China’s puts about as much effort into developing their own shovel head manufacturing capability as we do fearmongering about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which is why they’re rapidly closing the shovel head manufacturing gap.
Those things aren’t mutually exclusive. Yes, they are dumping massive resources into SMIC. Yes, they also want to maintain imperialism over Taiwan, and TSMC is a part of that. Some of it is fear-mongering sure, but China is consistently confrontational in the South China Sea and beyond. There’s a reason they enforce an abrasive naval presence there and continue to press against the Philippines.
https://www.ft.com/content/b4ee2e18-3256-4371-8369-9a3118959fca
they also want to maintain imperialism over Taiwan
Not to deny the realities of the tensions there, but liberals are relatively loose with term imperialism. There is a difference between an imperialist state like the US and an anti-imperialist — and until recently imperialized — state like China.
China is consistently confrontational in the South China Sea and beyond
Yeah why so confrontational, China?
Foreign Policy, 2013: Surrounded: How the U.S. Is Encircling China with Military Bases. And that article is a decade old; it’s only gotten worse.
The US has over 750 overseas military bases around the world, and is building more to further encircle China. Meanwhile China has one anti-piracy base in Djibouti.
