China tripped the alarm. Revelations of a US aircraft carrier -shaped target in China’s Taklamakan Desert doesn’t exactly resemble a friendly trick-or-treat visit. Congress is upset, calling this the closest we’ve ever been. Washington tries to use calm rhetoric, saying they don’t foresee problems until 2024—it used to be 2025. But these days, they leave more and more room to avoid being wrong should a scuffle go ballistic in the Pacific.
The tech industry certainly is paying attention. Intel is building at five sites, three in the US, one in Ireland, and one in Israel. At the same time, the US government is questioning chip makers about their supply chains. One of those is TSMC, in Taiwan. Now, Congress wants to spend $52B on subsidies for chip makers inside the US. The message is clear: America is getting ready for a China-initiated disruption in the chip supply chain, the largest part in the world of which goes through Taiwan.
By the look of it, 2025 is the year when China will both be militarily dangerous and, for the chip industry, will no longer matter. While some news outlets cast China’s economy in a positive light, others show deep reasoning to sound the economic alarms. It looks like China is getting into a tighter and tighter pinch, and China’s economic response is the same as its response to political disfavor: marketing.
This week, the EU says it has unanimous support to strengthen relations with Taiwan—specifically because of China’s aggression.