[HN Gopher] China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech
___________________________________________________________________
China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech
Author : moose_man
Score : 163 points
Date : 2023-04-05 16:28 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (japannews.yomiuri.co.jp)
(TXT) w3m dump (japannews.yomiuri.co.jp)
| waterheater wrote:
| That's okay. The US has polymagnets, which are a paradigm shift
| in magnetics.
|
| https://www.polymagnet.com/
| nyokodo wrote:
| That's super cool. But these have been around for years, has
| the paradigm really shifted so as to totally replace all
| Chinese magnet manufacturing?
| dirtyid wrote:
| Export controls on manufacturing tech not materials, which I
| don't imagine is particularly enforcable. Will just get
| transhipped through middlemen, but I can imagine increasing price
| astronomically for competitive advantage.
| throwawaykarma wrote:
| The west created the monster and it's about devour them.
|
| Karma is a bitch
| hunglee2 wrote:
| is this an attempt to suppress the innovation rate of other
| countries?
| barelysapient wrote:
| I think its more a tit-for-tat response to previous US trade
| restrictions.
| moose_man wrote:
| I mean, the US move was tit-for-tat for a decade of
| militarizing the South China Sea, threatening war against
| Taiwan, undermining the US economy through stealing trade
| secrets and sponsoring national champions.
| vkou wrote:
| Only the US, after all, is allowed to militarize the South
| _China_ sea.
| gs17 wrote:
| The Chinese simply call it the South Sea, but linguistic
| games don't change who in the region actively threatens
| to invade who.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the US, after all, is allowed to militarize the South
| China sea_
|
| The U.S. doesn't claim the sea as its sovereign waters.
| China does. (Which had the totally unpredictable effect
| of majorly pissing off every one of its maritime
| neighbours.)
| Animatronio wrote:
| Not true, China's claims are best known in the West
| because everybody hates/fears them. But there are others
| - like the dispute between Indonesia, Malaysia, and the
| Philippines regarding maritime borders.
| Despegar wrote:
| All the countries in the region have overlapping claims
| to the waters, it's not unique to China.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| Including Taiwan, which makes almost exactly the same
| claims as China, and which occupies the largest of the
| islands in the South China Sea.
| asdff wrote:
| The Philippines do which might as well be the US claiming
| sovereignty, since they are a host of the US military and
| in a mutual defense agreement.
| NLPaep wrote:
| Which countries have been saying that about the US? Last
| I checked, many of China's neighbors have been upset at
| China.
| asdff wrote:
| To be fair many (all?) of china's southeast asian
| neighbors are hosts to US military bases. They aren't
| going to bite the hand that pays for their anti aircraft
| defenses.
| zht wrote:
| lol what?
|
| just cause a sea is named after a country doesn't mean
| it's theirs
|
| just like Sea of Japan
| Despegar wrote:
| That's exactly what it is. The US decided (beginning with the
| Trump administration) that the status quo was unacceptable
| and has decided to "decouple" and increasingly contain
| China's development with export controls. No one should be
| surprised that there's retaliation, but everyone pretends
| that it's the other side that is the aggressor while they are
| simply the innocent victim.
| barelysapient wrote:
| I think that's largely true; although in hindsight the US
| missed a crucial opportunity during the Obama
| administration to respond to China's bans on Google,
| Facebook, forced tech transfers, et cetera.
| edgyquant wrote:
| It's likely them firing back due to US tightening chip exports.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Or the battery minerals/components rules for EV tax credits
| TomK32 wrote:
| This is really the best they could come up with?
| cm2012 wrote:
| I think its for the best to find new rare earth sources
| outside of China now anyway, before any great power
| struggles.
| [deleted]
| samus wrote:
| There are lots of sources; it's just very environmentally
| damaging and/or expensive to extract them. And so far China
| could, for various reasons, do it way more cheaply than
| most others. Seems this is going to change...
| PKop wrote:
| It's about avoiding counter-party risk and strengthening
| domestic supply chains against uncertain economic, geopolitical
| and military future. Certainly there is the element of "don't
| strengthen your adversaries" too. Why would they want to make
| the West stronger (if they can avoid it) if the West is a
| potential military threat?
| petilon wrote:
| Relevant: Huge rare earth metals discovery in Arctic Sweden
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64253708
|
| But it will take 10 to 15 years to process it.
| jmclnx wrote:
| I read "Rare Earths" are nor really rare. But the article did say
| extracting these elements cheaply causes a lot of environmental
| damage, which as we know, China is perfectly fine with.
|
| I also read the US is close to opening a "mining" site for Rear
| Earths, but not sure where or for what elements.
| barelysapient wrote:
| California had a very large RE mine until it suffered a toxic
| waste spill and closed in 2002. [1]
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_mine#:~:text=The
| ....
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| "Mountain Pass was acquired out of bankruptcy in July 2017
| with the goal of reviving America's rare-earth
| industry.[16][17][18][19] MP Materials resumed mining and
| refining operations in January 2018"
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The US has always had rare earth mines, but competition from
| low cost producers in China makes them economically unviable
| (and the US is market based, among other things). There is
| plenty of supply in developed countries, but being undercut by
| other producers require government subsidies or a more closed
| market to be viable.
|
| If China refuses to export this stuff themselves, it actually
| makes these mines more economically viable. However, if they
| export the end products, they could still have problems.
| moose_man wrote:
| Yeah China purposefully undermined the competition through
| state funding in order to control the market.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I doubt it was that, I think China's lack of environmental
| rule enforcement led to a condition that allowed for lower
| cost producers, the state didn't intend on controlling this
| market (or maybe some combination of that, but refusing to
| export in the future means they won't control the market
| anymore).
| nonethewiser wrote:
| It is _that_ for steel. I don't know about rare earth
| materials but it wouldn't be a surprise.
| moose_man wrote:
| No, it's pretty clear that this was a top down effort to
| control the global market, a concerted effort by the
| state.
|
| https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-merges-three-
| rare-...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| No, not at all. It is clear to you because you aren't
| looking at the entire history. But to anyone who has been
| in China for awhile, it is obvious that it happened
| overtime and wasn't intended. You are assuming China is
| an authoritarian country where state control is absolute,
| but in reality, China is a huge country where there are
| lots people making even if that means destroying the
| environment while the government isn't paying attention.
| moose_man wrote:
| There are articles about this going back 20 years to the
| early 2000s I'm not just coming up with this thesis. It's
| been apparent for a long time. They had a natural
| advantage to begin with but they went much further.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Here is an actual concrete article you can read (vs. the
| ones you say exist that support your thesis): https://en.
| wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_industry_in_China.
|
| > In 2002, China's central government pushed forward
| restructuring of the domestic rare earth industry by
| creating two state-owned groups China Northern Rare Earth
| Group Company and China Southern Rare Earth Group
| Company.[14] This largely failed due to opposition from
| powerful local authorities and local producers.[14]
| Fierce competition in the local sector produced low
| profitability and inefficiency. This drove producers to
| consolidate and merge into larger companies for
| survival.[14] Market forces thus accomplished what
| central planning could not.
|
| > As rare earth prices went up because of the restriction
| of export, many illegal mines were developed by organized
| criminals to benefit from the trade.[15] The smuggling by
| organized criminal groups is harmful to China's rare
| earth industry as it depletes resources rapidly, deflates
| prices and causes supply problems for local
| producers.[16] It is estimated a third of exports or 20
| 000 tonnes in 2008 were illegally exported from
| China.[16]
|
| Now, if China had a central government controlled
| conspiracy to dominate rare earth elements over the last
| 20 years, the history between 2002 and 2008 wouldn't have
| turned out like that. What they have right now is a mess.
| moose_man wrote:
| Look I understand countries are complicated and there are
| a lot of interests however I think that the Chinese
| government is totally capable of acting in a centralized
| way on a fixed target like mining (vs. something like
| semiconductors) when it believes it is a core national
| interest.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > however I think that the Chinese government is totally
| capable of acting in a centralized way on a fixed target
| like mining
|
| Spend a couple weeks in China's hinterland and I'm sure
| that your opinion would change very quickly. There are
| good reasons semiconductors are concentrated in
| Beijing/Shanghai, but anything mining or natural resource
| related are going to be messy because China is a huge
| country and local government interests are often at odds
| with central government interests.
| delfinom wrote:
| Yea people literally treat China as a hivemind. The same
| goes for other countries too. It's absolutely bizarre and
| often some sort of weird US centric mindset.
|
| Part of it I even blame on US media, somehow, whenever
| there's something to discuss about in another country,
| even if it's some research breakthrough by a single
| individual presenting his work at a elementary school
| instead its "COUNTRY X CURES CANCER"
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| It isn't so different in how China thinks about the USA,
| even more so since our stark political divide is not
| familiar concept to many Chinese.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Are you saying the US is more centrally controlled than
| China? It seems that way but I don't think that holds up.
|
| The US states convened and created a constitution which
| granted a few explicit powers to the federal government
| and left everything else to the states. These rules
| cannot be changed by the federal government- only the
| states.
|
| Whereas in China, a single party wrote the constitution,
| which enshrines power in themselves, and can be changed
| by this party whenever they want.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| China does have an authoritarian government. And they
| literally own all the land. You can't just extract rare
| earth metals from China without the CCPs blessing.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Does China primarily do this IN China? If so, where? I would
| guess West and/or north central?
| sohex wrote:
| I think it's important in the context of this discussion to
| separate the mining of rare earths and the processing thereof.
| Both are generally environmentally hazardous, but in different
| ways. The mining process generally involves strip mines or open
| pit mines (such as Mountain Pass in California, iirc the only
| US rare earth mine), neither of which are particularly friendly
| to the environment. The processing is also hazardous due to the
| chemicals and processes necessary to separate the component
| elements of the ores which are effectively more tightly coupled
| than is the case in most metal mines. Domestically that means
| continued and heightened investment in Mountain Pass as well as
| potentially other sites, but also the development of domestic
| processing industry. So while the mine might be in California
| we're going to see the ancillary industry popping up in
| locations with notably lower standards, i.e. Texas.
| 01100011 wrote:
| I think another issue is that a lot of the various rare
| earths(maybe just the lanthanides?) are chemically similar and
| thus very difficult to isolate. In the end, a lot of this just
| boils down to establishing the production networks which takes
| time and a lot of money.
| bbojan wrote:
| Think of "rare" as "diluted" or "rarified", as opposed to
| "scarce".
| robocat wrote:
| > environmental damage which China is perfectly fine with
|
| "China has outsourced much of its rare earth mining industry to
| Myanmar's Kachin state"
| https://news.mongabay.com/2022/08/toxic-rare-earth-mines-fue...
| (maybe overstated, but definitely a real issue).
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > The mining areas in Kachin state are poorly regulated,
| undocumented, and "illegal under Myanmar's laws," says the
| report. Moreover, many mining areas are run by militias
| affiliated with the country's military junta, which raises
| the risk of industry revenues providing income for the
| junta's activities.
|
| Remember, China insists this is good for society
| zdragnar wrote:
| They are rare in the sense that they tend to be extremely
| diffuse, rather than having nice, massive veins of concentrated
| ore or elemental metal like you might find for copper or
| bauxite.
|
| Since they tend to be diffuse, mining them requires disrupting
| significant volumes of earth and rock, plus the chemicals
| needed to separate them out of the less interesting material
| that gets dug up.
|
| The cheapest way to do that is to strip mine large tracts of
| land and not reclaim or treat any water used in the process,
| which will likely be full of heavy metals and other chemicals.
|
| If we don't like how other countries do it, we have to be
| willing to do it ourselves, which means years delayed supply
| chains (basically every mine in the US is protested and delayed
| through the legal system) and higher prices for the refined
| materials (it costs more to do it right).
| akiselev wrote:
| It's called "liquid-liquid extraction" [1] and requires
| crushing the rock and mixing it with an extractant (see
| D2EHPA [2] which is also used in uranium extraction) into a
| nasty acidic slurry. It is then separated into a aqueous
| layer containing the waste and a nonpolar solvent that strips
| the rare earth elements bound up with the extractant. All the
| different rare earth elements then have to be separated out
| of the nonpolar solvent using even more toxic chemicals, each
| of which leaves behind a different hazardous waste.
|
| Fun(?) fact: This process looks a lot like the alkali
| extraction process used to make cocaine, DMT, and a variety
| of other drugs.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid%E2%80%93liquid_extra
| cti...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Di-(2-ethylhexyl)phosphoric
| _ac...
| zdragnar wrote:
| I'm not a chemist, but I have watched enough
| explosions&fire / extractions & ire to know this sounds
| about right.
| jacquesm wrote:
| In a way this is good news. The more China overplays its hand in
| this undeclared economic war the more likely that Western
| countries will realize that they are making the exact same
| mistake with China that they have made with Russia. You can't
| play nice with dictatorships in the hope that your long term
| economic interests will be aligned to the point that the other
| party will be forced to continue to play nice. China has been
| playing the long game successfully so far, these kind of mistakes
| are good indicators of what's really going on underneath all
| that.
|
| Just for a moment consider what it would mean if China
| arbitrarily stopped exporting consumer electronics or any other
| category of product and what the effect on the West would be. We
| _really_ should pull back some of that manufacturing and deal
| with the resulting pollution closer to where the goods are
| consumed. And while we 're at it we may be able to improve the
| quality a bit as well.
| klodolph wrote:
| I am less convinced that China is really good at playing the
| long game, and more convinced that China is subject to many of
| the same political struggles that we see in the US. It's just
| so easy to tap into our fears of China that we _want_ to
| believe that they're this smart and ruthless. We look for
| evidence to validate our feelings.
|
| There are deposits of these rare earth minerals elsewhere.
| There are always more deposits, it's just that they're untapped
| until we deplete our cheaper sources. If China withholds its
| minerals, we will use more expensive sources, but we will still
| get the minerals.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You don't need to be afraid of China to realize that
| outsourcing a very large fraction of all manufacturing for
| half the world to a single non-democratic country doesn't
| serve our interests in the long run.
| nortonham wrote:
| well now that they basically manufacture everything we're fucked
| unless we--at the very least--try to get along with china
| agentultra wrote:
| Aren't the materials to make rare-earth magnets... not actually
| that rare? It's only rare in the sense of their dispersal in the
| earth's crust, this making it a rather dirty and ecologically
| disruptive activity sourcing them. The US could theoretically
| start producing rare-earth metals, couldn't they?
| halJordan wrote:
| Yes, but it trivializes the issue. You might ask why colonies
| needed to import finished goods from the motherland when they
| had all this wood and iron available.
| Animats wrote:
| I'm trying to find out if the rare earth extraction plant that MP
| Minerals was building in Alliance, TX actually got built.[1]
| Google and Bing pictures are from 2021 and show a vacant lot. If
| anyone is near there, please go to the corner of Independence and
| Victory and see how the construction is going.
|
| PR: "MP Materials broke ground for its magnet factory at Alliance
| last April, and completed the building's shell in September. ...
| The company plans to start delivering alloy from the Fort Worth
| plant to General Motors late this year, and magnets in 2025, MP
| Materials founder James Litinsky said in an annual profit report
| meeting."
|
| MP Minerals already has the largest rare earth mine in the US, at
| Mountain Pass, CA. That went bankrupt in 2015 because of low-
| priced competition from China. They finally got a process working
| that didn't cause major pollution problems.
|
| That mine has been back in action since 2018. They only do
| initial separation at the mine; the ore is shipped to China for
| further processing until the US plant gets going.
|
| China had a near-monopoly in rare-earths processing. Had. About
| six weeks ago, MP Minerals made a deal with Sumitomo in Japan to
| provide ore for to be processed into rare earths in Japan.[3][4]
|
| There's also some company called US Rare Earths, with a mine in
| Colorado. Their PR shows lots of funding and announcing, not so
| much manufacturing and shipping.
|
| China has been making rare-earth metal threats for years. The
| main result is that China's share of rare earth mining has
| dropped from 80% to about 55% as the US and Australia ramp up.[2]
| Also that the industry has become very profitable. MP Minerals
| profit more than doubled last year. 10-20 years ago, everybody in
| this space was going bust.
|
| [1] https://mpmaterials.com/articles/mp-materials-begins-
| constru...
|
| [2] https://www.mining-technology.com/features/australia-rare-
| ea...
|
| [3] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/02/22/business/us-
| rar...
|
| [4] https://www.pm-review.com/mp-materials-and-sumitomo-
| corporat...
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| China long-term strategizes while the US often twiddles its
| thumbs and belatedly responds (it's waking up with the export
| controls on chip manufacturing tech, but it should have done that
| a decade ago).
| nonethewiser wrote:
| China thinks in medium term but it gets confused for long term.
| Authoritarianism is inherently unstable. It looks like long
| term until you realize their government cannot reliably
| transition power.
|
| Even with recent measures against China, the U.S. is far more
| open to China than China is to the U.S.
| dmix wrote:
| Why should the US instigate trade wars so hard? Why not be pro-
| free trade as possible (even if it's imbalanced) while
| investing heavily in their own self-reliance. That sounds more
| win-win to me than throwing gasoline on the fire when there's
| little practical self-realiance replacements in the near term
| without bigger consequences than the alternative.
|
| It's a dangerous game to play without substantial and
| subsequent investment domestically and among closer partner
| countries in stuff like manufacturing and mining - ahead of
| time. Pure competition instead of using bully tactics while
| only reacting appropriately when the gambles don't play out.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > should the US instigate trade wars so hard
|
| I'm not suggesting instigation; China has been playing
| hardball for a long time now.
|
| > without substantial and subsequent investment domestically
| and among closer partner countries in stuff like
| manufacturing and mining
|
| this is what China is willing to do but the U.S. isn't (until
| very recently), which has put the U.S. at a huge disadvantage
| ddoolin wrote:
| IMO it's because shifting towards self-reliance usually means
| shifting investment away from international investment and
| implementing protectionist regulations which are seen as
| economically hostile towards other states. So perhaps just
| the act of shifting towards domestic investment and
| protection will be taken as instigation.
|
| I agree with you, though, and I think the "icing on the cake"
| instigations are in large part political maneuvers.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| China had (and still has) higher tariffs on U.S. goods
| decades ago. They don't respect copyright laws, use tech for
| spying, and steal technology. How is the US starting a trade
| war?
| thrashh wrote:
| A little over 10 years ago, Xi Jinping came into power.
|
| The ship massively changed direction with Xi. He literally made
| his own term limit forever 5 years ago.
|
| China 10 years before is way different.
| moose_man wrote:
| "China is estimated to hold an about 84% share of the global
| market in neodymium magnets and an over 90% interest in samarium
| cobalt magnets. Japan, meanwhile, has about 15% of the neodymium
| magnet market and a less-than-10% share of that for samarium
| cobalt.
|
| If China bans the export of such technologies, it would be
| difficult for the United States and Europe, which do not
| traditionally manufacture rare earth magnets, to newly enter the
| market, thus making those countries totally dependent on China,
| according to a European source.
|
| Beijing has been investing in facilities to manufacture magnets
| at low cost through large-scale production, which could lead to
| Japan losing its market share in the future.
|
| The draft revision says the export ban and restrictions are aimed
| at protecting "national security" and are in the "public interest
| of society." Chinese President Xi Jinping's administration has
| positioned magnets as a key factor in China's economic growth and
| security."
|
| This is not normal decoupling, we're in a full on economic war.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| plenty of people have been warning about this for years with
| regards to the push towards renewable energy and electric cars.
| China makes 70-80% of the components of solar panels globally.
|
| the idea that manufacturing is somehow low value and "services"
| are what developed economies should focus on is one of the
| dumbest concepts in human history. It will take the US decades
| to rebuild their manufacturing base
| dahwolf wrote:
| We have similar delusions here in the Netherlands, but we
| call it the "knowledge economy". The arrogant and misguided
| idea that us advanced smart people would do the thinking
| whilst the dummies make the stuff.
|
| Which means you unlearn how to make anything whilst the other
| party gets ever more advanced at it. And then takes over the
| thinking too. You end up with a select few Excel managers, a
| decimated middle class, and a layer of poor local service
| workers.
|
| The destruction of the middle class in the West has been
| ongoing for decades now and almost every single problem can
| be traced back to it.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| The top 3 manufacturers in the world are: China (by a lot)
| then Germany, then the US.
|
| And of them, the US has far, far better access to natural
| resources (admittedly, having to lean on Canada).
| edgyquant wrote:
| This is false, the US is second and Japan third
|
| https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-
| scor...
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Here's the real issue:
|
| China has been dumping rare earth metals and magnets at
| ridiculously low prices for decades (and polluting their
| country). This had the effect of making mining and refining
| these metals unprofitable in the west (why pay the huge price
| of pollution when the Chinese will contaminate their ground
| water below costs?).
|
| This doesn't mean the west can't scale up prospection and
| innovation to have cleaner ways to make these magnets. There's
| little to no tech gap the Chinese have over the west.
| akimball wrote:
| MP Materials is doing this in a big way, in the US.
| r00fus wrote:
| The fact that the US Govt didn't see this as a national
| security issue and act accordingly (consequently doing
| something to prop up local industry) is the real problem.
|
| China is playing chess while we're playing checkers.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| What? The usg did exactly this.
|
| https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/10/01/trump-
| execut....
|
| Despite how it sounds, the chief difficulty with rare
| earths is 1) how much of a pain in the ass isolation is,
| and 2) how much you're willing to tolerate water pollution
| in the process (or how much $ you're willing to pay to
| clean up the effluvium).
|
| In the short term a Chinese ban on rare earths just means a
| hit to the pocketbooks,not a regression to the industrial
| age. In the long term, it's just accelerating science ->
| engineering, as there are very good rare earth alternatives
| in the "late research" phases and even if none of them pan
| out the methodology to scale up extraction is publically
| known, and solvable.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| the difference between having engineers as government
| leaders versus lawyers. The West is ran by smooth talking
| lawyers rather than a general sample of the population or
| subject matter experts
|
| here's a visualization of the change over time, career
| government employees and lawyers took over and things went
| downhill in the US at least
|
| https://i.imgur.com/xdWVes2.gif
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| The us tried having an engineer leader, Herbert Hoover.
| It did not end well.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| not sure how much you can blame Hoover for the great
| depression, guy just had bad luck in being president when
| the entire world economy imploded. The US didn't pull out
| of it until WWII
| causi wrote:
| _This is not normal decoupling, we 're in a full on economic
| war._
|
| In the short term that's terrible. In the long term, pain now
| will help minimize pain later when China invade Taiwan and US-
| China trade drops to zero overnight. It's coming sooner or
| later and the longer you leave your investments in China the
| more you risk the door slamming shut on your hand.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| > It's coming sooner or later and the longer you leave your
| investments in China the more you risk the door slamming shut
| on your hand.
|
| Half the US population is asleep. During my undergrad years,
| I told my professor--then racing to get a foothold in China--
| that I thought war with China was inevitable.
|
| 15 to 25 years was my projection. He probably thought I was
| batshit crazy, but here we are.
|
| China's now using shows of military force as well as soft-
| power projection like CGTN.
|
| Meanwhile we're still struggling to bring back manufacturing
| capabilities.
|
| If I had the means, I would be lobbying hard for a 30 year
| plan 5/10/20/30 to revamp our capabilities.
| ChatGTP wrote:
| The plan is robots and Silicon Valley tech. Free market
| capitalism is the plan.
|
| That's why so much funding is going into AI and robots
| lately.
|
| ...yes it's a just a hunch but I believe it!
| medo-bear wrote:
| about 20 years ago i asked an old commie (proper commie,
| with portraits of marx engels lenin proudly hung on the
| wall and a library to show) what he thinks of china. his
| response stuck with me to this day in
| china you don't have socialism. what you have in china is a
| market for head-nooses and western capitalists are the main
| customer. it's absolutely genius!
| prottog wrote:
| The quote "Capitalists will sell us the rope with which
| we will hang them." has been attributed to various
| Marxists over the decades.
| medo-bear wrote:
| china seems to have put it into praxis
| 35208654 wrote:
| This has been a popular opinion for a very long time. It
| even supports a plot point in the movie The Departed
| (2006):
|
| Oliver Queenan : Microprocessors.
|
| Billy Costigan : Micro what?
|
| Oliver Queenan : Microprocessors. We'll probably be at war
| with the Chinese in 20-odd years and Costello is selling
| them military technology. Microprocessors, chips, computer
| parts. Anybody says anything about anything like that you
| let us know
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| This has been a trope in scifi since years.
|
| I remember the original Black Ops 2 video game campaign
| literally built on microprocessors all coming from China.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| I believe this was also a plot point of the (newer) Outer
| Limits, with drugged up soldiers believing each other to
| be hostile aliens.
|
| Without the USSR, the US didn't have any other power to
| serve as a credible enemy.
|
| I'm certainly not some insightful prophet: I can't
| discount SF playing its part in influencing me; but it
| also makes sense in the long term (Carthage and Rome;
| Greece Polis' and Persia...).
|
| Headbutting is inevitable and China clearly was getting
| stronger even in the 1990s.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Where are we exactly? Your prediction has not been proven
| correct. Even as much as things are escalating, war does
| not appear imminent nor certain.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| > Where are we exactly? Your prediction has not been
| proven correct. Even as much as things are escalating,
| war does not appear imminent nor certain.
|
| We're much closer than we were 20 years ago.
|
| Nobody believed Russia would actually invade Ukraine; nor
| that Xi would be foolish enough to scare away Taiwan by
| muscling in on Hong Kong.
|
| Unless the CCP forces Xi out, their hardliners and the
| middle-kingdom mindset have all but made some level of
| warfare certain.
| eftychis wrote:
| I disagree about the Russia Ukraine prediction statements
| in this discussion.
|
| Nobody wanted to admit a "full blown invasion would
| happen" is better wording.
|
| Russia invaded and was meddling with Ukraine back in
| 2014. It invaded Georgia in an actual war back then over
| the same act.
|
| EU vetoed related action and was preaching that
| everything is going to be fine because Germany was using
| all their power to not ruin their profitable trade with
| Russia.
|
| We have to call things with their own name.
|
| Related to the average Joe's beliefs: they would believe
| their leaders telling them everything is fine and nothing
| bad will happen because they want to believe it. No
| thinking or prediction was involved in any of this.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| > Nobody wanted to admit a "full blown invasion would
| happen" is better wording.
|
| That's still a spectacular failure in its own right.
|
| It means we're not willing to admit the obvious until it
| becomes a far bigger problem.
|
| A weakness of a democratic process without the right
| leaders.
| thrashh wrote:
| Are you suggesting someone should have pre-emptively
| invaded Russia after Crimea, thus instead of worrying
| about a possible full-blown invasion, get it out of the
| way and just guarantee one?
|
| Because as far as I know, the right people expected
| something to happen -- there is just the issue of "well,
| what do you do about it?"
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| > Are you suggesting someone should have pre-emptively
| invaded Russia after Crimea, thus instead of worrying
| about a possible full-blown invasion, get it out of the
| way and just guarantee one?
|
| That's quite a leap of logic there. I think it's enough
| to recognize that many believed a full invasion wasn't in
| the cards.
|
| > Because as far as I know, the right people expected
| something to happen -- there is just the issue of "well,
| what do you do about it?"
|
| The main issue here is that we let down our guard against
| hostile leaders and nations. And there still seems to be
| a a large portion of Western civilization in denial.
|
| But a deadman-switch NATO membership? Prop up their
| defensive capabilities? Put pressure on Germany with
| regards to gas and overly cozy relationships with Russia?
|
| Hindsight is easy and I'm sure others have better ideas;
| that's besides the point.
| thrashh wrote:
| What are you talking about?
|
| Do you not remember this whole thing? https://en.wikipedi
| a.org/wiki/United_States_missile_defense_...
|
| Or the talk about nations joining NATO?
|
| Or the discussion about how _because we expect Russia to
| do something, we actually are not sure about NATO anymore
| because we don 't want to be obligated to enter in a
| war_?
|
| Here's an 2021 article about US pressure on Germany to
| stop the import of more Russian gas before Ukraine
| happened (2022):
| https://www.marketplace.org/2021/04/19/germany-under-u-s-
| pre...
|
| The US did all the things that you are complaining that
| it didn't do.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Nobody believed Russia would actually invade Ukraine
|
| Plenty of people believed that Russia would launch a
| major invasion as part of their war with Ukraine launched
| in 2014. As a general concern it was raised many times by
| many people during the period after 2014, and that went
| into overdrive in the months before the actual invasion.
| [deleted]
| webkike wrote:
| Nobody believed Russia would actually invade Ukraine?
| They've been at war since 2014. A full blown invasion was
| a legitimate possibility for anyone paying attention
| since Russia invaded Georgia in 2008
| nirav72 wrote:
| >Nobody believed Russia would actually invade Ukraine
|
| Who is 'Nobody' in this context? Because most analysis on
| this since Russia took Crimea in 2014 have predicated
| that Russia would make further attempts at capturing
| Ukrainian territory. Even the U.S defense establishment
| knew this and were preparing the Ukrainians for since
| 2015.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| Excuse my hyperbole. The better term would be "divided".
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/qa-what-is-risk-war-
| bet...
|
| https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/3/how-real-is-the-
| thr...
|
| vs.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/01/us-warns-
| russi...
|
| for example.
| thrashh wrote:
| They're just random news sites you're linking though.
| They're not even political news magazines.
|
| News editors don't enact policy. Who cares what they
| thinks.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| Gaslighting doesn't work here. I provided my evidence.
| Show me proof of the contrary.
| thrashh wrote:
| You didn't provide evidence.
|
| Your argument is that "the government didn't take Russia
| seriously enough"
|
| Proper evidence would be an study of government officials
| in power and their position at the time.
|
| It is not 3 hand-picked private industry news articles.
| another_story wrote:
| I wouldn't say any actions are idncidcating we're closer.
| There have been numerous conflicts across the strait in
| the last half century. If the KMT takes control of the
| presidency in the next election it'll calm down a lot.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| You are making a bunch of statements that virtually
| nobody who has paid attention to either scenario would
| agree with.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| You believe it was universally accepted in 2021, that
| Russia would full-scale invade Ukraine?
|
| Because a quick google search will easily disprove that
| notion.
| sohex wrote:
| What does China actually stand to gain by invading Taiwan?
| Any kind of real analysis based in anything other than
| nationalistic fervor or fear mongering seems to indicate that
| they're better served by the status quo.
| joecot wrote:
| The same reason Russia invaded Ukraine even though it made
| no sense. The same reason Republicans put up Trump even
| though it made no sense. If you have 0 morals, you can gain
| a lot of power by riling up your base with empty promises
| of nationalist glory. But eventually your base expects you
| put up or shut up, even if it doesn't or never has made
| sense.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Possible access to, and control of, most of the world's top
| chip manufacturing node fabs.
|
| > other than nationalistic fervor
|
| And as you said, this. Jingoism can be used to bolster
| those in power. I don't know that Xi could use this boost
| at this point in his career, but as he seems to want to be
| Chairman-for-life, he may need it eventually.
| akimball wrote:
| There is no scenario in which PRC invades Taiwan and the
| taiwanese chip fabs remain intact
| bbarnett wrote:
| _Possible access to, and control of, most of the world 's
| top chip manufacturing node fabs._
|
| They don't know how to run them, maintain them, use them.
| If they did, they'd have built their own.
|
| Only people help them here. And yet, they still don't
| have them.
|
| If China invaded tomorrow, just the power loss alone
| would render those fabs into useless tech, taking months
| to clean and repair. And they'd still gain nothing, for
| you can be sure China's tech spies have taken notes,
| pictures, stolen data, know all they would know, if they
| seized them in war.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| They could temporarily deny access to these nodes to
| other states.
|
| > Only people help them here.
|
| How many Hong Kongers aligned with the party after the
| preemptive takeover of the Hong Kong government? How many
| people simply cared more about making a living than
| fighting for their old political and legal system?
| lenkite wrote:
| Not really. The U.S. really has its blinkers fully on if
| folks think that controlling the node fabs is a reason
| for the Chinese invasion. They are not dumbos - they know
| the foundries will be destroyed immediately.
|
| The reason is simple - China has always considered Taiwan
| part of China and the U.S. agreed to that position,
| before it first became "strategic ambiguity" and then it
| became "Taiwanese Independence" under President Biden.
|
| Judge this honestly: Do you really think a super-power is
| going to accept a non-friendly island next door to it
| militarised by an opponent super-power allowing it to
| project power just on its border ? Do you think the U.S.
| would accept Chinese military aid to Cuba with the Cubans
| armed with Chinese weapons and the presence of Chinese
| troops in Cuba ? If you know an American military
| officer, ask this question to him and watch him laugh at
| you. The Chinese would be bombed within 48 hours - hell
| the ships would be taken out before military supplies
| even reached Cuba.
|
| The U.S. could afford to play the game of asymmetric
| dominance because they were the sole super-power after
| the Cold War. That is no longer true.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > U.S. agreed to that position
|
| Yes, but the US never agreed which government would be
| the sole government of a united China.
|
| > Do you really think a super-power is going to accept a
| non-friendly island next door to it militarised by an
| opponent super-power allowing it to project power just on
| its border ?
|
| This was happening through the entire Cold War between
| Russia and the US in the Aleutian islands. It's the
| status quo change of nuclear missiles in Cuba that
| prompted the Cuban missile crisis, prior to that Russian
| troops and arms were present in Cuba without any
| deepening of the conflict.
| dmix wrote:
| There is no scenario where that is a worthy trade off for
| the immense costs.
| macintux wrote:
| The cost will be born by other Chinese, not him.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Sure there is. The scenario is that you're the decision
| maker and don't have to personally suffer the immense
| costs.
| edgyquant wrote:
| According to whom?
| ramblenode wrote:
| Most of the answers to this question seem to assume some
| type of material or geopolitical calculus. The issue is far
| more cultural.
|
| Begin with the simple observations that reuinfication is
| popular with mainland Chinese people and party members and
| that the official position of the PRC since its inception
| has been that the PRC and ROC are one country. Taiwan's
| independence is an affront to the perceived authority of
| the mainland government. Reunifying China after its
| fracturing under imperialism is a deep cultural ethos.
| Material concerns are secondary to this.
| rnk wrote:
| It's nationalistic political ideology. I'm sure the famous
| Taiwan semiconductor foundries would be destroyed in any
| invasion. China wants to finally wipe out that resistance
| to them.
| dmix wrote:
| Wiping out resistance in Taiwan... by building a swath of
| new uber-enemies among all of the other surrounding
| countries.
|
| There's really no positive outcome for taking Taiwan
| unless in 10-20yrs+ China gets out of their recent
| economic rut, starts rapidly growing again, and actually
| starts threatening not only the US but the western
| hegemony as a whole. Beyond just talking tough and
| isolating their economy, but by going to the next level
| of being an economic superpower that could sustain such a
| blow and build strong partnership with other powerful
| countries.
|
| Or if other partner countries in SEA, mid east, South
| America, Africa, India also grow rapidly and become far
| stronger power players and realign towards China.
| dougmwne wrote:
| From what I understand, it is an affront to their regime.
| It's an island of free, prosperous and democratic Chinese
| people. It's a repudiation of everything the CCP stands
| for. In a very real sense, Taiwan is not a separate
| country, but a unconquered territory from the Civil War,
| the last bastion of the pre-1949 Republic of China, and a
| symbol of what could have been for all of China.
|
| Sure there are geopolitical reasons as well, but The CCP
| very much does not want the living proof that they are not
| necessary to be sitting 100 miles off their coast.
|
| If there were ever a real democratic movement in China it
| would draw huge cultural inspiration from Taiwan.
| victorbstan wrote:
| I think ideology plays less of a role than is assumed. I
| would posture "resources" or access to resources as the
| definitive driver no matter if the rhetoric is
| ideological or religious, etc. Taiwan manufactures a lot
| of electronics that China does not. It has know-how and
| capital (means of production) of things that are
| important to China, China cannot manufacture, and USA,
| Chinas rival, has access to --- and also relies on. It is
| the queen on the geopolitical chessboard. But it is that
| because of its "resources".
| nirav72 wrote:
| > It has know-how and capital (means of production) of
| things that are important to China
|
| It has the capital. Not the Know-how or expertise. If it
| did, it wouldn't be stuck manufacturing lower end semi-
| conductors. In a hypothetical scenario - where China does
| manage to successfully invade the island, they won't be
| able to keep the foundries running for long. Because most
| of the design, IP, machinery and chemicals used in the
| process are supplied by the U.S and it's allies.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| [flagged]
| ajmurmann wrote:
| > and is also seen as such by the rest of the world
|
| Is this actually true? It seems that most governments
| accept the formal definition in a diplomatic sense
| because they want to avoid conflict with China. However,
| it seems clear that at least most western countries see
| Taiwan as its own country in practice. From my experience
| the population of western countries is either surprised
| to hear that Taiwan isn't supposed to be its own country
| or see this as some bizarre concession to the power-
| hungry CCP we make to keep them peaceful.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| > Is this actually true?
|
| Yes. The governments of the world _switched_ recognition
| from the Republic of China to the People 's Republic of
| China, and transferred "China's" UN Security Council seat
| to the PRC.
|
| > However, it seems clear that at least most western
| countries see Taiwan as its own country in practice.
|
| They maintain informal ties, but not formal diplomatic
| ties. Even the PRC has informal ties with the ROC.
|
| > surprised to hear that Taiwan isn't supposed to be its
| own country
|
| It's perhaps surprising, given Taiwan's _de facto_
| independence, but legally, it 's not that surprising.
| Taiwan was a part of China, and it's difficult to define
| a point in time at which it ceased to be so. Both the ROC
| and PRC agreed that Taiwan was part of China for decades
| after the end of the civil war. The Taiwanese
| independence movement, which has become much stronger
| over the last 20 years, has changed sentiment in Taiwan
| itself. However, it would be a major step for other
| countries to decide that Taiwan no longer legally belongs
| to China.
| verdverm wrote:
| Given it has been so long and they are now so different,
| why is reunification even necessary at this point? (Other
| than the CCP wants to control Taiwan based on historical
| lines)
|
| Why is the CCP so intent on controlling the land of
| another country? Most people practically consider Taiwan
| independent, even if the "agreements" around it say
| something else. They have their own government, flag,
| military, trade agreements, and more
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| > Why is the CCP so intent on controlling the land of
| another country?
|
| The way you frame the question already suggests that
| you're not interested in why China (not just the CCP -
| this is a broad sentiment inside China) sees things the
| way it does.
|
| Taiwan is not seen as "another country" in China. It's
| seen as a Chinese province that is temporarily separated
| from China due to the civil war. This was also the view
| of successive Taiwanese governments for decades after the
| civil war ended, and it shouldn't be surprising that
| people on the mainland still see it this way.
| 988747 wrote:
| [dead]
| unaindz wrote:
| > So if both China and Taiwan wanted and want to be
| united why don't they?
|
| I was gonna ask that but researched a little bit of
| history first.
|
| So the CCP won the civil war against the government at
| the time, the PRC, which retreated to Taiwan. What I
| didn't get is that both governments consider China to
| include the Taiwan territory, they just don't agree on
| which is the legitimate government. Please correct me if
| I'm wrong.
|
| On my foreigner opinion though is too late for uniting
| china like that because when you split the population for
| a long enough time the culture will evolve in a different
| way between those parts.
| [deleted]
| godelski wrote:
| - Shipping[0]: Between China and Taiwan is a very popular
| shipping lane. Anything that comes from anywhere except the
| North America likely comes through or near there. This is
| why they are also interested in Singapore and Indonesia.
| See the 9-dash line map[1], which shows where they claim
| control over the seas, and compare that to the shipping map
| on [0]. I should also reference the Kuril Islands[1.5] as
| an analogy and a more critical situation between Russian
| and Japan (Japanese control could lock Russia out, hence
| their deep concern).
|
| - TSMC: I'm not sure I need to cite the chip wars as
| there's an article on the front page probably every week
| and has been so for the last 4 years.
|
| - Territoriality control: It gives them a greater vantage
| over territories, especially into the ocean. Though
| reference first point.
|
| - Political: Taiwan and Hong Kong (not so much Macau,
| considered "resolved") have represented the antithesis to
| the CCP's way of thinking and propaganda. Xi and the CCP
| have long been touting the line that democracy is not
| possible in Asia and specifically in China[2,3,4] noting
| that "the fruit looks the same but the taste is different."
| Taiwan specifically demonstrates a counter to their claim
| that the people can be free AND prosperous at the same
| time. But so do other surrounding countries, but there's a
| larger gap and these people see large gaps between cultures
| where us Westerns may not see any (tensions have long been
| high between China, Japan, and Korea and they've been
| warring for centuries. Particularly bad in WW2 btw). I
| should also note that which ever Chinese leader "passifies
| the dissenters" will go down in history as doing something
| that no previous leader could and be a great show of
| strength. So there's internal politics as well that may be
| far less important to those of us on the outside.
|
| I'd say these are the major aspects but each one is far
| deeper than this comment would lead you to believe and
| there are of course other factors as well.
|
| [0] https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:115.7
| /cent...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-dash_line
|
| [1.5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuril_Islands_dispute
|
| [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/china-politics-xi-
| jinping/xi...
|
| [3] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/31421
| 30/xi...
|
| [4] (this one responds to [3] but is also funny)
| https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3180490/why-
| xi-...
|
| > The answer to this puzzle might lie in the confusion
| between two different Chinese expressions which are
| pronounced exactly the same: "concentration of power" (Ji
| Quan , or jiquan in pinyin) and "autocracy" (Ji Quan , also
| pronounced jiquan)... Therefore, "concentration of power",
| not "autocracies", should be what Xi referred to in his
| call with Biden.
|
| I think many will even question if the distinction is
| meaningful here. There is also a link [5] that quotes Xi
| about how to describe a democracy:
|
| > Whether a country is democratic or not should only be
| judged by the people of that country, and there is no place
| for a small number of outsiders to point fingers at this or
| that
|
| Which again, feels off since his argument would conclude
| that the DPRK is Democratic and I think few would agree. We
| have a long history of watching autocracies and dictators
| refer to their systems as "democratic"
|
| [5] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/315238
| 9/xi-...
| mullingitover wrote:
| One thing I learned recently was that when the Kuomintang
| fled to Taiwan, they took a vast trove of priceless Chinese
| antiquities with them. This has long been a sore spot for
| China, which makes the desire to annex Taiwan not simply a
| dollars and cents tactical goal but also a matter of
| national pride.
|
| It's like if we had a right-wing revolution in the US, and
| the current national government fled to Nova Scotia with
| the contents of the Smithsonian, the National Archives, and
| every important museum and library.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| How many priceless Chinese antiquities were destroyed by
| the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution? They
| should have taken even more! It's like if we had a
| radical extremist revolution in the US, and the contents
| of the Smithsonian, the National Archives, and nearly
| every important museum and library were all burned
| because they're too old, oppressive and counter-
| revolutionary.
| gscott wrote:
| They did take them and a good thing too. In the cultural
| revolution the CCP destroyed the priceless Chinese
| antiquities on the mainland.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Olds
| mullingitover wrote:
| Totally, and I'm not making any judgment about whether it
| was right or wrong to take all the antiquities. However,
| I think the current regime in China has different ideas
| about the value of these antiquities, and so they're
| eager to get them back for the sense of legitimacy and
| connection to China's history that they would bring.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Not sure your analogy works, since it's the right that is
| so insistent on preserving cultural artifacts while the
| left is the side with people actively destroying them.
| It's also no coincidence. The CCP did the same thing.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > the left is the side with people actively destroying
| them
|
| I was just in Central Park in NYC and there was a huge
| golden Civil War statue that was completely unmolested,
| and it's sitting smack in the middle of a very liberal
| city. General Sherman is very safe from liberals. I'm
| sure John Brown statues would be as well. Maybe it's not
| _all_ the cultural artifacts, but only certain ones and
| the very specific things they represent?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > it's the right that is so insistent on preserving
| cultural artifacts while the left is the side with people
| actively destroying them
|
| I dunno, right-wingers seemed just as happy, or more,
| with the statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled as anyone
| else.
|
| If you mean _specifically_ monuments to slavery, slavers,
| and the Confederate States of America, sure, the Right is
| eager to protect _those_ and the left opposed, but for
| neither side is that about "cultural artifacts" as a
| broad class.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Im having a hard time approaching this question because
| it's seems so obvious but it has caused me to think more
| carefully.
|
| The obvious response is because they want to overthrow the
| government and govern it themselves. But to be more
| specific, they want the capacity to have a military
| presence on Taiwan, levy taxes, control trade, and
| legislate, police, people and businesses of Taiwan. All of
| these things help the CCP and in same ways China in general
| (although killing an ethnically Chinese Democracy isn't
| actually doing any Chinese people favors).
|
| Beyond this, more broadly they want to continue conquering
| and project power. Taiwan is their most important claim at
| the moment but it's neither their first nor last. Next most
| obvious target is parts of Siberia and perhaps southeast
| Asian countries.
| majormajor wrote:
| The leadership of China are happy to answer that question
| for you. You may want to reject those reasons, but I think
| it's dangerous to substitute your own reasoning for theirs:
| you risk having the significant differences in your
| worldview causing massive blindspots about what "real
| analysis" would mean to them. People said the same stuff
| about whether or not they'd start to take more direct
| control of Hong Kong early.
|
| Similarly, it feels like the "Trump is just saying that for
| PR, he would stop doing and saying crazy stuff if he wins
| the election" 2016 discourse. Sometimes you should believe
| people when they say what they're gonna do. (See also:
| overturning Roe v Wade, a core idea of Republican discourse
| for decades.) Or "what does the US gain from invading
| Afghanistan and Iraq in real terms, other than just
| satisfying some loud calls for arbitrary blood?"
| CountSessine wrote:
| Certainty.
|
| The CCP has (right or wrong) declared that Taiwan is an
| inviolable part of China and a rogue province. That means
| that if Taiwan were to declare independence and succeed, it
| would be a signal failure for the CCP - a gross loss of
| face. The party's legitimacy (always a complicated thing
| for an authoritarian state) would be threatened by the
| demonstration of weakness.
|
| Taiwanese independence is the CCP's soft and fleshy
| underbelly. Bringing Taiwan under Beijing's control
| eliminates the uncertainty that comes from that political
| vulnerability.
| MrPatan wrote:
| Now do Russia and Ukraine
| clouddrover wrote:
| > _they 're better served by the status quo_
|
| Russia was better served by the status quo but they went
| ahead and invaded Ukraine.
|
| Xi Jinping is feeling his age (just like Putin). Xi Jinping
| sees the mere existence of Taiwan as an independent state
| as an historical wrong (like Putin). Xi Jinping wants to be
| the one what got Taiwan, he wants it to be his legacy
| (again, just like Putin).
|
| A Chinese invasion of Taiwan won't be a strategic choice or
| even a rational choice. It's an emotional choice.
| zsz wrote:
| The Pacific, for one, meaning control of shipping lanes--
| and with these, economic/political leverage over Japan
| (which, as internal PLA documents for senior staff have
| already revealed, they intend to put to full use). Right
| now, China is boxed in from all sides by mostly U.S. allied
| countries, so breaking the "First Island Chain"
| encirclement is in reality a much bigger deal than the
| semiconductor industry, especially in the long term.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Who do they plan to ship to using their newly-conquered
| shipping lanes, exactly?
|
| They will find that the rest of the civilized world can
| say "No" to China, just as it has to Russia.
| lenkite wrote:
| > They will find that the rest of the civilized world can
| say "No" to China, just as it has to Russia.
|
| Umm...except for US+EU, no one is saying No to Russian
| oil and other exports. Of-course, you are free to
| consider that the "rest of the civilized world" in your
| mind.
| creato wrote:
| Russia is getting $52/barrel for oil. Other producers are
| getting $80-85/barrel.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Why wouldnt they, if they could, send the navy to secure
| Japanese islands they insist are theirs?
| jandrese wrote:
| Other authoritarian regimes. Autocrats gotta stick
| together. Besides, international sanctions don't last
| forever. Give it a decade and maybe everyone forgets.
| China is a gigantic market and that's a lot of political
| pressure. It's not a tiny island nation like Cuba.
| localplume wrote:
| [dead]
| eu wrote:
| What does Russia stand to gain by invading Ukraine?!
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Several things:
|
| * Ukraine historically had been their bread basket
|
| * It's one of several hard to defend routes into Russia.
| Russia needs Ukraine as a buffer.
|
| * Eastern Ukraine has lots of mining and industry Russia
| needs that were critical to the UDSSR economy as well.
| causi wrote:
| China the nation stands to gain nothing. Chairman Xi stands
| to gain, or rather _keep_ , a tremendous amount of power.
| Taiwan as an independent country flies in the face of party
| propaganda and official PRC policy.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| This. Xi has made annexing Taiwan, essentially, a test of
| the CCP's legitimacy as ruler of China. If he fails, it's
| a huge loss of face, for him personally and for the CCP
| as a whole. Whether their power would survive that loss
| of face is not something they want to experimentally
| determine.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| This is why is a long while before anything happens, they
| need to plan for every sanction, unlike russia, they seem
| to weather it ok, but it's not very ok
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| China is worried about being blockaded, which is a large
| threat due to their reliance on middle eastern oil. The
| status quo makes it relatively easy for the American navy
| to completely encircle their shores, but without Taiwan
| that strategy breaks down.
| akimball wrote:
| Not really. You just blockade Taiwan. Move the circle out
| a little bit.
|
| Moreover, attacking Taiwan guarantees that a blockade
| will occur.
|
| Besides which, Taiwan probably has nukes inside the PRC.
| If not they are dumber than dirt.
| lenkite wrote:
| They have _always_ considered Taiwan part of China. The US
| even agreed and signed a treaty regarding that.
|
| The United States' One-China policy was first stated in the
| Shanghai Communique of 1972: "the United States
| acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan
| Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a
| part of China.
|
| Since then, the US devolved first to strategic ambiguity
| and then recently to supporting Taiwanese Independence in
| the Biden Era. The Chinese are not going to take it lying
| down. Nationalism matters a lot to Chinese - if you think
| this is simply a Xi endeavour, you are sadly, sadly
| mistaken. Even if Xi died today, the vast majority of the
| high command will decide to carry forth.
|
| Unfortunately, War is generally a snowballing, self-
| fulfilling prophecy. Since the U.S. has now gained access
| to four new Philippine bases, China will be forced to
| respond as well. The game of escalation will continue until
| the final pin drops.
|
| Personally, I really don't think super-powers should be
| stubborn. There should be new negotiations and there should
| b e a revised Shanghai Communique. China is unlikely to
| accept an fully independent island so close to their border
| though and will want some control over Taiwanese
| governance. Its too much of a threat to them otherwise.
|
| If you think the position un-reasonable, turn the situation
| around and judge the way the U.S. treats Cuba - strong-
| armed and watched over by the Guantanamo Bay military base
| and sanctioned to death and you might get an idea of what
| China's starting negotiation position will likely to be.
| gscott wrote:
| Taiwan's output of chips requires inputs from the rest of
| the world including Japan. At this time it doesn't make
| sense for china to cut out it's main source of high tech
| chips. It could make sense later if China had its own
| supply of chips and could cut out Taiwan altogether.
| China is pushing hard to make their own non-liberal order
| but China also depends on exports. Also China's political
| system is based upon absolute control over everything a
| person does. It will be messy implementing that onto
| people who already fought against it so there will be a
| lot of killings, disappearing people, and the usual China
| stuff broadcast all of time. Will be a bad look, not
| great to throw that in the face of people you need to
| export goods to.
|
| We have no political control in Cuba even though we did
| take a portion of the island.
| lenkite wrote:
| > We have no political control in Cuba even though we did
| take a portion of the island.
|
| I think the Chinese will be _extremely_ happy with a
| similar arrangement. Taiwanese government can continue,
| there will just be a nice, big military base right next
| door keeping an eye.
|
| I am sure all those folks captured and tortured in
| Guantanamo Bay in "independent" Cuba were very happy with
| the level of control the U.S. applied there. Something
| that would have still been hidden and a state secret if
| not for Wikileaks. But the guy who leaked it has now been
| made to pay for it and is now imprisoned and in
| isolation.
| gscott wrote:
| Sometimes a country puts people into work camps for
| holding up a blank piece of paper, sometimes not.
| John23832 wrote:
| Breaking the first island chain, which is a line of US
| military hardware at their front door.
|
| This allows them military access to the pacific, which they
| don't have now.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| This is the wrong question. The right question is: what
| does the leader of china gain by ordering an invasion of
| Taiwan?
| ramblenode wrote:
| This framing is incorrect. The official position of the
| PRC since its inception has been that Taiwan and the
| mainland are the same country. Reunification was always
| the plan of the CCP. Reuinification remains popular in
| the mainland. While few Taiwanese desire full
| reuinfication, a similarly small percent want to formally
| declare independence, indicating that both sides still
| see themselves as part of an abstract Chinese cultural
| nation.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/taiwan-china-politics-identity-
| inde...
| WinstonSmith84 wrote:
| If I were him, I'd prefer the status quo. Invading Taiwan
| is not a 100% success guarantee and surely Xi doesn't
| want to end up like Putin in Ukraine. Even a (military)
| success would threaten his rule, simply by the economical
| consequences. That's a lot of risks for very little
| rewards. But who knows ... we can just hope for the sake
| of all of us, that the Chinese have better intelligence
| and better risk assessment than the Russians had.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I think you have the causality backwards. When the
| economic reality looks bleak, a patriotic war is always a
| way to distract people.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| The Chinese government does, at present, strongly favor
| the status quo.
|
| However, it's becoming increasingly clear that the US is
| shifting away from the One China policy. That shift is
| deeply alarming the Chinese government. There doesn't
| seem to be anyone in American politics who is capable of
| pressing the breaks, slowing down the drive towards
| confrontation, and reengaging in real diplomacy with
| China.
|
| In the end, the belief in the US that there will be a
| show-down over Taiwan is likely to become a self-
| fulfilling prophecy.
| Symbiote wrote:
| So if China invades Taiwan, it's Americas fault really?
|
| Ridiculous.
| richardw wrote:
| Own more parts of the tech chip industry it doesn't
| already? It would instantly have even more massive leverage
| internationally.
| akimball wrote:
| Taiwanese fabs would become rubble in the event of an
| invasion.
| Maursault wrote:
| > Own more parts of the tech chip industry it doesn't
| already? It would instantly have even more massive
| leverage internationally.
|
| Actually, it would gain China only anything other than
| this. If China were to invade Taiwan,
| the most-advanced chip factory in the world would be
| rendered "not operable," TSMC Chair Mark Liu said[1]
|
| And "non operability" might be the least of TSMC's
| worries.[2]
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/02/apple-chipmaker-tsmc-
| warns-t...
|
| [2] https://www.phonearena.com/news/if-china-invades-
| taiwan-us-c...
| exmicrosoldier wrote:
| from wikipedia: Territorial sea, as defined by the 1982
| United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,[2] is a
| belt of coastal waters extending at most 12 nautical miles
| (22 km; 14 mi) from the baseline (usually the mean low-
| water mark) of a coastal state. The territorial sea is
| regarded as the sovereign territory of the state
|
| I would guess that there's oil or shipping lanes or
| aircraft bases that they would want.
| lisper wrote:
| And fish.
| decafninja wrote:
| Face.
|
| As an East Asian myself, the amount of stupidity that goes
| on in all of the East Asian countries at all levels because
| of "face" is astounding.
|
| Call it "honor" or "nationalism" or "XXX Pride" -
| ultimately all the same thing.
| meowtimemania wrote:
| What do you mean by "Face"?
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202204/19/WS625e030ba3
| 10f...
| another_story wrote:
| Face is used to rile the public, but it's rarely the
| motivation of those calling the shots. If face were at
| play Xi wouldn't have suddenly opened up with covid,
| backed down after threats when Pelosi visited, or let the
| Diaoyu Island situation go.
|
| In China tens of millions watched the live stream
| Pelosi's plane flying to Taiwan, expectantly waiting for
| it to be shot out of the air like their leadership
| insinuated. Those people believe in face saving efforts,
| while those in charge buy homes in Japan and send their
| children to American universities.
| tomcam wrote:
| This is the answer. It is so simple and yet so alien to
| the west that it simply doesn't register in most people's
| minds.
| asdff wrote:
| US bans technology exports for certain things too. Try and
| export a reactor design. Recently, we are seeing more
| investment in semiconductor manufacturing and other electronic
| away from China. China is not just going to sit back if they
| have an opportunity to secure their position in this industry.
| This action shouldn't be surprising. Expect more attempts at
| protectionism as different industries attempt to diversify
| manufacturing out of China, not China to just well up and take
| the massive economic hit that this would mean for them.
| f6v wrote:
| > This is not normal decoupling, we're in a full on economic
| war.
|
| I can see this as a response to USA banning China from
| accessing top chip technologies.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| A decade or two too late, IMO. They haven't, nor ever likely
| will, respect IP yet believe the rest of the world will
| respect theirs.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It's a little similar to the early history of the USA
| actually, there was a LOT of infringement of British and
| European patents in the early years. Only later, after
| significant economic development, did the US become an
| intellectual property powerhouse.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Didn't we just learn how to make magnets in a novel way without
| rare earth? Yes, yes we did:
| https://hackaday.com/2022/09/01/iron-nitrides-powerful-magne...
| dgoodell wrote:
| I don't think that's a commercial product yet, still on the
| tech development phase. It may not pan out.
|
| I asked for some samples a while ago so we could test them
| out in our magnet lab here at NASA GRC but I haven't heard
| anything back yet.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| I don't understand why you need quotes for national security.
|
| Anybody who has seen Trump's ,,China China China'' video knew
| that relations between the US and China have significantly
| shifted towards being less friendly with eachother.
|
| Banning rare earth magnets is terrible for cleaning up the
| earth, but after the chip ban that US is pushing so hard, China
| has to answer :(
| [deleted]
| gtvwill wrote:
| That moment when a bunch of first world nations are about to
| realise defense involves more than just troops on the ground.
| You gotta be able to build everything that enables them being
| on the ground else rip.
|
| Tbh from a risk point it astounds me the defence sector over
| the last 30 years with the oodles of money poured into it have
| failed so heavily at protecting nation state positions. We have
| traditionally wealthy stable nations states being crumpled by
| some trade deals. Lol imagine propping your entire way of life
| up based on the agreement with your competition thay they will
| fuel your success and requirements.... Comes across as pure
| madness from anyone with the slightest hint of risk aversion
| when you take a step back and look at it.
| verdverm wrote:
| We've been in Cold War 2 for a while. It's hard to see the
| other two options as better alternatives. (hot war &
| capitulation)
|
| The West learned a lot during the first cold war and will
| outlast. Authoritarianism has a problem with corruption and not
| telling the leader the truth of reality.
| abudabi123 wrote:
| Time will tell. We live interesting times.
| nivenkos wrote:
| Sadly, the West is looking more and more authoritarian
| though.
| dathinab wrote:
| yes but still far far less then china
|
| its just you hear about all the problems from the west
|
| you mainly only hear about problems from China when they
| are in context of the west, china is enacting a lot of
| pressure and tricks to greatly reduce negative reporting
| about it especially about china's inner politics. Most
| western people speaking English but but Mandarin helps then
| there too.
| SllX wrote:
| If this is true, you should substantiate this claim. More
| authoritarian compared to when? 1789? 1919? 1933? 1945?
| 1951? 1962? 1974? 1989? 2007? 2019?
| FpUser wrote:
| Comparatively to before 911 for sure
| SllX wrote:
| Just prior to 9/11 or are you talking about the period
| between 1989 and 9/11?
| FpUser wrote:
| I see it with my own eyes that after 9/11 things are
| getting worse. Not sure how it is not clear from my
| previous answer
| edgyquant wrote:
| That users point is that the first half of the Cold War
| was way more authoritarian and so pre-9/11 is not a
| benchmark in itself
| SllX wrote:
| Sure! I don't necessarily disagree, but what is your
| point of reference? If September 11th 2001 was the end of
| an era, what was the starting point of that era? The fall
| of the Berlin Wall? Something else? Was the period before
| that starting point more or less authoritarian than
| today?
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| I'm not sure you are old enough to remember but at one
| point a _progressive_ president was aligned with the ku
| klux klan and put a dissenting socialist journalist in
| jail.... Just because.
|
| Not too long after (different president), shops were
| required to put emblems in their window showing they
| supported the regime's economic plan.
| augment001 wrote:
| Unfortunately so, but by comparison to China it has a very
| long way to go.
| aarreedd wrote:
| This comment was marked as "dead" for couple minutes.
| Visible again now. I was about to ask why.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Easy for HN snowflakes to brigade new users.
| akiselev wrote:
| Likely registered via VPN or Tor.
| drekk wrote:
| [flagged]
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| What country do you reside in?
| ren_engineer wrote:
| >Remind us the last time China invaded a country as
| "liberators"
|
| Tibet, Korea, Vietnam, Hong Kong? And constantly abusing
| other nations territorial waters for fishing and general
| intimidation
| verdverm wrote:
| In the US, the people can force change through protests
| and elections. What options do the Uyghurs or Chinese
| people have?
| vkou wrote:
| Do you want a real answer to this, or one that self-
| congratulates us, by playing to our biases and cultural
| myths, and generally poor understanding of how societies
| work?
|
| The same options that any people have. Soft power. Every
| government, be it formally representative or not, multi-
| party or dual-party, or single-party is ultimately only
| able to govern with the consent of the governed. There
| are always levers for people to push, and they do, and
| sometimes government responds and sometimes it does not,
| and this happens in _every_ country.
|
| China has in most ways a worse system for responding to
| these demands than a system of fair elections, but it
| does have a system. Its leaders steer public opinion, but
| have to, in turn, also be steered by it - because their
| mandate doesn't come from a 4-year election (where they
| can do whatever the hell they want in the intervening
| years), it comes from a fear that unpopular dictators end
| up swinging from lamp posts (while unpopular elected
| representatives end up, at worst, in retirement).
|
| And even a system of fair elections will not protect a
| repressed minority that everyone wants to crap on.
| African or native Americans can protest and vote[1] all
| they want, but if the political zeitgeist sees them as a
| second-class minority, elections and getting tear-gassed
| and shot in the face with rubber-coated bullets isn't
| something that's going to bring about meaningful change.
| Meaningful change will only happen when they convince the
| people who hold political capital that they need to be
| treated like human beings. That doesn't happen at the
| polls, that happens through culture. There's a reason why
| the American right has declared a war against 'wokeness',
| and 'crt', and is trying to convince anyone that will
| listen that it is actually the underdog, the victim of
| unparalleled historic repression. It's not afraid of
| losing the culture war at the polls[2], it's afraid of
| losing the culture war in people's minds. The loss at the
| polls comes after.
|
| [1] Well, at least, in states that don't actively try to
| suppress and disenfranchise them.
|
| [2] Well, it is, hence gerrymandering, voter suppression,
| and all the rest.
| verdverm wrote:
| There is a lot of bias and emotion to unpack from your
| comment. It's not like one side is more manipulative than
| the other in the US, both are equally guilty of this,
| it's part of politics in a democracy, especially given
| the hyper-media. The "wokeness" movement went to far and
| we as a country are now self correcting, not the first
| time it happened, last time it was called PC for short.
| And it's not just a "right" side issue, many of us left
| leaning also feel it went too far, to the point that the
| DEI initiatives violate out equality rules by encouraging
| preference for some groups over others. It's a fallacy to
| think your team is right and has all the correct answers.
| vkou wrote:
| You've entirely missed the point that I'm making - which
| is that elections are in themselves not sufficient to
| address a minority concern (In the US[1], because of the
| particularly perverse mechanism for districting, the
| electoral college, and disproportionate regional
| representation, they often aren't even sufficient to
| address a _majority_ concern[2]!). By definition, a
| minority is going to be marginalized in a representative
| system.
|
| Mindshare of the majority is the real battleground, and
| mindshare is just as relevant in China as it is here, and
| it's _why_ mindshare is fought over so bitterly across
| the world.
|
| You ask how politically weak minorities in China can get
| what they want, I point an answer that, for contrast,
| provides a litany of ways for how politically weak
| minorities in the US can't get what they want, and you
| accuse me of being biased and political. I can only
| assume that the problems of how minority rights can be
| asserted in practice in the two systems wasn't _actually_
| what we were interested in discussing?
|
| 'We have elections' isn't a conversation-terminator. It's
| a conversation-opener, because it isn't actually the
| trump card that you think it is.
|
| [1] And in other countries, but usually for other
| reasons.
|
| [2] And I'm not talking about normal parliamentary checks
| and balances that allow a minority to hold legislature in
| stasis. That's to be expected from any political system
| that requires a more-than-50% consensus in order to
| deviate from the status quo. [3] I'm talking about a
| minority actually managing to impose its will, through
| _new_ legislature, against a majority.
|
| [3] Which is often a desirable requirement.
| SllX wrote:
| > We're not even a few years removed from protestors
| against police brutality in the US being whisked away in
| unmarked vans by people not in uniform.
|
| Maybe you don't know this so I'll give you the benefit of
| the doubt, but those were Federal law enforcement--who
| don't tend to drive around in patrol-cop livery--
| detaining and arresting people suspected of setting a
| courthouse on fire.
|
| You can peacefully protest outside of a courthouse, or
| you can riot, but if you riot then yes, you should be
| detained, arrested, charged and prosecuted for your
| offenses. That same courthouse has been trespassed,
| vandalized, barricaded and been set on fire multiple
| times between 2020 and 2021.
| augment001 wrote:
| > The US imprisons more of its own citizens per capita
| and in absolute terms than an "authoritarian" nation-
| state 4x its population.
|
| This is often raised as some kind of trump card, but it
| of course completely ignores the Chinese system of
| executions, and the ability of the Chinese state to
| sentence someone to a lifetime of poverty without even a
| trial.
|
| If you want to claim that the US criminal justice system
| has problems compared to the richer parts of Europe,
| you'd be right, but it's laughable to make this claim
| with regards to China.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"The West learned a lot during the first cold war and will
| outlast."
|
| During the CWI (ha I just coined the new Cold War I term) we
| did not get hi-tech stuff from the opponent. In CWII we are
| not that lucky and have no immediate replacement for many
| things. I am afraid if this thing really gets up to speed we
| a heading for disaster. That the other side suffers as well
| or even worse is no consolation.
| edgyquant wrote:
| What high tech stuff do we get from China?
| [deleted]
| imp0cat wrote:
| Mostly Apple stuff, probably?
| outside1234 wrote:
| But this market share is because we aren't mining them in other
| countries
|
| So it is a clear sign that we need to start mining them
| albertopv wrote:
| China is a net exporter to EU, let's ban all chinese goods and
| let's see, short term pain for long term gain.
| baq wrote:
| This and some other export bans happen and we're looking at 10%
| fed funds rate. Supply chains are in shambles already.
| echelon wrote:
| The bigger story is the recent push to settle trade in Yuan
| instead of USD.
|
| BRICS [1] , Saudi Arabia [2], many South American [3] and ASEAN
| countries [4], (and even France [5]!) have signed on to do
| Yuan-based settlement.
|
| This is the strongest concerted effort to kill the petrodollar
| and Bretton Woods. It would have devasting impact to the US
| economy if this trend continues.
|
| The US economy and our special ability to buy cheap goods have
| relied upon the world buying up US dollars. The sheer amount of
| investment in the US is a direct consequence of the dollar's
| elevated status.
|
| This is pushback to US Swift-based sanctions and hegemony and
| an acceleration to multi-polar power. Several counties have
| wanted this for a long time, but the Ukraine war and tensions
| with China have accelerated this.
|
| This is a big deal with titanic, earth shaking consequences for
| the US and the West. It could lead to incredible inflation and
| an economic depression if the world stops buying up dollars.
|
| This is pretty horrifying to watch unfold so quickly.
|
| It's hard not to see all of the chess pieces moving. There is a
| huge game being played right now -- in the open, for all to see
| -- that will determine the balance of power for the remainder
| of the century.
|
| [1]
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-28/o-neill-u...
|
| [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-considers-
| acceptin...
|
| [3] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-
| economy/article/3215857/c...
|
| [4] https://www.manilatimes.net/2023/04/06/business/foreign-
| busi...
|
| [5] https://www.rfi.fr/en/business/20230331-petrodollar-under-
| th...
| zen_1 wrote:
| Gaddafi would be happy.
| slaw wrote:
| Being an early adopter was not a healthy choice for him.
| zen_1 wrote:
| Shouldn't have messed with the petrodollar
| causi wrote:
| I have doubts China is suddenly going to decide to stop its
| extreme currency manipulation. The question is how quickly it
| will bite the countries trading in it.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Let's not fool ourselves, the USD is a shitty reserve
| currency.
|
| But: It's amazing that otherwise smart people don't
| understand that china manipulates their currency worse than
| the US. How do people think that the evergrande crisis just
| disappeared? Magical econ dust?
|
| I don't doubt that corrupt regimes can be bought off to the
| yuan, but it's hard to imagine seeing that going well for
| them:. USD M2:GDP hovers around 1, RMB M2:GDP is currently
| around 2.
|
| Even worse, RMB has extreme capital controls. It's
| difficult for individuals to get RMB out of PRC, because
| the regime is terrified of capital flight. It's hard to
| predict what effect this would have on a reserve currency.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| They are putting forwards a proposal for bilateral trade
| (and have proposed a dynamic basket of currencies as a
| reserve previously). The alternative being explored is not
| a 1-1 replacement of the USD with the Yuan.
|
| Additionally, from the perspective of much of the world,
| the US has been engaging in pretty sizeable currency
| manipulation in the past 3 years.
| eric-hu wrote:
| There's nothing sudden about what China's been doing with
| its trade surplus. In the aughts they were spending most of
| it on US treasuries. After the great financial crisis they
| began tapering their purchases and shifting to a basket of
| other currencies. In the mid 2010's they started the belt
| and road initiative to turn trade surplus into loans and
| infrastructure in foreign countries. It's been at least 15
| years of them pulling away from the tight coupling they had
| with USD.
| elihu wrote:
| Bretton Woods officially ending in 1976, and was effectively
| killed in 1971 by Nixon when he ended the convertibility of
| dollars to gold.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| > This is the strongest concerted effort to kill the
| petrodollar and Bretton Woods. It would have devasting impact
| to the US economy if this trend continues.
|
| It's a 100 year long trend that started with the 1933 gold
| ban in US, later Bretton Woods, decreasing US global bond
| portfolio recently, and the Russian central bank asset
| freezing.
|
| Personally I think that defaulting on Russia was a bigger
| deal than the Yuan bond trade, as it created a precedent for
| not paying for countries that US not even officially in war.
|
| What's important is neighter to overreact nor underreact:
| this is a long process in which USD is losing its reserve
| currency status.
|
| Personally I believe Bitcoin will be taking its place, but I
| know that that is a controversial statement.
| delfinom wrote:
| Bitcoin, utterly worthless the moment rockets start flying
| and knocking out internet infrastructure
| antibasilisk wrote:
| Bitcoin doesn't rely on the internet, it's a nice to
| have.
| vkou wrote:
| In a world without internet, your paper wallet will be
| worth ~as much as my D&D character's inventory sheet. And
| probably less, because at least the character sheet is
| big enough that I can make a paper airplane out of it.
| antibasilisk wrote:
| Why's that?
| vkou wrote:
| Because without a working network, it becomes impossible
| to actually use it as currency. At least bars of gold, or
| gold-coated tungsten, or pirate treasure, or papiermarks
| or dollars or lottery scratchers or bottlecaps can
| physically change hands in exchange for goods.
| antibasilisk wrote:
| A postal network is enough of a network
| akimball wrote:
| If the internet stops working, you will have bigger
| problems than money.
| Proven wrote:
| [dead]
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