Comments by "M gronich" (@mgronich948) on "What Everyone Gets Wrong about China Invading Taiwan" video.

  1. Doesn't this video totally miss the point about a potential war between the US and China over Taiwan? The book Thucydidies trap explains why China and the US might go to war some time in the future. The neocons in the US are used to being able to invade any country on a whim for no good reason. Then let the US propaganda machine convince at least the US public that it's for freedom and democracy and human rights. Examples abound Afghan, Iraq, Libya, Syria. The US has stated maybe 1000 times China represents an existential threat, to US hegemony. To stop the rise of China the US started an economic war as early as late 2015 but ramped up with Trump and ramped even more with Biden. The economic war has slowed China's economic rise but not enough. The NEOCONS next step would be a proxy war. This is where Taiwan comes in. A proxy war with Russia over Ukraine is already underway and the US in fact is setting up possible proxy wars with the Philipines, S-N Korea as well as Taiwan. The US agreed to the 1 China policy back in 1979. But more recently the US has started to back track on that with Biden saying he would militarily defend Taiwan. But this would happen only if the US decided that it was impossible to win the sanctions/economic war. The latest and most extreme of the economic war is the Chip war. And here it doesn't look good for the Neocons. After 100's of sanctions of Chinese companies and banning the sale of chip making technology not just from the US but from the Dutch and Japan, and in addition the chips act that will subsidize US companies to the tune of 50 Billion, the 1st indication of the plan not working is Intel the biggest receipient of Chips act funds announced layoffs of 15,000 staff a few months after being told they would receive ~20B in Govt aid. The US knows that there is one act that would trigger military action by China, and that is a declaration of formal independence by the Taiwanese govt. This is not as easy as it might seem. The ruling DPP party said if they were to go this route they would put this to a referndum vote. And >90% of Taiwanese do not want formal independence in annual polls for the last ~20 years. Also the US knows that if China does take military action it's first act would be a military blockade of the Island. This is where Taiwan's sillicon shield come into play. This blockade would knock 2 Trillion from the US GDP. The silicon shield does not deter China from attacking, China doesn't buy any advanced chips from Taiwan because of US sanctions. Rather the shield prevents the US from triggering a proxy war. That is until the US has the advanced chip making capability on US soil. The Chips act provides subsidies for TSMC, Samsung and Intel to build these fabs. But it's likely they won't be operational till 2027 or later. In the event Taiwan reunits with China either peacefully or by force, the US has convinced ASML to put self destruct bombs in the lithography machines ASML ships to TSMC in Taiwan. The bombs can be triggered remotely. This is not to say a CHinese invasion of Taiwan would never happen but there multiple stumbling blocks to a war. 1) A referendum on independence at the present would see 90% of Taiwan vote no. A huge amount of propaganda is needed to change the minds of Taiwanese. 2) The state of the art chipfabs being built in the might fail for technical or personell/staffing reasons. TSMC is having a lot of trouble adjusting to an American vs Taiwanese work force. The Americans don't want to work the graveyard shift (midnight to 8am), the Taiwanese are stuck with the worst working hours while getting less pay. The American unios complain about Taiwanese management. Taiwanese management calls some of the workers lazy. 3) the chip fabs fail economically. It's expected that once the technical and staffing problems are solved it'll be 50~100% more expensive that making the same Chip in Taiwan. So in spite of words from customere they will buy chips from TSMC in the US when the difference in a big order is 1 Billion vs 1.5 Billion, customers will buy the chips made in Taiwan. 4) is timing. China is building up its military at an astonishing rate. They are building warships 3X faster than the US at 1/10 the cost. And the technoogy is roughly on par. If too much time passes before Taiwan's silicon shield goes away, China's military may be so much bigger than the US's that provoking a proxy war may no longer make military sense. China is also fighting back in the economic war. It's doing so by out-competing the US. Many industries are dominated by Chinese companies, solar, wind, high speed rail, heavy civil engineering, steel, alum etc. A few years ago foreign Auto companies (US, German, Japan, S. Korean)dominated the world's biggest car market China. That's ending. Chinese EV are taking over the China market but also China passed Japan as the world's largest auto exporter. Foreign auto company joint ventures are going bankrupt. Tesla is doing OK. The other is the Brics and the possibility of a Brics currency and a replacement of Swift for the BRICS countries and the ~40 nations wanting to join BRICS. The silicon shield prevents the US from triggering a proxy war in the near term. But in the long term. Depending how long the long term is, it may be too late to have a war.
    1