Is a China-US showdown brewing?

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Is a China-US showdown brewing?

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Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

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• US and China: Various novels have tried peeping into the future, and have predicted how a naval skirmish over Taiwan will eventually turn into a nuclear war that will eliminate many of the cities of US and China. That may sound apocalyptic, but events are surely gathering pace.
• Iran and China: In 2021, both signed a 25-year co-operation agreement. Putin (Russia) massed troops on Ukraine's borders, warning everyone to stay away from Russia. Chinese fighter planes are regularly entering Taiwan's airspace. And China is warning US to not try to warn it from a position of strength.
• World's recent history: The period 1945 to 1989 was one of Cold War, a contestation between American democracy and Soviet communism, followed by a peaceful 25 years of no major big power conflict, but spread of democracy (1989 to 2015), followed by a dangerous era of today where China, Russia and Iran are offering hypernationalism instead of democracy to their citizens. All three have state-owned military industries too.
• America hobbled: Internally, the violent political divisions played out in social media are hobbling America badly, reducing the ability to stabilise the world politics. It also was a bad idea to expand NATO into Russia's face post 1991, as post-communist Russia hardened its attitude towards US and the West as an enemy. Russia could have been an ally of US against China and Iran!
• Ideological concerns: Communism surely was gone with the Soviets, but that doesn't mean that ideological political battles were over. Democracy truly threatens the authoritarian regimes a lot. (China, Iran, Russia)

1. From 2000-2010, such regimes generated a lot of economic progress, keeping citizens happy and silent, but 2011 onwards, it's not happening as much
2. The gap is now filled by hypernationalism, and it is upto the US to counter it now (at least with Russia and Iran)

• China, a true peer: China is now almost a peer to America, on various fronts like military, economy and technology. The gap remains in designing and making of cutting edge semiconductor chips. These are the first layer of AI, ML, high-performance computing, EVs, telecom etc. China has tried hard but so far failed in building a vertically-integrated chip industry.
• Taiwan: Across the straits is the world's best chipmaker - TSMC - that can fabricate some of the best chips ever made. TSMC is also the biggest, followed by Intel and Samsung. World's leading firms are gradually outsourcing their manufacturing to TSMC. TSMC itself has five major vendors, 3 based in US. China lacks all this. [TSMC - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company]

1. US can easily use its leverage and get Chinese orders to TSMC cancelled (and it is doing so)
2. China's supercomputing industry is now suffering due to it, because most of its chips are from AMD, IBM, Intel but made by TSMC.
3. Spooked, China is rapidly investing in nanotechnology, material sciences and physics of chipmaking. But it'll take a decade at least.
4. It is in US interest to not let Taiwan and TSMC fall into Chinese hands. Else, it's a matter of time that China builds abilities like cybercloaking, satellite spoofing, and stealth materials.

• Summary: Coming fifteen years will be decisive, and US needs to maintain its edge or lost it all.

Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

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