a new metastability is achieved.
Not gonna happen in recent years, I suppose. PRC also needs US-designed and/or Taiwan-manufactured advanced chips. The possibility of war will ever decrease as long as more and more people wake up to the consequences.
Someone's not privy to how fast China is progressing nowadays. Americans are so ignorant on Chinese technological prowess right now. Chinese EVs are dominating every market in the world aside from US which has basically banned it essentially, otherwise we'd have very affordable cars in America. America banned DJI drones which owns about 70-80% of the world market on drones. China recently unleashed an open source AI model (and this is with limited funding and compute because they put a ban on exports of US and Taiwan chips) that rivals openai o1 with a fraction of funding. Not to mention how China has always had the lead on manufacturing automation and robots.
Man Americans are oblivious to how fast China is progressing.
Can Americans live without cheap goods from China? Yes, but those goods may not be easily accessible in a short period. The same goes for Chinese people. Although there are indeed alternatives, Qualcomm and NVIDIA, for example, still dominate the market, simply because they can offer the best product. And those alternatives, from my view here in China, still have a way to go.
China's progress is real, but there are still many things like cutting-edge semiconductors and airplane engines they cannot compete in and thus rely on the West for.
The Chinese leadership is well aware of this and is massively funding efforts to build these indigenously, but they're chasing moving targets and still decades away from catching up.
I don't see why the need for advanced chips would prevent China from using its military on Taiwan.
If anything, the US-led blockade of advanced chips to China will make it more likely for China to use force. If China can't get their hands on the most advanced TSMC chips, then why would they let the US do so and get too far ahead in AI? Both can't have them then.
> If anything, the US-led blockade of advanced chips to China will make it more likely for China to use force.
you watched too much MSM
1. the whole taiwan thing is just an excuse to force the united state to waste more resources on a topic selected and controlled by China. nothing is better at wasting US efforts by forcing it to keep investing borrowed $ in its military presence over 10,000km away from its mainland, nothing is affordable at such distance.
2. Taiwan doesn't make those ASML machines, they operate those imported machines very efficiently, that is all. China is playing a long game, trying to master and eventually control the full semiconductor supply chain at any cost by developing its own industrial bases. In such a big picture, Taiwan with what it has today is tiny, it doesn't worth such an invasion. With 1.4 billion population and its ongoing competitions with the US, China doesn't have the luxury to select which sectors or fields it must control - it has to control everything to just have its people employed on half decent pays.
If China so much as touches Taiwan, all the TSMC fabs will explode. They are all already rigged to do so. The Taiwanese will burn their island to the ground before they let the CCP get their hands on Taiwan.
lmao. these americans are hopeless arent they? "Rigged to explode" LOL. Not to mention China is catching up fast on chips.
American propaganda...one day Americans are going to wake up and realize, China has taken over in all areas of tech and Americans are going to be in such denial that they'll want war... sigh. China is already leading in many areas, not all of them yet, but they soon are
> That said, China has stated that their long-term plan is to overtake our military, economic, and technological dominance.
Any source on that? From what I have read, according to CCP's official mouthpieces[1], "China's development strategy focuses on continuous self-transcendence, and does not aim to surpass the US or any other country".
I agree, although it is a "real" enemy in the sense that their ascension is a threat to US hegemony or the idea of the USA as the preeminent world superpower.
I don't see it as rational, but there is definitely an argument that the USA ought to remain positioned as number one, having the ability to dictate global politics. I don't think we deserve it, but it's certainly 'better' for us in the sense that it gives us an advantage and thus might improve our quality of life (cheaper imports, blah blah blah). I view that argument as entitled and promoting the status quo.
The Chinese people have worked hard. Actually, people all over the world work hard, although the Chinese have gone past industrialization and have a massive and capable population. The idea that they wouldn't have more power and would need to somehow remain under the US's thumb, where we get to say how they treat Taiwan or what currency they can trade in with other countries, just seems absurd. People come up with bullshit reasons for why the US ought to retain some control over their politics or how the rest of the world engages with the Chinese (and we don't just get to do that anyway), e.g., the Chinese are mean to the Uyghurs, as if anyone ever gave a fuck about the Uyghurs or whoever twenty years ago.
In all that sense, China is certainly a real threat. But the level of entitlement behind that argument is so blatant that I can't take it seriously.
Well said. I don't mind that the US is doing what they're doing. It probably even make sense for the US to work against China. What I don't like is the massive "China bad" propaganda campaign when in reality, it's just jostling for power and economics.
> Well said. I don't mind that the US is doing what they're doing.
But with Trumpism again being the winner, how much of the world still view the US positively? Obama's Iran Deal was a USA-EU-Iran agreement, when Trump pulled it, it didn't just piss off "the enemy" (Iran) but also the allies (EU), and it destroyed US's credibility, even with a Democratic president, anyone going to do a deal with the USA will ask for guarantees in case the deal gets wrecked after the next presidential election...
Has China been accepted as a "real" enemy? To me, China is the main virtual enemy that politicians trout out to create fear and distraction.