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The stock market doesn't seem to think China will ever take Taiwan.
By many measures, the stock market is valued more richly than at any time in history except 1999 and 1929. Yet a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would cripple the world economy and send stocks plummeting.
There is an argument to be made that any war with China would lead to massive money printing and so, in dollar-denominated terms, stocks could thrive.
But this doesn't explain the stock markets blasé attitude. In the event of a Taiwanese invasion, some companies would be affected more than others. Apple would be crippled by the loss of its supply chain. But oil and steel companies would presumably profit greatly. This is of course not reflected in the stock prices. Apple is worth $3 trillion while U.S. Steel trades at a paltry $8 billion.
The only reason Xi invades Taiwan is if he feels like he’ll be overthrown by CCP hardliners who oppose any accommodation with the West, many of whom have been purged, or by young Chinese very online ultranationalists (or some combination of the above two), unless he does it. Since neither of those groups seem remotely close to achieving power in China it appears very unlikely an invasion will happen soon.
If anything, as @KolmogorovComplicity suggests, the chip situation is a distraction; China is likely more than willing to delay its plans until the US sphere has cutting edge production ready so that Taiwan is no longer so geopolitically critical to American interests. CCP ambitions regarding Taiwan have literally nothing to do with chips at all, they predate the modern Taiwanese semiconductor industry by many years. When TSMC is no longer critical, the US will be much more amenable to a slow program of pressuring Taiwan into integration with China.
The US has been pro-Taiwan since the CCP took over the mainland. What would happen if the PRC invaded a couple small islands was a phony controversy in the 1960 election. Semiconductors may be cover for the US position now, but if that cover goes away due to alternative sources I doubt the US would change positions; there are strong geopolitical motives for an independent Taiwan. That being said, I don't think China plans to invade any time soon.
I’m not reading it the same way.
First of all, we’ve had decades since Mao to recognize Taiwan’s independence. We haven’t, and in fact more states recognize Palestine than Taiwan. When people make the mistake of calling Taiwan a state China will force them to humiliate themselves and publicly disavow Taiwan as a state in order to sell there — the USA doesn’t interfere at all in this ritual. When Taiwan sends its Olympic delegation to France this year, it will be called Chinese Taipei, not Taiwa. None of this signals strong enough support for Taiwan’s independence to risk American blood or treasure on liberating it.
Second, we’re already bleeding hardware and equipment to Ukraine. This limits our options in other areas at least until we stop doing that. Our military supplies are not infinite and if we’re sending weapons systems to Ukraine to fight Russia, starting another war is not going to be easy.
Third, if the chip factory goes away as an issue (which we’re working on), the public case for war is weak. It’s not a strong ally of any sort, it holds little strategic value other than the chip plants, and the cost to defend it is going to be pretty high. This isn’t Iraq that we’ll conquer in a week while Bagdad Bob goes on TV to say there are no tanks in Iraq. China has a pretty strong military, and decent equipment. It’s probably a multi year war
Don't forget that the US is also going to be bleeding hardware, equipment and troops to Israel and the Middle East in short order as well.
Actually, I think the war would be pretty quick - if China and the USA go to war what actually happens is that the entire world burns in nuclear fire and then we have a really tough winter while the survivors try and put civilization back together.
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