There's just too many of them, and there'll always be diminishing returns, so at some point what they do will be alright even if it is slightly behind.
Anyway, China dominating chip and AI will likely happen soon. They don't really need Taiwan for that.
That's your opinion, not theirs. The CCP has staked its legitimacy on their ability to "unify China" (take Taiwan by force) and they've been spending a great deal of money to develop the necessary military capability. This is true whether or not you think their desire seems rational.
And by the way, it's not about computer chips. It never was. The computer chips thing is techy tunnel vision, tech people see the tech thing as the important thing, but China has wanted to take over Taiwan for far longer than Taiwanese chips have been at all relevant. It's not about chips; it's about national pride, prestige, and face.
In response to anonylizard: "TSMC is banned from exporting high-end chips to China."
It's amusing that it's US, defender of trade freedom, who gives orders to Taiwan, with who to trade?
"The Taiwanese want to be an US ally, and not end up destroyed like Hong-Kong, hence they'll comply with US sanctions."
Why would they want that, if they have 60% or more of their trade with China, share culture, and are closer to them? I think it's also a misconception that Hong-Kong got destroyed, but I am not sure. Obviously it has not the same economic weight in the West as it used to, but that is true for all former colonies.
Look, I agree that it would be better if China was a liberal democracy (although I also believe that liberal democracy has only limited effect on limiting imperialism, as is obvious from the British and US example). But if the Taiwanese people will be forced to choose between economic depression (due to some more sanctions on trade with China) or losing democracy, I sure hope, for the sake of their future, they will choose the latter. And I am worried US will force them to make this decision, exactly for the reason of "national pride, prestige, and face".
If you're using the economy as a weapon it makes complete sense for Taiwan to block those ties.
1. Because they say they will.
2. Their military spending backs up what they're saying. It's not just hot air from politicians, they really are committed to building the ability to take Taiwan by force.
It depends on who you ask.
Foreign entities who used to operate politically in Hong Kong got obliterated due to the national security law. (Yes, it used to be "legal" for foreign entities to do funny things with the intention of subverting Chinese interests in PRC soil. Imagine that!)
Hong-Kongers who refused to believe the PRC (and CCP) were ultimately in power after 1997 had their dreams and illusions "destroyed". Many migrated elsewhere.
(And then there's aftershocks due to COVID policies having to align with mainland China's, and financial/property markets being tied to China which is currently kind of struggling, but the causation with post-2019 politics is not very clear.)
Personally, I think the doomer narrative w.r.t. Hong Kong is overblown, unless you fall into the two categories above.
China is still far behind the US in high-end chips. Sure they are catching up. But China is on borrowed time due to population collapse. China will run out of young engineers far more quickly than the US will.
The first mover can have overwhelming advantages. If the US gets to AI first, dominates the global AI market, China facing demographic collapse, economic decline, will lose the ability to compete for supremacy
And the US can attract foreign engineers far better than China ever will. For many, many reasons, whether it is the language (English is far more common as a second language than Chinese, even though Chinese is among the top spoken as a first. And Chinese is ridiculously hard to learn, it's not just the writing system, the spoken language being a tonal language is not helpful either.), the capital - US corporations pay better, the higher quality of life/work environment etc.
This is what happens when people foreign to Chinese corporate culture have to deal with it (the first link is about Taiwan but they're not too dissimilar when it comes down to this):
https://restofworld.org/2024/tsmc-arizona-expansion/
> Chang, speaking last year about Taiwan’s competitiveness compared to the U.S., said that “if [a machine] breaks down at one in the morning, in the U.S. it will be fixed in the next morning. But in Taiwan, it will be fixed at 2 a.m.” And, he added, the wife of a Taiwanese engineer would “go back to sleep without saying another word.”
No, I don't want to work for this kind of asshole.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/quit-facebook-tiktok-biggest-diff...
> Although US and Singapore teams aren't expected to do 996 — I work normal US working hours — the reality is that US employees still often attend late night meetings to collaborate with teams in Asia.
> The lack of process, mentorship, standardized performance review, and internal documentation means that it's harder to learn best practices and mature in your profession.
Oof.
The US can afford a population decline more than many other nations of the earth, and it is continously draining brain power from the rest of the world. Many of the more talented programmers I've known as a French living in France moved to the US for greener pasture. Americans should not have too many worries about the future: if it ever gets bad for them, it means the rest of the world will suffer even harder.
Perhaps Putin's action isn't as irrational as it seems?
How so? Russia already controlled the whole of Crimea since 2014. Ukraine joining NATO would certainly NOT have changed the status of Crimea.
Putin's action would have been rational if he had captured Kyiv in a couple of days or weeks, and managed to install a puppet government. IMO the whole thing was based on bad intel, lies, corruption and yes-men who told their superiors what they want to hear, rather than what was the truth about Ukraine's defense capabilities. After that Putin couldn't back off without losing his face, and obviously loss of human lives and economic damage mean nothing compared to that to him.
1. The U.S. fails to protect Taiwan. 2. All allies lose confidence in the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and they create their own nuke programs. 3. Japan and S. Korea produce nukes nearly overnight. Lots of other countries follow. We now have a much worse nuclear arms race.
China needs only one reason to make the argument for taking control of Taiwan. That's national security. Taiwan is extremely important as a strategic island for defense of the mainland. For example, go look at a map of Taiwan airspace vs Chinese airspace. Honestly, I find it almost ridiculous that such a great power is boxed in so much by a tiny neighbor.
Personally, I think Taiwan needs to take one for the team and commit to reunification with China. That would cool things down significantly. Maybe the Chinese could even throw in some deals on borders to give the Philippines and other neighbors a break.
This is a much better solution, not worse, because empirically the only thing that stops countries being invaded is having nukes, so the more countries with nukes, the fewer invasions there'll be.
That approach was already tried against Hitler, allowing Germany to reunify with Austria (Austrians were even willing), and then taking Sudetenland.
If you reward aggression, you will only get more aggression.
That is not true, punishing aggression creates more criminals, fixing their problems creates less criminals, there is plenty of evidence of this. USA rewarded Germanys aggression with the Marshal plan, rewarding aggression is great!
Another example, Norway didn't want to be a part of Sweden any longer, Sweden rewarded this "aggression" by giving Norway independence. Everyone lived happily ever after, the end.
Happy endings are possible.
If you say that isn't "aggression", that is what people say about other separatist movements, separatists are always labeled aggressive and combative, somehow people always argue that separatists are never happy and always wants more, but evidence suggests that letting them separate actually can work and make both sides happy. So I am pretty sure that sometimes when two countries wants to unify you should let them, meaning "rewarding aggression" is sometimes the right play.
For example, if England instead of waging a war against Irish separatists let them separate I think both would be happier, but instead of doing like Sweden they punished the aggression and just caused misery for everyone.
Now about China you are possibly right, I just think you can't say that you shouldn't reward aggression in general, because often that is exactly what you should do.
For example, if Taiwan built nuclear weapons, then the whole invasion idea is cooked and won't ever be worth it and you can't say 'Oh, America is over there' because it's all Taiwan and then nobody needs to care about this anymore.
An independent Taiwan is a threat to their plans for military conquest, nothing more.
The US no longer being able to print money (without massive inflation) out of thin air would force it to be more fiscally responsible like many other countries have to be.
Honestly, I don't think so. And even if they did, they can't do anything about it. Complaining will only give them a bad social score which will make their lives difficult. I think this is geopolitically irrelevant.
> China dominating the Tech industry vs the US makes no difference to a majority of the people in the world.
Economy, technology, industrial capacity and military power absolutely go hand in hand.
If you can't get chips because the production is controlled by China. You can't build missiles, fighter jets, drones or really anything. Not even modern helmets.
If China gets Taiwan, the US are geopolitically toast. That's why the US will not tolerate it and will even go to war if necessary.
But then again, why does the US risk going to war with China over Taiwan?
You think it's because democracy, liberty and or human rights?
It is very obviously strong geopolitical interest.
The West wants liberty and democracy to prevail in the world and doesn't want to lose them, thus they care of their geopolitical interests. Who would have thought!
China can't win a peaceful competition against the US in the long run, because China is undergoing total demographic collapse (Marriage/birth rates declining 10% yoy every year).
China's plan is to sprint for the last stretch, while its population can still work.
As for the US, it is really held together by the massive wealth from its tech and financial dominance. Given the enormous social fractures today (please don't forget that Trump was nearly assassinated 1 month ago), an structural economic collapse will mean civil war.
1. China takes Taiwan
2. China dominates all chip manufacturing
3. China dominates the AI industry
4. China overthrows the US tech industry supremacy by dominating global markets
5. US economy collapses (It is not exaggerating to say the tech industry is the lifeblood of US economic growth, just look at the stock market)
The philosophical argument is actually irrelevant, since China isn't trying to export its ideology that much beyond some alliances of convenience. China never tried to win that argument either, it just blocked off the internet with its firewall, and focused on building its economy.
China is first and foremost a military threat, then an economic threat. Hence why winning AI is so pivotal (AI drones will dominate battlefields and jobs).