21–30 of 69 posts
We push shit load of money to China continiously making them stronger, in the same time weakening ourselves badly as dependent on their "area" production.
While semiconductors are a very important part of industry, it's naive to think that a loss of Taiwanese output would be as disastrous as this article suggests. Consider the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, they are much larger than any such loss would have, yet this pandemic didn't have any acute large-scale effect on geopolitics (though it will like have a longer-term, and some what unpredictable effect). A muc…
Considering TSMC's share of chip fabrication business, it would be fairly disruptive. TSMC does have the dominant position in the sub-7nm cutting-edge processing nodes, used primarily by companies like Apple, Qualcomm and nVidia, but at least some of them, Qualcomm and nVidia, have been diversifying their sources (primarily to Samsung) while Apple seems to have everything in one basket. But then, who cares about Appl…
What do you mean?
> Thus the semiconductor market in 2021 is a fully baked cake. You can’t just swap some ingredients out in response to a one-off military invasion, and then keep trucking along. No, we’ll have to bake a whole new cake if TSMC goes bye-bye. And that will be painful for everyone, everywhere. Well, tell that to the economists that praised "competitive advantage" out-sourcing of everything: "Smith outlines the basic theo…
It especially ignores how another country can also buy/"partner" with your companies, and export their expertise to help their own companies, and harm yours.
A simplistic model that ignores a wide variety of behavior economic and political actors can and do engage in, yet that didn't stop economists from swearing up and down that there's nothing to worry about.
The Taiwan saga will be another example of the 5 stages of acceptance. Right now the western world seems to be in denial. Once China does a small incursion into Taiwan, we'll advance to the next stage - anger. Inability to stop China will take us to bargaining. When China ignores the west, we'll get into the depression stage. When CCP's troops start patrolling Taiwan streets, and I think it'll happen in just ten year…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I heard it put this way once: the US can’t stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan any more than China could stop a hypothetical US invasion of Cuba. In both cases it’s a battle right off the coast of a superpower with pretty massive home court advantage to the closer nation. Right off shore means no supply lines and the ability to just fire shit from shore at enemy ships and planes. The entire industrial output of the clo…
Given some warning the US could actually stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The US Navy has the second most powerful air force in the world just behind the US Air Force. That’s the rather insane scale we’ve invested into the current military. Cruse missiles are a different story, China could trivially destroy TSMC’s factories. That said, the US is hardly the only nation likely to react to such an invasion.
I know we do not differentiate China and Chinese most of the time, but in this case, it is problematic since Taiwan is >95% Chinese. Maybe Beijing's invasion of Taipei would be better?
The Taiwan saga will be another example of the 5 stages of acceptance. Right now the western world seems to be in denial. Once China does a small incursion into Taiwan, we'll advance to the next stage - anger. Inability to stop China will take us to bargaining. When China ignores the west, we'll get into the depression stage. When CCP's troops start patrolling Taiwan streets, and I think it'll happen in just ten year…
It would be impossible for China to conduct a "small incursion" into the main island of Taiwan. Geography and logistics make it an all-or-nothing deal. A small amphibious or airborne force would be too vulnerable and there wouldn't be any way to sustain it. If an invasion comes it will be huge, like on the scale of the WW2 Normandy assault.
While semiconductors are a very important part of industry, it's naive to think that a loss of Taiwanese output would be as disastrous as this article suggests. Consider the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, they are much larger than any such loss would have, yet this pandemic didn't have any acute large-scale effect on geopolitics (though it will like have a longer-term, and some what unpredictable effect). A muc…
Make no mistake, we are in 'Willy Wonka' land with respect to currency.
The reason it hasn't lead to geopolitical fallout is because 'everyone is in the same boat'.
If 'just Canada' did this ... even with a pandemic, Canada would be getting trashed on the markets, major downgrades, the fallout would peter into a lot of things and there's no question at least the government would probably fall.
If if were acutely a China-Taiwan issue then all of a sudden the world's eyes would be on that as the source of the issue an it would cause a pretty big realignment.
This would be 10x more amplified were there a military component.
It's one thing for there to be a flummox over a virus, but China 'invading' countries would basically be such a strong signal ... it would be the demarcation point for literally a New World Order. Future historians would count the end of WW2 up until then as maybe a single era, with that event starting a new one.
All the chess pieces would be moved or adjusted.
Perhaps when the US and its allies withdraw troops from the Middle East, they can move them to Taiwan to protect it from China.