I used to visit China and you are right. China can be a very pleasant place to live, especially for a foreign national from any Western style democracy that most upper echelon Chinese nationals aspire to immigrate to.

Behind the gleaming high rises, the impressive high speed rail system, is the reality that all Chinese nationals are forced to live in an authoritarian government with every little labor, environmental, religious, and basic human rights protection. AND, they can neither peacefully organize nor speak out to effect change. That is the price Chinese nationals pay in order for foreigners to enjoy their perfectly pleasant living in China. Life sucks even more for the "non-han" Chinese. If a person can overlook all of that, then sure, China can be a very pleasant place to live.

Kind of ironic to discuss how pleasant China is, on the type of public forum that is not even allowed in China.

The difference is that those of us living in democratic societies are free to criticize, make our own propaganda, or lobby our government. Where as in China, you cannot question any government sanctioned propaganda, no matter how tame.

A successful invasion of Taiwan is nothing more than a Pyrrhic victory. TSMC is more than just the physical assets. The secret sauce is in the people, the institutional knowledge, the software, the recipes and parameters. China has poured hundreds of billions and poached thousands of talents into its own semiconductor industry over the last couple decades and is still no where close to TSMC, Samsung, or Intel. I doubt if an invasion will be of any help to China, other than to knock off a competitor.

The scale and impact of subsequent sanctions after an invasion of Taiwan will be far greater than that imposed on Russia. The free capitalistic world is not going to forget the country that crashed the world economy, destroyed a vital component of the world's integrated high tech ecosystem. Oh' and those Uyghurs, imprisoned Hong Kong activists, dead Taiwanese in the rubles of their own homes as a result of the invasion are sanction enhancements.

Today's Chinese people are not the Mao's era Chinese. Most Chinese people of today know what the outside world is like and enjoy a certain living standard that is not possible without global trade. A crippling sanction will take all of that away and very soon the Beijing government will be facing a vote of no confidence in the streets of China.

Really? Japan and S Korea are closer to Beijing than Taiwan. Furthermore, during the cold war, US nuclear weapons were deployed to Taiwan.

GEOPOLITICS is just Beijing wanting to flex its muscle. It has nothing to do with historical facts or reason.

Taiwan is also missing.

Unless the other guy in 2024 election is Trump, I am not voting for Biden again. I don't/didn't have student loan however I do understand the predatory nature of some private for profit colleges and how some(a lot) of people fell victim. But, this feels like another bail out for shady industries without holding people responsible. No thank you.

Let's not forget that these policies were set back in the 70's when Taiwan was literally just another banana republic ruled by a hereditary dictatorship. Political prisoners were common with sporadic dissident assassinations sanctioned by the government. Martial law was not lifted till the late 80's, democratic elections was first held in the 90's, and the ruling KMT government from the martial law era was first dislodged from power in the 2000's.

To be honest, I don't don't we can blame the US government for picking China over Taiwan in the 70's because back then it was the choice between two authoritarian regimes, both with Leninist roots.

Today's Taiwan is a very different country. It has evolved into a vibrant multi cultural liberal democracy, and US government policy is adjusting. However, like all bureaucracy, government policy changes at a much slower pace than reality.

Um, you do know that modern China is a relatively modern concept right? A thousand years ago, there's a bunch of different nations with distinct languages and cultures in the geographical area of modern China. None of them will consider themselves Chinese.

Had the Nazis successful conquered all of Europe, that forced Nazi version of EU will be analogous to modern China.

i am guessing you're not a linux user. Just another anonymous consumer. Probably an apple user. Who cares right, as long if it works and the view from within is pretty.

Sounds like the typical racist false equivalency trope. Unless of course, you believe Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address and our Declaration of Independence can be compared with a racist uttering.

cowards like to hide behind the back of great men, some will even impersonate them.

Except Wuhan is where is virology lab is based, not where the suspected SARS bat cave is at. The bat cave where the Wuhan researchers gathered samples for the SARS virus is almost 1,000 miles away near Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/new...
https://www.sciencedaily.com/r...

Perhaps a little context is needed.

Back in 1970s, Taiwan was not the vibrant multi-cultural democracy that exists today. Back in those days Taiwan was ruled by the KMT that promulgates its own cult of personality based on a Leninist framework. Elections were rigged and political dissidents were arrested, some executed. In extreme cases, the entire family were murdered.

Marshall law was not lifted in Taiwan until the late 80's, democracy took root in the 90s and continues to flourish.

Let's not argue over who "lost" the past authoritarian Taiwan. Instead we should focus on who will have the courage to "recognize" the current democratic Taiwan.

Perhaps had Intel spent the money on R&D instead of stock buyback it could have hired more engineers to solve its engineering problems.

I don't think manufacturing jobs are coming back to America without meaningful tax reform. Why spend money on costly capital improvement that looks bad on the balance sheet and get punished by the stock market, when the same money can be spent to artificially pump up the stock price and make the shareholders happy in the near term. Damn the long term prospect of the company, and the nation.

Wait, did we forget the story where Segway was suing a Chinese company for patent infringement and ended up being bought out by the said company?

https://time.com/3822962/segwa...

China (all private enterprise are subservient to the CCP) buys an American company, takes the IP and shuts the American factory down while still cranking out derivative products in Chinese factories.

Are we okay with this type of behavior?

Stop using backward shit as justification for current wrong doings. Back in the 19th Century we did a lot of shit to each other. Should China be allowed to legalize slavery because back in the 19th century they used to . . . .

Why not round up tens of thousands, if not millions of people in concentration camps because back in the 20th century ....