> And yet everyone keeps dealing with China, because money talks and China has lots of it.

https://apnews.com/article/china-economy-manufacturing-pmi-8...

Chinese manufacturing has been pummeled in the last 2 years. This is on the heels of their zero covid lockdowns that were screwing things up.

Here is port throughput in decline: https://www.fitchratings.com/research/infrastructure-project...

>> Whether it's Intel and Nvidia exporting their latest tech to China,

The Chinese are buying what they cant make and these companies like to sell things

>> Apple manufacturing iPhones in China,

Apple and foxcon moving to India: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-production-of-apple-ip...

>> BYD poised to crowd out the car industry (sans America),

BYD a state backed and funded company is loosing to Tesla.
https://www.ft.com/content/4f1a2188-ced0-4018-998d-5148209a5...

And BYD has some... uhhh.. quality issues:
https://insideevs.com/news/712148/byd-quality-problems-hit-i...

>> or having our cheapass blue jeans produced in the finest sweatshops, everyone wants to deal with China.

Clothing production went to Vietnam over a decade ago ... and china is so bad right now that Vietnam is having a bit of a migrant crisis of its own:
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/workers-1029202011165...

>>> China has practical implementations of 7nm process and are shipping product today from what I understand.

Yes china made a 7nm chip. There has been quite an effort to figure out how they got an ASML machine to do that because they dont have the tech to build that locally. They also dont have the tech to build the lenses for it either (Zeiss holds that). So our German(Zeiss) and Dutch(asml) partners have the tech to build the chips on lock (and aren't cutting that loose). It's not like that chip got stellar reviews either... Furthermore china then went and banned most government workers (a large chunk of the population) from using iPhones at work. Even with all this the sales numbers and reviews out of china were ... mixed. It's hard to filter whats propaganda, but there are some legit complaints about the device. ... this doesn't help with cameras (chips) or band filters (5g, where the mate 20 really sucks) but these are less critical techs and easier to catch up on than something like EUV... A good primer on ASML and chip production is asianomitry on YouTube.

>> And yet Ukraine still hasn't won. With western high tech.

60 tanks and air defense isnt going to win them the war. The modern jets are coming but far too late. The long range weapons they have needed were also very late and in low quantity. If you haven't been paying attention their home grown drone program has made a mockery of the Russian navy and their long range air drones are now strking deep into Russia.

Everyone is afraid of "poking the bear" the French seem to be getting over that now. However you should be alarmed that the French are suggesting putting troops on the ground in Russia. Their nuclear policy is one that allows for them to use those weapons preemptively....

There has also be a fair bit of learning in the Ukraine war.... Drones have made 155 artillery into precision weapons with incredible impact. We also cant give the Ukrainians enough 155 to keep them in the fight, and there is some debate about who should foot the bill for building more factories to make shells. Our lack of "basics" has done as much to harm the war as limiting ranged and high tech weapons.

No one would win the fight with what the Ukrainians have been given... and we would not take the fight if that was what we had to work with.

>> Yes? I said China might blow up Taiwan and they most likely eventually will.

Their moment to do this was after Korea, or Vietnam. The problem is that they dont have the navy, missies or landing power to take the dam island from the Taiwanese.

>> China couldn't care less about TSMC or really anyone and anything that exists on that island,

China thinks that Taiwan is filled with Chinese. Some of the tawinese see themselves as Chinese. Blowing up the island would be counter to decades of their narrative that Taiwan is part of china.... China blowing up the island is about as likely as the US blowing up purto rico.

The idea that this is the goal of china is deeply misinformed.

>> Congratulations, we've managed to do the same thing as the misguided cavemen but did so behind schedule and over budget. Truly an achievement for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Right. You really need to catch up on news and geopolitics.

1. China/russia/india all spent a lot of money on hypersonic missles with the idea that they would be a game changer in taking out carrier groups and bypassing missile defense.

2. The few patriot batteries that we gave to Ukraine have shot down Russias modern hypersonic missiles. This makes 2 decades of posturing by china and Russia moot.

3. Chinas rocket force have been all over the news. Some intel agency has leaked all sort of internal info about them. Chinas rocket force are their "defense" against a us carrier group, they are the tip of the spear to invade Taiwan. You can read the news yourself but the highlights are, corrupt, and unprepared.

4. Those patriots are now on ships. Our navy has the capacity to protect a carrier group from the biggest non nuclear threat hypersonic. And these folks are getting practical training off the coast of Yemen right now. Our allies are even in on the action, the people who would be blockading china with us in the event of a war.

China is saber rattling. We did it right back to them... and showed that our sabers work and showed the world theirs dont. It's a bit of detant but its working for now.