Industrial policy has been a frequent subject on Smith's blog, for those who don't follow it. (He's for it, and thinks that Biden's industrial policy was mostly good - it's worth following the links in this post.) This post focuses on defense-related geopolitical industrial policy goals and pros and cons of anticipated changes under the incoming Trump administration and Chinese responses. Particularly, he highlights two major things China can do: Restrict exports of raw materials (recently announced) and use their own industrial policy to hamper the West's peacetime industrial policy (de facto policy of the last 30 years). These are not extraordinary insights, but it's a good primer on the current state of affairs and policies to pay attention to in the near-future.
Noah Smith: Manufacturing is a war now
noahpinion.blog
- 102
- 10
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Why don’t we just let China have Taiwan and the South China Sea? I really don’t care about China. China doesn’t care about most of the rest of the world. China doesn’t seek dominion over European civilization. China is uninterested in the export of world revolution in the way that, say, some historic communist states were. The Taiwanese will do just fine under Chinese rule; even the old KMT vets are unlikely to face any retribution in their very, very old age. Most people neither require nor care about democracy; they want streets that are safe, low crime, affordable and decent food on the table, a youth that is disciplined and hardworking, and a feeling that their country is headed in the right direction.
What matters is civilization. What matters is mass immigration. What matters is law and order. What matters is the cultural rot that has hollowed out the West, leaving a small class of feckless, neurotic elites and a vast population of normal people held hostage by the scum at the bottom of society who continuously go un- and under-punished. What matters is ugliness, in architecture, in obesity, in fonts, in advertising, in fashion. China is responsible for relatively little of this.
Challenging China is both pointless and cruel. The Chinese, for all the great flaws of their system, still have the kind of state capacity and self-belief that Western nations can only dream of. Waging a war against China would be an act of nightmarish self-harm. Fix the West, first, on a cultural level, then worry about whatever the fuck is going to happen with Taiwan (I don’t care).
Ignoring geopolitics, which others have commented on, Taiwan produces over half of the world's semiconductors and almost all of the most advanced ones.
War between China and Taiwan would almost certainly throw global supply chains into chaos in the short to medium term (possibly longer, depending on how intact the industry remained after any conflict), as well as cede an advantage to China in fields such as AI which require the most advanced chips.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link