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I think there's a greater risk of neutralizing the Western incentive to protect Taiwan by damaging the economic infrastructure that makes Taiwan a choke point f
by totalZero 5y ago
I think there's a greater risk of neutralizing the Western incentive to protect Taiwan by damaging the economic infrastructure that makes Taiwan a choke point for the Western supply chain. This is a few years off, but as China advances its high-tech manufacturing there will be less and less of a need for Taiwanese parts in Chinese-assembled electronics, and a large sustained interruption to Taiwanese semiconductor fabrication would cause demand to spike for Chinese substitutes.
- LurkingPenguin 5y agoChina is way more than a "few years" away from taking the semiconductor throne from Taiwan (read: TSMC) and you already see a reshoring movement in the West which is driven in large part by the recognition that access to chips is a national security issue. For this reason, I don't believe China will have the chance to become the world's supplier of semiconductors. Ever. If Xi hadn't taken the path he has, China might have had the chance to. But the West (and even much of the East) has lost trust in China. For years, China has been trying to hurt Taiwan's economic infrastructure, with limited and very patchy success. One amazing figure: Taiwan, with a population of just ~23 million, has foreign reserves of over $540 billion USD, the fifth highest of any country in the world. Also, while the media paints a picture of a stark divide between China and Taiwan, economically the relationship is much more complicated. Many wealthy Taiwanese own businesses/factories in China.
- rsj_hn 5y ago> Many wealthy Taiwanese own businesses/factories in China. Yes, Foxconn would be the most famous example of a Taiwanese company that has lots of factories in China. Although I heard they are making some steps to diversify outside of China. So your iPhone is actually assembled by a Taiwanese company