(PatriotWise.com)- The Chinese government opposes Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., visiting Taiwan. Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said China was “well equipped… China will safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity if the U.S. insists on going its way.
Biden said military authorities believed Pelosi’s visit was “not a smart idea.”
China is reshoring semiconductor production. China is leading the globe in developing new chip plants, a move toward self-sufficiency. Those who understand the flow of semiconductors should be concerned. Taiwan makes 92% of sophisticated semiconductors; South Korea the remainder.
China’s reliance on foreign semiconductors is one of the world’s finest hedges against Chinese strikes on Taiwan: Taiwan could destroy China’s semiconductors and infrastructure. If China can boost domestic manufacturing while everyone else lags, it can blackmail the international economy as Russia has with its oil supplies.
China knows its expanding advantage. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Chinese had gotten more assertive in recent years. Beijing’s Renmin University foreign relations specialist Shi Yinhong told the AP that China “would take unusually strong actions” if Pelosi visited.
The West should-
The U.S. must cease assuming China will change quickly. Xi Jinping has increased the ante ahead of his upcoming party congress; he may continue. China’s economy is a debt-ridden paper tiger, lacking population growth. China’s action window is shrinking.
Second, the US must acknowledge it’s in Cold War II with China. This means ramping up our domestic economic capacity — unleashing the economy through deregulation, energy production, and tax reduction; reimbursing the military at the levels necessary to sustain a two-front war, and rebuilding the navy, which has shrunk to ship numbers lower than the U.S. had before World War II; diversifying supply chains for goods and services necessary to the U.S., reshoring those supply chains away from China.
This implies the U.S. must redirect its energy and anger externally. Americans have spent a lot of time, money, and energy criticizing one other and going inward, resulting in a cancerous politics that destroys our social capital. During the Cold War, most Americans recognized that the adversary was a communist dictatorship; during Cold War II, they must learn the same lesson.
