I must have been thinking of China's Defense Minister last month saying "China must be and will be reunited".
With the Taiwanese elections coming up it's probably as good a time as any for Beijing to make some sort of move. Probably not invasion though. China will want to test its military somewhere, our guess is Vietnam, before tackling Taiwan. So probably some sort of fifth column action, cyber, electrical grid etc. And the people to do it are already on the island, I mean if the Chinese could get one of their spies into Dianne Feinstein's office while she was Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee (2009 - 2015), the guy was her San Francisco office manager, not, as reported, the chauffeur, if they could do that there is no doubt they have assets in Teipei.
So where was I?
Chips. For all their technological wizardry the Chinese are still having trouble making chips. Some of our links on that after the jump.
Right now though, a deep dive from the South China Morning Post, June 30:
To help narrow its chip gap, Beijing looks east to Taiwan
- Mainland China has stepped up its efforts to attract skilled tech workers as it aims for self-reliance in the semiconductor industry
- More career opportunities and better pay are key factors enticing skilled engineers to make the move
Like hundreds of thousands of tech workers in Taiwan, James Chen used to believe he would spend his whole career at Hsinchu Science Park, one of the world’s most significant centres for semiconductor manufacturing and the home of more than 400 companies.But now, entering his sixth year working for a Chinese company in the mainland province of Guangdong, Chen said he had no plans to return to the island – even though the strategic competition between Beijing and Washington across a wide range of issues, including technology, had become increasingly intense.There have been growing concerns that the year-long trade war with the US, as well as Washington’s threat to ban American suppliers from selling sophisticated chips to Huawei, China’s telecoms equipment giant, for national security reasons, would hamper the country’s ambitious investment in chip-making facilities and talent.
On Saturday at the G20 meeting in Japan, US President Donald Trump said he would allow Huawei to buy American products. But many observers worry that the rivalry with the US has delayed Beijing’s goal of domestically sourcing 40 per cent of all chips used by industry by 2020, and 70 per cent by 2025 under the Made in China 2025 plan....
....MUCH MORE
The Defense Minister was probably just echoing the same party line that Admiral Luo Yuan was pitching back in February when the Admiral floated the idea of sinking two U.S. aircraft carriers and killing 10,000 sailors if Uncle Sam got in the way of Chinese plans in the South China Sea.
Which prompted some analysts to query whether there hadn't been another Asian power that thought the same thing.
Back to the subject at hand, if interested see June 14's "China chip industry insiders voice caution on catch-up efforts", May 2018's "Beijing’s big chip push goes into hyperdrive" and a few more, use the 'Search Blog' box.
