
US, Taiwan seek 'like-minded' democracies in supply chain shift from China - abc-xyz
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-usa-trade/us-taiwan-seek-like-minded-democracies-in-supply-chain-shift-from-china-idUSKBN25V1DC
======
synaesthesisx
Somewhat related - look at the largest companies in Taiwan - a large number of
them are in the advanced electronics manufacturing space (Pegatron and TSMC
for instance).

TSMC - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is arguably one of the most
important companies in the world, manufacturing chips for Apple, Nvidia, AMD,
Qualcomm and many more. The barrier to entry for semiconductor fabrication is
so ridiculously high, not even Apple owns its own foundries. Intel has been
struggling with 7nm processes (now delayed), while TSMC is already churning
out chips using the newer EUV 5nm process for Apple’s upcoming ARM devices
(including some iMac and Macbook models). The US recently struck a deal with
TSMC, pressuring it to drop one of its largest Chinese customers (Huawei) in
return for opening an advanced foundry in the US (a $12B dollar project with
enormous tax breaks for TSMC).

Due to its critical positioning in advanced electronics, I genuinely believe
the US would get involved if China were to “mess with” Taiwan. A sobering
realization is the increasing significance yet fragility of the global
technology supply chain - something the pandemic recently exposed. There are
geopolitical risks to the United States having a dependency on other nations
for something as critical as semiconductors. It’s increasingly becoming a
matter of national security.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/business/economy/china-
ta...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/business/economy/china-taiwan-
huawei-tsmc.html)

------
v-yadli
To some deleted comment --

I believe there are many Chinese people, visiting HN everyday to discover and
share cool stuff, and look forward to conversations that are intellectually
beneficial to the participants. If anything, I hope I'm one of these good
people, not a troll.

When the situation started to get tight, the meaning of word "we" here is
shifting to "we Americans", but you see, unless HN put up a rule to block
Chinese users, they will be here. Still looking for fun stuff, but end up
seeing the theme turning to "tension", "conflict".

They think differently. Some views may seem unfair, or don't make sense to
them. They usually just keep quiet, hide the entries and move on. But
sometimes it gets too annoying, so they'll also raise a few points.

It is you who thinks defending China is not ok. So in converse, there will be
people who think it is.

It doesn't make one troll because she's not speaking in your favor. I thought
this was all fine? Can we just, sit down and compute?

------
wahern
Decoupling our economies, if successful (a big if), is a recipe for war.

Unfortunately, the last few remaining adults interested in and capable of
doing the hard work of political and economic diplomacy, and domestic
industrial policy left in 2016. Most had retired already as they were old
enough to have lived through either WWII or the Korean War and thus knew what
the stakes were. Taking their ball and going home was never an option for them
no matter how much the opponent cheated--the task at hand was constant
engagement, which however difficult and seemingly pointless was preferable to
the alternative.

~~~
learc83
I don’t know. Our economy was almost completely decoupled from the Soviet
Union and that never turned into a shooting war. What’s different this time
that is going to overcome MAD and allow for a conventional war?

~~~
NhanH
Even at its peak, USSR economy was only almost as big as the US (half the
size, irrc). China is almost certainly going to surpass the US in term of
total economy.

~~~
someperson
China is at or near its 21st century peak (getting old before it gets rich),
and the US has a massive number of strong friends and allies, including a
European Union increasingly wary of China.

It's a different Cold War from the USSR, but democracy may still again prevail
against a totalitarianism.

~~~
solarkraft
The EU is also increasingly wary of the US.

~~~
learc83
The EU was always wary of the US. But when it comes to picking between China
and the US, there’s no chance they pick China without some kind of massive
currently unpredicted Chinese reforms.

------
logotype
Don’t buy things from China. Vote with your wallet. I’ve personally done this
for the past year or two. At least to the extent that it is possible. Would
love to see a USA made mobile phone though.

~~~
Normille
Actually. I avoid buying products made in the USA if I possibly can. I don't
like supporting aggressive militaristic regimes.

[https://i.imgur.com/Lt5akKR.png](https://i.imgur.com/Lt5akKR.png)

[Feel free to swap North Korea for China in that graphic. The end result is
pretty much the same.]

~~~
natcombs
The graphic is inaccurate And clearly has an objective. North Korea often
invaded South Korea after the war ended

> A total of 3,693 armed North Korean agents have infiltrated into South Korea
> between 1954 and 1992

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_border_incidents_inv...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_border_incidents_involving_North_and_South_Korea)

~~~
Normille
So, instead of 44-0, the USA is a mere 44-1 up on the aggression front. And as
I said, since we're talking about China here, swap China for North Korea. How
many countries have China invaded, bombed or staged coups in, since the end of
the Korean war?

~~~
natcombs
Tibet and Vietnam come to mind. Hong Kong most recently (violation of treaty).
here is a full list for you

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_P...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China)

Also, as a democracy the US has released information about those events. We
don’t expect the PRC to release evidence they behaved poorly (since they
already forbid talking about TS)

------
bawolff
Probably be easier for usa to do that if they didn't keep starting random
trade wars with other democracies.

------
peteretep
I’d like to see the US lean heavily into this and cut out any country that
doesn’t formally recognize Taiwan as an independent country too.

~~~
kasperni
You do know that US itself have not given full diplomatic recognition to
Taiwan?

~~~
peteretep
I do, what’s your point?

------
rjzzleep
I don't see how Taiwan and the US are like-minded at all. Taiwan is a
democratic country with a decently levelheaded approach and fantastic
manufacturing that led to a good coronavirus approach.

And the US is run by a wannabe dictator, authoritarian loving, narcissist that
was obviously elected by a significant portion of the US population and that
has a pretty reasonable chance on getting reelected. And yes, while the mail-
in voting mess might have an impact on it, it is by far not the only reason.

Like-minded democracies might be the European states, but while they actually
still have a lot of american products banned for food safety reasons, similar
to Taiwan, Taiwan has actually caved to White House pressure on something I
would hardly call a trade deal but more a bully forcing its way on country
such as Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.

It's funny how the US talks about moving manufacturing out of China, when
their approach to Taiwan seems to be to bully them to build manufacturing
plants in the US.

~~~
xenihn
>I don't see how Taiwan and the US are like-minded at all.

We can start with a shared adversary.

>It's funny how the US talks about moving manufacturing out of China, when
their approach to Taiwan seems to be to bully them to build manufacturing
plants in the US.

Honestly, I think the long-term plan here is relocating as much of Taiwan to
the US as possible so that there's not that much left for the PRC to take in
an invasion/annexation. That means everything short of actual physical
territory, from people (scientific & industrial expertise) to patents,
materiel, and industrial capacity.

Denying valuable personnel and equipment to the PRC could potentially be as
significant as the advantage that the US gained over the Soviet Union from
Operation Paperclip, where the US got the "best and brightest" Nazi
scientists, and the Soviet Union got the leftovers.

------
beloch
Anything connected to the Trump administration is going look pretty dumb by
default to most, and the politics of the U.S.-China spat are certainly a mess.
However, there are compelling economic reasons for manufacturers to move
operations to new places (Note: Likely not the U.S.).

Just for one example, compare the population age pyramid of China[1] to that
of India[2]. The way in which China's long standing (but now retired) one-
child policy has shaped their population pyramid into a top-heavy column is
truly unreal. They have a huge cohort entering retirement age and another big
cohort entering their late 30's where they're experienced rather than _cheap_
workers. If you want young, cheap labour in China, the supply is about to
start contracting

Meanwhile India's age pyramid really is a pyramid. As China's cheap labour
pool shrinks, India's is set to grow _massively_. Factory wages in India are
currently about one fifth of China's too. If you're building a shiny new
iPhone factory that will need a multitude of the cheapest human hands money
can hire, they're not in China anymore. The gap is going to widen
substantially over the next decade or so too.

It will take a lot to break up existing supply chains and pry them out of
China, but the economic incentives exist today and will become more
irresistible each passing year.

Automation is, of course, a wild-card, but what might work to keep factories
in China will work to bring them back to places like the U.S.. Automation
works in any country, but demographics no longer favour China when it comes to
the one thing that has attracted manufacturers looking to make things as
cheaply as possible: cheap labour.

This may be why we've seen China becoming increasingly aggressive over the
last few years. Their economic base is peaking and decline is in sight. Now is
the time to grab as much power, territory, and influence as possible and try
to solidify it before that economic base melts away.

[1][https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/2019/](https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/2019/)

[2][https://www.populationpyramid.net/india/2019/](https://www.populationpyramid.net/india/2019/)

------
quantaum_dot
Like-minded = being a puppet of the US

------
throwaway4good
But it is clearly not happening - is it?

China is the only major economy that is projected to grow this year. And
Corona-virus crisis is under control there whereas in eg. India it is still
escalating.

~~~
throwaway1777
Is this propaganda? Yes, production is shifting to Taiwan and other countries
from China. No, it won’t happen overnight, it’ll only happen when it needs to.
And China may still grow overall, but companies are leaving too and eventually
the trend could overtake the growth.

~~~
throwaway4good
No doubt that the US administration wants this.

But given how 2020 has unfolded. If I were a business owner and I had the
option of building a factory in say India or China; then China surely has
proven more stable.

Of course could I place the factory in Spain or Japan for the same cost, I
would do so. But that has always been the case.

------
bosswipe
Remember when the US government successfully formed a partenrship agreement
with 13 countries called the TPP that would have been a strong counter to
China's growing influence but Trump threw it in the trash as soon as he got
into office. Making us weaker just for political purposes.

~~~
ahartmetz
TPP seemed like a triumph of corporatism, though. A way to push legislation
down our throats that no one wanted except large companies. Trump killed it
for petty reasons, but well, "no one except large companies" is a very large
group, and Trump and his clientele are part of it.

~~~
bawolff
Isn't that how international trade agreements work generally? You sacrafice
local autonomy and independence in the hope for better economic outcomes.

~~~
ahartmetz
Check out #1, #5 and #8 (some of the others are pretty dumb) here and tell me
that it's not a win of corporations against the rest of the world:

[https://inthesetimes.com/article/tpp-free-trade-
globalizatio...](https://inthesetimes.com/article/tpp-free-trade-
globalization-obama)

------
legulere
The United States‘ grip on the world is starting to get much looser. A strong
China is seen as the reason, but there are many more.

The US is trying to build up an alliance against China, but I guess a lot of
countries will want to stay neutral in that conflict. The Chinese government
is doing horrible atrocities, but the US also isn’t the paragon it portrays
itself to be.

~~~
01100011
The US has a long history of hypocrisy and has its share of shameful actions,
but equating it to China is just ludicrous.

That said, there a lot of countries that have their own issues with
authoritarianism, persecution of minorities, privacy violations, etc and they
have a partner in China that is willing to look the other way for profit. It's
going to be difficult for an increasingly weak US to force those countries to
isolate a cheap source of goods to placate their masses.

~~~
legulere
It was not my goal to equate the two - I’m not a native speaker so maybe I
expressed myself imprecise.

America being the good and leading the fight against evil was always just a
story told to the masses. In reality you were gaining a lot from aligning to
one of the blocs in the Cold War and a lot of countries had common enemies
with the US. All this is missing now. Already with the Iraq war unanimous
support by allied countries was not there anymore and with the Trump
administration the US stopped to be a reliable partner.

I don’t think you can easily say that other countries abandon their willing to
try to change China. They just keep on the diplomatic way.

------
vkou
It's possible that we may have been able to find some in Central and South
America, if they weren't squeezed by the war on drugs on one end, and state-
actor-sponsored regime changes on the other.

But one does reap what one sows.

------
sm4rk0
They'll have hard time doing so as their time has passed. They should evolve
or they will be obsoleted like dinosaurs.

~~~
sm4rk0
Better get out of the comfort zone: [https://fort-russ.com/2016/03/dugin-what-
is-wrong-with-europ...](https://fort-russ.com/2016/03/dugin-what-is-wrong-
with-europe/)

Denial of reality and downvoting the comments won't change anything.

------
KorematsuFred
"Like minded" probably means either "white" or "vassal" states of USA. USA had
a great opportunity to play a constructive role in Latin American and use
their vast manpower for its benefit while benefiting those countries as well.
Mexico, Brazil could have done what China did. However USA constantly tried to
destabilize its neighbors and focused on playing petty games instead of
constructive allies.

~~~
wahern
As of 2019 Mexico had about the same per capita GDP as China, and Brazil was
only slightly behind. Brazil was ahead of both but the past 5 years have been
rough. See
[https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=BR-
CN-MX)

China does have faster growth. Only time will tell if that continues.

