China cannot seize Tawain and if it tried, they would destroy the chip production facilities there, supporting infrastructure, as well as kill many of the highly skilled workers. Most of the equipment they use in those fabs comes from other places like Holland, Germany, America, Japan and South Korea. It's also one of the reasons America and Europe are looking to onshore advanced chip production as well as EV battery production. The lesson learned with Russian gas has not been lost, despots will use trade and the international economic system as weapons of war. The western policy was to give China liberal trade policies and looked the other way when they engage in mercantilist behavior, as we did with Japan and South Korea, to help them uplift themselves economically and technologically as part of the cold war. China went despotic and veered off the path to liberal democracy as did Russia, the cause is clinging to the notion of empire and specialness.
Communism fell in both places, but each had different results. China did well, until Xi fucked it up by going for despotic power like Putin, if you can't have a democracy, at least rule by a committee and trust none with absolute power. The CPP might do well in elections in China, they have a phenomenal track record of economic growth over the past 40 years to stand on, and uplifted China a lot with largely responsible government since Deng. However economic freedom was not followed by political freedom and the CPP is descending into corruption and despotism.
Chinese customs officials arrested a woman last week for attempting to smuggle hundreds of semiconductor chips into Zhuhai, China, from Macau under a fake pregnancy bump.
finance.yahoo.com
