Which is the correct take from them. Having others dependent on them is a modicum of protection from simply being a pawn for imperialists. They still mostly are, but this provides a little sovereignty.
Let me dream a bit :
The US, out of fear of not having manufacturing capacity within their border in the event of a potential war, alienate most other advanced economies with tariffs… Taiwan get tariffed on its chip and the result is Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan… all buying Taiwanese technology to build their own answer against big US technology corp.
But we need to onshore the tech before we use you as a bait for our next war with a nuclear power.
semiconductors are probably the only reason why the american empire gives a rat’s ass about taiwan; without them, they would have been annexed by china by now and without american controversy.
The US also cares about the island as an unsinkable aircraft carrier. The reason the US helped Taiwan develop industrially in the first place was for anticommunist cold war reasons.
Maybe if the USA weren’t being such an upfront asshole about screwing everyone else it would have more luck dealing with other countries? But that’s too subtle a concept for Trump.
Screwing everyone else has been a bipartisan imperialist project going back at least the late 19th century. Biden blew up a NATO member’s gas pipeline. It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal. — Henry Kissinger
