One thing that people always overlook about chinese manufacturing is that there are many other low cost countries that would gladly take over the role. Indonesia is a big one, Nigeria, hell all of Africa and the middle east basically.
Japan is also strategically re arming.
And one thing that works against China is that it physically has to transport a massive invasion force across the straight under fire.
China could, but I don't think they're that stupid when the cost of a failed invasion is so high and very likely. It doesn't matter that they bombard Taiwan, unless they can get a million soldiers across, it's not a victory.
Politically consuming Taiwan is a far better and more likely strategy IMO. Isolate and slowly entangle untill it's the only options.
One thing that people always overlook about chinese manufacturing is that there are many other low cost countries that would gladly take over the role. Indonesia is a big one, Nigeria, hell all of Africa and the middle east basically.
This is not really the case. These countries have trouble even with very low-end manufacturing.
Indonesia (and India, Bangladesh etc) are in the least bad position to compete, but even they just don't have anywhere near the infrastructure required. You can't run a factory if the lights don't stay on, or (except at the very lowest end) if the workers aren't literate, or if you can't get supplies or ship goods out. It took China decades to get out of that position. And that's at least a high-IQ population, this will be worse anywhere else. The Middle East and especially Africa have stability issues on top of that. You can't even begin to build infrastructure if there's a different warlord every 50 miles and they're all constantly fighting each other, destroying everything.
You can't really get foreign investment that way either, in order to start out. Even in the 1980s, if you had permission to build a factory in China, the site would be clear, and there'd be utilities, and the utilities would work. Your average African government will point you at a tribal village, and then when you say "there's a village there", they'll say "they're squatters, you can remove them", and then when you go "WTF" they say "you figure it out". If you actually do remove them it'll turn out they were the ethnic enemies of whatever tribe is in power and your company will be in the news the next week, "Tesla helps warlord do ethnic cleansing in return for a building permit!" And after all that, you still can't build a factory because there's no roads or power.
Add to all of that the fact that there's a whole ecosystem in China now. If you need parts or anything, chances are the factory next door is making them. At worst it'll be the factory in the next town over. Even Western countries have trouble with this, if you need a part in the West, you'll probably need to wait a month for the container ship from China to arrive.
One thing that people always overlook about chinese manufacturing is that there are many other low cost countries that would gladly take over the role. Indonesia is a big one, Nigeria, hell all of Africa and the middle east basically.
Japan is also strategically re arming.
And one thing that works against China is that it physically has to transport a massive invasion force across the straight under fire.
China could, but I don't think they're that stupid when the cost of a failed invasion is so high and very likely. It doesn't matter that they bombard Taiwan, unless they can get a million soldiers across, it's not a victory.
Politically consuming Taiwan is a far better and more likely strategy IMO. Isolate and slowly entangle untill it's the only options.
This is not really the case. These countries have trouble even with very low-end manufacturing.
Indonesia (and India, Bangladesh etc) are in the least bad position to compete, but even they just don't have anywhere near the infrastructure required. You can't run a factory if the lights don't stay on, or (except at the very lowest end) if the workers aren't literate, or if you can't get supplies or ship goods out. It took China decades to get out of that position. And that's at least a high-IQ population, this will be worse anywhere else. The Middle East and especially Africa have stability issues on top of that. You can't even begin to build infrastructure if there's a different warlord every 50 miles and they're all constantly fighting each other, destroying everything.
You can't really get foreign investment that way either, in order to start out. Even in the 1980s, if you had permission to build a factory in China, the site would be clear, and there'd be utilities, and the utilities would work. Your average African government will point you at a tribal village, and then when you say "there's a village there", they'll say "they're squatters, you can remove them", and then when you go "WTF" they say "you figure it out". If you actually do remove them it'll turn out they were the ethnic enemies of whatever tribe is in power and your company will be in the news the next week, "Tesla helps warlord do ethnic cleansing in return for a building permit!" And after all that, you still can't build a factory because there's no roads or power.
Add to all of that the fact that there's a whole ecosystem in China now. If you need parts or anything, chances are the factory next door is making them. At worst it'll be the factory in the next town over. Even Western countries have trouble with this, if you need a part in the West, you'll probably need to wait a month for the container ship from China to arrive.