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Comment by pphysch | Hacker News Reader

Much of the American economy is already at China's mercy, due to the $500,000,000,000+ in goods we rely on from them annually. Hospitals running out of medical supplies will hit WAY sooner than your existing 4090 needs to be replaced by a new Taiwanese product.

This whole "Taiwan is super important to USA" narrative is itself pure government propaganda, related to military power projection over China's coastline. Surely you can at least admit this. It's just a battle of propaganda, except China unfortunately has common sense on its side in many of these arenas:

USA should not be spending hundreds of billions maintaining a WW2 power projection strategy, 80 years later.

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I disagree (I don't know what "military power projection over China's coastline" even means - do you think the U.S. has military bases in Taiwan?), but the point is that these issues need to be debated by Americans without the other side surreptitiously trying to sway public opinion.

> these issues need to be debated by Americans

Yo can we drop the whole “our government executes on the will of the people charade”. If you think your average American has any say in their governments foreign policy I have a bridge to sell you.

> I don't know what "military power projection over China's coastline" even means

That's the problem. There's massive lack of historical education on this topic. The Taiwan issue greatly predates TSMC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_chain_strategy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_island_chain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis

>> Then China gains control over TSMC without a fight and much of the American economy is at their mercy.

> Much of the American economy is already at China's mercy, due to the $500,000,000,000+ in goods we rely on from them annually.

Yes, but let's not use that as a justification for letting it get worse.

> This whole "Taiwan is super important to USA" narrative is itself pure government propaganda, related to military power projection over China's coastline.

The whole f*ing modern economy runs on semiconductors, and the most advanced ones are fabbed in Taiwan. You might have a point if Intel wasn't falling on its face, but it is, so you don't

The way we stop making this worse, i.e. reducing our trade deficit with China and in general, is by doing virtually the opposite of what Washington is currently doing.

Rebuild the republic instead of wasting everything on hopeless adventurism and imperial expansion.

> Rebuild the republic instead of wasting everything on hopeless adventurism and imperial expansion.

Reducing risk from Chinese influence is "rebuild[ing] the republic" and is not " hopeless adventurism and imperial expansion."

Also, letting China encroach and control more vital supplies is a good way to make "rebuild[ing] the republic" a lot harder.

I can't admit this and have no idea what you're talking about. You're right that Taiwan isn't more important to the US than China or any other major trading partner; the key difference is that China is not threatening to invade and conquer any of the other trading partners. Demanding that belligerent countries should not invade their neighbors is not a "WW2 power projection strategy", as China understood perfectly well when Iraq invaded Kuwait.

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