Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyB
To me it just looks like a bunch of American politicians who probably saw the political points that Pelosi scored at home for her visit and want a bit of the same for themselves. It's an easy win to make themselves look strong, brave, and freedom-loving to their voters while the only people who face any increased chance of negative consequences are the Taiwanese, not likely in terms of war but in terms of some economic retaliation from the country that is still their largest trading partner, and the American politicians don't care what happens to them.
The US does also want to send a message that they're still strong and relevant in the region, which this kind of does and which I guess is the dick swinging aspect of this that makes some giggle and cheer, but at the same time they've just committed $53B to funding onshoring of tech and developing domestic production capacity for semiconductor manufacturing that will compete directly with Taiwanese manufacturing and make Taiwan much less important to them.
It's pretty much Taiwan getting played as a pawn between bigger powers again.
It's also a bit concerning to see such a war-loving country as the US unnecessarily heightening tensions with a global competitor while calling that competitor the provocateur as if seeking a public moral justification for some kind of action against them.
|
I doubt it. This trip is getting no publicity and no one knows who is there. And Taiwan could easily tell them not to visit right now if they didn't want them to come.
And the reason for the funding of chips act is because of the risk China attacks Taiwan. And I'm sure you know China has blown a bucket loads of money on try to compete with Taiwan and Samsung on chips but failed for the most part.