Are we entering a Thucydides Trap?
In the dialog between Xi and Trump, Xi warned Trump not to stand in the way of China acquiring Tiawan.
Thucydides postulated when a rising power challenges the established power, there will inevitably be war.
While the US considers itself the established power, looks like Xi thinks we have gone beyond our zenith. The war against Iran shows how weak we have become. So far, we have not opened the Strait of Hormuz.
If we cannot guarantee open commerce there, will we be able to defend Tiawan.
What Xi was looking for was the US would say it opposes Tiawan independence, Our official statement is we do not support the independence of Tiawan.
Trump, seems to have listened to his advisors not to change the wording for now.
But it seems China has agreed to work through back channels to get Iran to reach an agreement with the US in regards to Hormuz.
It seems to me if they are able to achieve that goal, we will then owe them a favor.
Is Tiawan something Trump will give up?
Thucydides postulated when a rising power challenges the established power, there will inevitably be war.
While the US considers itself the established power, looks like Xi thinks we have gone beyond our zenith. The war against Iran shows how weak we have become. So far, we have not opened the Strait of Hormuz.
If we cannot guarantee open commerce there, will we be able to defend Tiawan.
What Xi was looking for was the US would say it opposes Tiawan independence, Our official statement is we do not support the independence of Tiawan.
Trump, seems to have listened to his advisors not to change the wording for now.
But it seems China has agreed to work through back channels to get Iran to reach an agreement with the US in regards to Hormuz.
It seems to me if they are able to achieve that goal, we will then owe them a favor.
Is Tiawan something Trump will give up?
Comments
There's nothing he wouldn't do out of self interest.
So the only question is 'Is this in trump's self interest? Of course, that changes moment by moment it the toddler"s mind
The UK celebrated when the King played him. Not so much now Xi is doing the same.
Oh, unless "we" put all our eggs in a single semiconductor basket located on Taiwan. Then "we" get to meddle because "we" are stupid.
"We"are gonna FAFO there too, it seems. Since when does America's word mean anything regarding anything, most of all Taiwan.
AFF
The only people who have any right to decide in this are the people of Taiwan. If they want to be part of China, that is up to them. If they do not want to be, and that is the impression that I in my relative ignorance have, then China has no claim on the island, no more claim than it had when it appropriated Tibet, or than Trump has to Greenland, Canada, Mexico or Venezuela or Putin to Ukraine.
That's it, and as they say 'end of'.
Right may not prevail over might. It often does not. It did not with Tibet. But that does not stop the rights and wrongs from being clear.
You forgot to mention Cuba. It is hanging on just by a thread.
Amen.
Amen.
As I mentioned on the Heaven thread we were in Taiwan last month. I don’t speak the language but Ms. Marsupial spent a lot of time talking to shopkeepers, museum guides, etc. - not about politics per se, but it’s clear they are proud to be Taiwanese and have no interest in becoming part of the PRC.
Curiously central Taipei doesn’t look altogether unlike central Guangzhou - they are very large cities to a large extent of the same vintage and in similar climate zones - but based on relatively short trips to both places they feel very different, and Taipei generally the happier place. (People are also very friendly - we were wandering around looking lost in Taipei main station the morning we arrived and someone not only showed us to the right subway platform but also made sure we knew which side of the platform to board the train - though speaking the language is pretty essential.)
At Davos, the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said:
"I would say that the single biggest threat to the world economy, the single biggest point of single failure, is that 97 percent of the high-end chips are made in Taiwan," Bessent told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
He described a potential blockade or destruction of the island's manufacturing capacity as an "economic apocalypse," emphasizing Washington's efforts to relocate semiconductor production to American soil." Link here
A blockade of these chips would send the world into the tech dark ages and we would certainly lose the AI arms race against China.
As I understand it, it would take decades to build the ecosystem required to produce these high end chips.
An interesting perspective from a Taiwan paper here saying the US has not abandoned it.
But only since 1683.
OTOH, my mother was married twice, and her first husband was born in Belfast. Their sons, like anyone born anywhere in Ireland, can elect to be a citizen of the Irish Republic or the United Kingdom. My brothers (both now deceased) and their offspring all opted for Irish citizenship, so Brexit is no problem for them.
I’m not sure I’m so lucky, but I believe my paternal grandmother ( ie, the mother of my father who was my mother’s second husband) was born in Co. Donegal, so I might scrape in!
"Canadian warship transits Taiwan Strait despite warning
A Canadian warship transited the Taiwan Strait that’s claimed by China as an internal waterway – in defiance of Beijing’s warning. The frigate HMCS Charlottetown made the trip last week, the Department of National Defence said Thursday. “On May 22, 2026, HMCS Charlottetown conducted a routine transit through the Taiwan Strait, which was completed on May 23, 2026,” spokesperson Andrée-Anne Poulin said in a statement, reports The Globe and Mail. The Canadian warship transit took place just weeks after a warning delivered by Wang Di, China’s ambassador to Canada, last month. The envoy said the new partnership between Canada and China would be harmed if Ottawa sends more military vessels through the Taiwan Strait or if Canadian parliamentarians keep travelling to Taiwan to meet with its government. "
FFS. Canada has just inked a huge number of trade deals with China in order to diversify AWAY from the very unstable neighbor to the south, and it does this? Why don't we just take those deals out back set fire to them and roast marshmallows?
AFF
To what end? Whose benefit? What is worth this kind of "test of faith"?
The definition of stupidity, whether valid or not, springs to mind.
AFF
Doesn't answer the question but OK.
AFF
I assume the goal is to demonstrate to China that other countries won't jump just because they say so; that its angry rhetoric doesn't carry weight by itself. China has got its own way a lot over the decades with implied military threats and, latterly, economic ones. Trying to gently probe where the actual limits are, rather than the propaganda ones, is a valid strategy.
Well some of that makes sense, except I think there's a case of right hand left hand going on here.
Mark Carney is not the Commander in Chief of the Canadian Armed Forces. Why is this? Because the army belongs to the King, and the commander of the Canadian Armed Forces is the Governor General of Canada, who petitions the King for permission to use those forces.
I don't know who commanded our lone WWII refurbished relic destroyer to cruise the Taiwan Strait, but I feel pretty certain it wasn't at Mark Carney's request. Carney has been extremely busy mending diplomatic fences and securing economic treaties, and this move could hardly have been in the service of those agreements.
It's utterly baffling to me. But again, maybe not baffling.
AFF
Canada may have coordinated with the US, and Japan, but this was not due to any binding defense treaties.
As an officer of the law might say, "Nothing to see here, folks. Move Along, Move along."
Because it's an international waterway that handles huge amounts of trade and Taiwan has all the chips the west needs.
Of course Canada needs it free like everyone else does.
But indeed, why make so many new economic deals with China if they're not going to tow the Chinese party line and allow them to weaponise the strait.
Terrible idea doing more business with China. They are brutes.
And the US, Japan and Australia have just signed some kind of missile defence system agreement.
Finally the threat is being taken seriously.
Compared to our southern border neighbours, they are pandas. Our southern border neighbors are Vandals and Visigoths.
AFF
Speaking primarily of their military and trade practices.
AFF
Once again, and I said it before when we talked about this, this is an extremely stupid position that the west has put itself in, on account of the failure of market capitalism to foster diversity and to skew towards monopolism.
Instead of recognizing the vulnerability our critical infrastructure has exposed itself to, and developing better, faster, cheaper and less politically precarious geographical positioning for its chip production, it put all its eggs in the Taiwan basket.
Russia and China closed the chip gap in less than three years. They don't need Taiwan. The west could do the same, but has not, and instead diverts assets away from correcting this vulnerability to defending it, to potentially catastrophic effect.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
AFF
I don't know, haven't read or heard, but I'm quite certain the foreign minister would want some clarity on the matter. I personally think the sortie was part of a show put on by the EU powers, which Canada also has strengthened its trade ties with as well.
If Canada is going to be an economic bridge between continents across the Atlantic in the vacuum that is left by our neighbours to the south, it's going to have to walk an ideological tightrope if it wishes to remain a neutral middle power.
I think Carney is up to the task. I hope he is.
AFF
I agree it has been a very stupid move to rely on Tawian for high end chips. Deindustrialisation in general has been a stupid move over the last few decades.
But my understanding is it would takes decades to produce the ecosystem to match Taiwanese production and they are holding back some of their trade secrets so as to create a "silicon shield" of protection from China.
I have not read that China and Russia already have high end chip production capability. That would be extraordinary. Can you provide a link to that please?
China now has the largest surface naval fleet in the world.
No. You can look it up for yourself if you are that interested. Nvidia's CEO has plenty to say on China closing the gap. China is creating a different kind of chip, one that stacks on itself instead of trying to build denser traffic on a 2D plane.
Russia has domestic production of the types of chips it needs in the midrange. They do not rely on Taiwan for any of the chips they use for sensitive data and military applications.
AFF
And of course they are regularly trying to steal the technology from Taiwan illegally and there is the expectation they will rig the next Taiwanese election.
Wonderful government.
And Russia is nowhere near.
It's pretty easy to see why the west will defend Taiwan. They need it. Let's hope China isn't stupid enough to invade and start ww3.
Or maybe they'll just rig the election and the west will be screwed like it is with China's monopoly on critical minerals.
Whenever the west tries to start up critical minerals production, China floods the market with them so they are no longer economically viable.
The Chinese government subsidises hugely in these areas. Western governments need to start doing the same or we'll all have a communist overlord.
South Korea holds the other 10% on Taiwan's 90% monopoly.
Amen sister. Socialist capitalism seems to be the only model that seems to keep markets from skewing to monopolism, whether it's by a government (communism) or by a corporation or hedge fund (market capitalism). China has been able to progress so rapidly because of this model.
China produces chips on the Taiwanese blueprint that are almost as high end as Taiwan and that is good enough for most of their applications. And Russia's. Like I said, they are developing a 3D chip that bypasses the limitations of the current highest end 2D tech and are estimated to be six months to a year away from commercial deployment.
If we are comparing 2D tech to 2D tech, the law of diminishing return applies. This is all about powering AI and we are already seeing the real world resource costs and impacts of data centers which might prove their ultimate obsolescence in a very short time. People in the US are already aware of subsidizing these centers directly through adverse groundwater impacts and hidden surcharges on their power bills.
Interesting times.
AFF
To the point about data centers soaking up energy and water, I am thinking you will see some shifts in this too. For instance, the most recent one built in Washington State uses processed wastewater from a municipality for cooling. For the time being it is using hydropower that was originally put in place for aluminum production off the Grand Coulee Dam. But future plans include the installation of micro nuclear reactors for self-contained production.
Time will tell if these solutions work out.
It's a tightrope walk.
And hence the rush for critical minerals production anywhere besides China.
Australia was promised some new nuclear subs but the US can't make them fast enough. They need to build two a year to keep up with demand (5 billion dollars each) but are only managing one so Australia now has the promise of a second hand nuclear sub.
It's bad news for the South China Sea military build up. But hopefully it will be enough with Japan, South Korea the Phillipines and Australia on board.
Not that the French are bitter or anything.
Be honest. The French Subs were diesel powered with an operating range of about 500 nautical miles, making them no more than coastal Uboats. The Pacific is a rather large pond. When you are part of a plan to contain the Chinese hegemony, you need a boat that operate in the whole of the Pacific.
The biggest reason why the French lost the contract was a change in Australian defense strategy which changed from defend the approaches doctrine to a new Indo Pacific strategy of operating far from home, along side other allied navies.
C'est la vie.
@la vie en rouge Yes I think they are still bitter!
Our local naval base is having a huge upgrade. Tons of new work being done. Thousands of new defence housing projects going up which will transform the area.
I know the issue feels for away for the Uk and the US but it's real here.
The fact that the contract was cancelled rather than renegotiated is about more than the specifications of what they wanted built.
It is true the French could have built nuclear subs for the Australians, but they would have cost as much as A$10 bil per boat and first delivery would have been pushed back to the mid 40s.
A more detailed explanation can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUKUS