Might scare Taiwan and embolden China? A huge reason we hold Taiwan as an ally is their chip production capabilities. If we become self reliant on those then we don't really need Taiwan and China might try to invade them, which would be bad for our own national security interests.
Well, for one, we don't want a humanitarian crisis and civil war or even international war... that's bad for the whole region and thus bad for US interests.
We also don't want China able to just take over land and territory at will, which they've threatened to do all over the region. That destabilizes the region and once again is bad for US interests. This also emboldens other nations with expansion desires which threatens stability across the world... No US ally would trust us again if we just let Taiwan be taken over... again, bad for US interests...
There are 190 other countries that applies to so where are they?
I don't share the ego for the US' hegemony or I also don't place importance on the US' soft power. I do care about semiconductors though.
Is there a stronger argument, because I'm still stuck on what specific strategic advantage that Taiwan has to the US, after we duplicate their one interesting company's infrastructure.
Its obvious that isn’t important to me, right? This sentiment crosses party lines.
We uniquely have the resources to be the most developed nation, domestically, but subsidize other countries’ defense instead and they subsidize other advances in their own country that we domestically deem too expensive.
So how about we get this semiconductor geopolitical nightmare out of the way and use our massive domestic resources the way we can. There are consequences, not the US’ problem.
There are a lot of people thinking like me, so hawkish people will need more articulate arguments for specific US foreign policy with specific countries.
> We uniquely have the resources to be the most developed nation, domestically, but subsidize other countries’ defense instead
...and in return, the rest of the world plays ball when we want to advance our interests. The basis of foreign policy is I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine. Our protection of Taiwan shows other countries that we will put ourselves on the line for our allies. It practically forces us to go to war if China invades because we'll lose access to our all-important semiconductors.
Key word forces. If we lose our dependency on the semiconductors we're no longer forced to go to war. Which means China can try to invade and might succeed if we deem it unnecessary to protect Taiwan because "fuck you, we got ours." By keeping ourselves in this vulnerable position there's an implicit trust and understanding that we will be there for them.
> There are consequences, not the US’ problem.
Funnily enough this is the attitude of many citizens under protection of US hegemony. I think you will receive more varied responses from the Ukrainians and Taiwanese.
