I'm interested, how did US economic/military power feed in to the Plaza Accord?

Japan wasn't "destroyed" - they fell into the same trap that most emerging countries fall into eventually. Massive economic growth -> people become more wealthy -> they put it all into real estate -> real estate market collapses -> people are disillusioned, stop spending and growth crumbles. Happens to many nations that try to enter the group of high-income economies, same with China. The problem is that people don't trust any other asset besides housing to put their savings in. That creates a bubble and a lack of private investment in other parts of the economy.

Don't be duped by China's clean energy talk. Their energy infra is mainly coal and they continue to build (dirty) coal plants.

They sell you solar infra so that you can feel good about protecting the world while they continue to build coal plants. For reference, in 2023 they built 95% of the world's new coal plants...

Don't be fooled.

The tariffs are really just a symptom of the underlying disease that is fully eroded trust in the stability of the United States. If everything can change at any time, and the president makes up his mind about anything from tariffs to wars to brand logos, turning a full 180 degrees every so often, how could you do long-term business?

The US isn't seriously invested in either due to poor demand and irregular government interest. The US wants fossil (oil and gas) and trucks, two areas where it crushes China (for better or worse).

> It's already done - they have unmatched engineering capabilities.

Nothing is ever done.

The US and West won't be able to return to its period of unrivaled technological dominance, but it's not inevitable that they will be dominated either.

But to avoid domination it has to 1) abandon its suicidal fixation in neoliberalism, 2) abandon its lazy assumption of technological dominance so it can start learning and investing in lost capabilities, and 3) kick business and consumer interests out of the driver's seat.

There's actually some progress being made on 1 & 2, but unfortunately not so much on 3.

> you all can see a capitulation messages from western media:

> US made phone will cost 30% more or 60% whatever. Basically refusing any attempt to protect the market and invest into engineering power etc.

Honestly, I think that is actually one of short-sighted partisan politics, not some kind of capitulation. Trump likes tariffs and advocates for bringing manufacturing back to the US, and nowadays liberals first and foremost oppose Trump and everything he stands for. They lost the last election in part due to inflation they caused, and now they're trying to win the next one on inflation they can pin on Trump.

The export controls made it difficult for Chinese companies to acquire large numbers of GPUs, which prevented them from expanding business models that rely on buying more GPUs to serve more customers, which means that Chinese companies have much, much lower budgets for GPU procurement than their American counterparts. https://chinai.substack.com/p/chinai-323-the-ai-deflation-of...

So a new homegrown chip would have to capture a very large share of this relatively small market to make significant volume. That makes it rather risky for profit-driven investors.

Politically directed investment probably increased, but in the end the private sector also needs to be on board.

Building SOTA semiconductors is more art than science. All the best artists are in Taiwan.

You don't just buy (or copy) and ASML litho and turn it on. Just like you don't buy a horsehair brush and start painting Picassos. It's even more difficult than that because there are something like ~1000 sub processes and each one needs a world renowned artist in that specific art to get it done.

Its the reason why even Samsung can't match TSMC despite having the same tools and capital.

> So will the military hopes of ever protecting Taiwan.

I don't think there are too many military analysts who would claim that the USA could "protect" Taiwan if China was really determined. The USA still retains the ability to significantly increase the cost, both militarily and economically, of an invasion, and relies on this - successfully, to date - as a deterrent.

I think most people recognize however, even in Taiwan, that in terms of pure practical facts on the ground, not even the world-beating US military can overcome geography. Taiwan is 100 miles off China's cost, Guam is 2800 miles away. It is difficult for me to imagine anything, barring some incredible technological advantage that the USA shows no sign of possessing, that could outweigh such a tremendous home-turf advantage.

It is very hard to come up with a realistic, or even semi realistic, scenario in which China does not end up with Taiwan if it really wanted it.

That's a very pessimistic take, or optimistic I guess, depending on perspective.

Looking at the Chinese semiconductor development trajectory, and considering that TSMC won't be sitting on their hands, "within a decade" seems really unlikely.

I was under the impression, for years, that the US had the appropriate government, scientists and engineering in place to protect the castle. However given what I've seen in the last few years - I agree that it seems inevitable China will surpass the US in the next decade and will hold both cards and a grudge.

It's amazing how China has doubled down into STEM and green energy while the US has done exactly the opposite. The CHIPS Act propped up a company further driven into the ground by Pat Gelsinger. The last few administrations have had no focus on driving innovation and technology - only propping up the Tech Bro market making money off of attention and ads. Maybe, just maybe, the US should stop electing geriatric and short term gains ignorance?

The US needs to dig its head out of its ass if it wants to continue to be recognized as the global power it once was.

Taiwan could be protected if they were given practical control of nuclear weapons or similar, i.e. nuclear weapons sharing.

Securing Taiwanese independence is going to be necessary for the EU to ensure that there isn't a US microchip monopoly, and the only way the EU can do this is by the aforementioned means.

Yes.