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Originally Posted by PeteMoss
Taiwan has the most advanced chip manufacturing in the world and if China controls that before alternatives come online - they control a very important aspect of the world's economy.
We don't know how or what China does with that power - and companies/countries don't like uncertainty.
Its basically the same reason why the US (and by alliance Canada) care about the middle east - because of all the oil there, that area could impact the world's economy and don't care about Africa or poor areas in other parts of Asia.
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Yeah, the story being told is pretty similar to the story of the existential threat Saddam posed with his weapons of mass destruction. There are also parallels in the reality that it's about economic benefit and securing of national interest guaranteed through power rather than any true threat.
Really, the whole premise of China seizing control of global chip supply is pretty specious. A war in Taiwan would by no means necessarily gain control of chip manufacturing plants and human capital. It's not like it would be a war on a place like Iraq where the resources to be gained are all sitting there in the ground even if the everything else is destroyed. Also, the machines to enable the advanced chip manufacturing are Dutch. So, even if somehow China got control of TSMC with all the human capital and plant intact, it wouldn't give them control of the critical source of machines and talent needed to stay at the cutting edge.
Also, haven't most of the devices that Canadians use with high-end chips in them been put together in China and shipped from there for years anyways? Didn't this only become a problem when the US started to bring in policies to cut China off from high-end chips?
I think Canada has things it really should care about, like keeping elections as they should be and making sure that everything in Canada goes according to Canadian laws, but fears of an existential threat seem based out of speculation and paranoia. If anything, those fears largely just serve to support an American economic war. This is no Cuban missile crisis on Canada or America's side.