In the news

Some random thoughts in response to different people...

China is in no position currently to mount a successful sea-borne invasion of Taiwan, and it is highly unlikely this would change within the next 12 months. If they attempted it, the Taiwan military would fight tooth and nail to resist, backed by the US military and it would almost certainly fail.

This is true, the mainland armed forces are very big but they are not very advanced/experienced/tactical. No one currently serving in the armed forces has ever fought in a war, which I think is quite interesting. And there would be SERIOUS opposition from any parent allowing their one precious son to die in battle (although it would solve one of the many demographic problems...).

Hong Kong

Yep, even the KMT cannot say that they'd like something like Hong Kong in Taiwan! Total shitshow. The KMT doesn't actually want to reunify with the mainland though - it wants to maintain the status quo (rather than "real" independence). TBH I find modern KMT politics hard to get my head around on many levels so I'm not best placed to detail exactly what they want.

If Xi wrecked their economy he might not win the third term he wants at the congress later this year.

The economy is totally fucked, the official figures for Q2 showed 0.5% growth, which means it's almost certainly negative. Xi will win a third term, that's not a problem (everyone else is in jail for "corruption"). In my opinion, what's more of a problem is that Xi (and the CCP) are obsessed with shows of strength especially if these can be dressed up as in opposition to the west (ie. the US). So the "war on covid", yes we won that, and the US lost, so we are the best! It would be INSANE to invade Taiwan (militarily, economically, geopolitically, etc) but that doesn't mean that Xi won't at least consider it very carefully, as it fits the narrative of the CPC (and Xi personally) "saving" all the chinese people and bringing them back into the (horrible, abusive) family.

Taiwan, well TSMC specifically, is world leading in the production of computer chips, and this matters enormously to the US, which is where most of the leading semiconductor companies are based.

Chips are a major, major strength for Taiwan in this situation and if China invaded, the chip factories would be untouched. China cannot produce sufficiently small chips - even SMIC's latest announcement that they're a generation ahead of where was originally thought still puts them YEARS behind Taiwan/Korea) - and they're sanctioned anyway, with no doubt more and more sanctions coming their way.