American Exceptionalism. 3,000 years of intellectual, spiritual, social, and personal development has culminated in the greatest culture the world has ever seen. It is based on individual liberty, cultural freedom, and is dependent on the currently out-of-fashion idea that the nation-state is the highest expression of the human condition.
Well…let me rephrase that. The Western nation-state. Because there are others that are antithetical to the concept of personal freedom and liberty. Namely China.
So when someone writes an article poo-pooing the idea that maybe a vital industrial product on which our entire economy and military is dependent isn’t a security issue, my first thought is, “Who is paying you?” And when the writer is a Chinese national (I assume) who is downplaying the threat that communist China is to nationalist China (Taiwan), my second thought is, “Are you PLA or some other organ of the CCP?”
Sorry, but while that may sound jingoistic and nationalistic (uh…damned straight I am an America First acolyte!), it is a rational point. Too many American apologists for communist China are on their payroll for me to worry too much about being polite.
Are Semiconductors a National Security Issue?
It has become conventional wisdom in the United States that semiconductor manufacturing is a security issue. But that view is mistaken.
Another East Asian country that makes chips is China. However, its technologies lag by at least two generations. While the United States and its allies contribute 92 percent of the total value of the global semiconductor supply chain, China only accounts for 6 percent. Chinese companies, such as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), can only produce 45-nanometer chips, whereas TSMC now produces 3-nanometer chips. Although China endeavors to catch up, the United States and its allies will enjoy a competitive advantage for years to come.
And how many communist Chinese nationals are in academic and manufacturing IC programs in America, busily stealing our trade secrets and our latest manufacturing technology?
If the number is more than zero, then semiconductor manufacturing is indeed a national security issue. And jabbering about how wonderful the relationship between China (Taiwan) and communist China is can only make me and anyone with a brain more suspicious. Has anyone noticed communist Chinese military activity pointed squarely at Taiwan? Because it’s not subtle. And combine that with the cowardly rhetoric emerging from the dementia-addled brain of Joe Biden, which is tantamount to a big fat permission slip to invade Taiwan, South Korea, and maybe even Japan in a decade or two, and it is pretty clear that Taiwan is in communist China’s sights.
Am I a racist and white-supremacist for assuming the worst of Chi-hung Wei? Yeah..sure..whatever. I just don’t care. I am an American, and it has become abundantly clear in the last generation that China is our enemy, and anyone who is not expressly anti-China is suspect. For all I know this guy is a gigantic American populist who despises mainland China with his entire soul. But his soothing rhetoric about how China really isn’t the enemy is immensely suspicious, and he needs to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is all in on American Exceptionalism and personal freedom as defined by Western culture.
Yeah…I’m not holding my breath.
