These questions are only half rhetorical. I really want to hear what people have to say about this.
Most everyone things China will invade Taiwan because they want to own the land. It was once part of "china" but now is a (politically unrecognized) separate nation.
Everyone thinks that the only reason not to invade is that warfare will surely destroy all semiconductor manufacturing on the island.
The US wants to cripple the Chinese semiconductor industry to ensure that Taiwan can't be invaded without severely hurting the Chinese economy.
It's only if the free world can't compete will China catch up, in which case it will get what it deserves.
The thing is, "latest and greatest" is actually a niche demand, even if we don't feel like that's the case because of phones and laptops. The market for non-phone, non-laptop, boring unsexy applications that don't require more than 14nm is apparently much bigger.
You can't know that. Taiwan might plan to do this, which China surely anticipates, thus in any invasion plans would be made to stop it - paratroopers dropping on top to seize control quickly during the night, covert operatives swooping in to take out critical personnel in charge of sabotage, etc. etc.
> Is the USA going to sell their chips to China?
China is already working on improving their own industry and reducing reliance on imports.
The chip machines need maintenance which the Chinese cannot do themselves. They don't have the knowledge. They'd need ASML (European company) for that.
And as long as this fucks us, we will be extremely protective of Taiwan.
Once USA is silicon-independent, we'll have one less reason to threaten China with war, and China will have one less reason not to invade.
to create a total war involving the countries dependent on products from Taiwan.