From a national security point it really, really isn't. Like, I'm not a fan of the Trump administration, but having basically all chip manufacturing in Asia is not a good idea if you think there'll be a war with China in the next few decades.
It is extremely relevant to this conversation. Regardless of whether you think China engages in a war with Taiwan, it is a crucial resource the US will want developed locally (similar to any critical resource like farming, steel, or rare earth metals).
CHIPs seemed more well thought out than simply taking control of 10% of Intel.
I see this a lot, but I’m not smart enough to understand it.
The US still has immense military power. Is the suggestion China/Asian is going to make the US so desperate for lack of chips that they use this power? Whether the manufacturing plants exist in Texas or Taiwan, the US military basically ensures they exist. And if that supply is cut off and that is forecasted to be the turning point of a war, then with a figurative push of a button, the US military makes sure that other countries also don’t have chip manufacturers (i.e. blows them up). Similarly, other countries can target plants on US soil if war breaks out anyways. I don’t see a war coming to that point or to the US losing access to chip manufacturing because of one. What don’t I understand from this angle?
That said, I do think it’s important for the US to have their own chip manufacturing on shore. Not as some protective measure over some combat war, but (1) to ensure less possible influence from foreign governments and decrease likelihood of possible backdoors or intentional sabotage and (2) to protect against other factors from shutting down the facilities, like natural disasters.
And yet they continue to just posture instead of doing it.
The US does maintain a small military presence in Taiwan already. Answer me this: if the US is so heavily dependent on Taiwan _not_ being part of China, then why would they let them take it?
US bringing chip manufacturing in country weakens Taiwan’s position and only then will China take it, when it feels safe from retaliation from the US.
They maintain a small military presence? Not really, there are no bases and last report in March was 500 US military trainers. I would not really classify that as a military presence.
If China wanted to take Taiwan today? Honestly not sure what would happen. Maybe the US intervenes, maybe not. I am not even sure how I feel about either side. What I do feel strongly about is that it’s best both for the world and the US to reduce chip concentration from Taiwan. I believe in comparative advantage but also believe sometimes it’s useful to guide the invisible hand when there are crucial industries. I don’t even know how I feel about China. They have done amazing things in lifting their country, especially when compared to close neighbors like India but also I never can get a good feeling for their intentions as they play a much longer game than most of the West.
War with an actor like China would not be pretty. Their country has seen no real conflict so there is question about battle readiness but missles and drones don’t need much training and I personally don’t want to test it. So while yes I don’t think China is making a move today, I also believe it’s a highly complicated problem for its concentration risk, maybe they make a move tomorrow and the world is reliant on China for chip manufacturing.
There is a 0.00% chance that the US does not intervene. That’s why we have a small presence there and a large presence in Japan. And that’s why China has not yet taken Taiwan.
The options available to the US are: attack the PRC to blow up the chip manufacturers and probably start WW3, or frantically try to replicate the capabilities of the Taiwanese fabs before the PRC decides to cut the US off.
In the meantime, the PRC will have immense leverage over the rest of the world, and there is no scenario where they don't extract as much as they can from that advantage.
Do you realistically see that happening? Why would the US allow that to happen when they are so reliant on it not?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan%E2%80%93United_States...
As to why the US would allow it to happen, the PRC could take steps that would make the defense of Taiwan politically undesirable to the US (threatening biological warfare is one example that comes to mind).
The chinese just this week shut down the entire US auto industry because of rare earth if they blockade taiwan how long until they win that.
This is just incorrect. It has not “been proven over and over in the past few years”.