papertowels

TSMC was developed by a Taiwanese citizen to be a "silicon shield" - it's too valuable for other countries to risk a war.

It's why trump was trying to cajole TSMC to move 50% production to the US and they were like "nah"

Soooo China is building sophisticated, highly specialized barges for establishing a beachhead without a harbor and moving heavy machinery across. These would be pretty helpful in a sustained campaign against Taiwan.

These ships happen to be able to connect to the many Chinese "civilian" roll on-roll off (roro) ferries that are built to military spec and can handle Chinese tanks.

These "civilian" roros happen to participate in military exercises.

Considering this all took place well before the arms deal, that's probably a good reason why China can be considered the aggressor. Maybe the $11.1 billion in arms deals is in response to that?

There's also xi jinping saying that the unification of Taiwan and China is "unstoppable" in a speech today, right after these military exercises.

For the uninformed, what happens if you put liberal?

The only annoyance I've had with it is searches will sometimes default to another language, even though I set the language to only return English results.

Also, I've found that the image/map search capabilities are less performant than googles.

But I still use it because the search results are so clean and no-frills.

but it could very well be an economic blockade of the China sea by US + regional puppets

You added an "s" at the end of puppets. That implies your proposal involves multiple countries. In your scenario, do you think it's wise to ignore neighboring countries with us military bases?

Where do you think the logistics routes for a potential blockade of the China sea would focus on? Imo military bases are a lot more important than a country just buying American weapons, because assets on an American base are in direct control of the Americans. If your proposed alternative reason is right, why the focus on Taiwan and not other countries?

There's also the little note of China building large, specialized naval craft coincidentally perfect for moving military forces onto taiwans beaches.

but it could very well be an economic blockade of the China sea by US + regional puppets

Can you explain how encircling Taiwan helps with that blockade? Keep in mind there are actual us military bases in japan, and Japan is not the one being encircled. You'd think if the intention was in defense of an American offensive the island with the military bases would receive the most focus. It's not, which suggests that it isn't a defensive exercise with the intent of counteracting an American offensive.

US military involvement in case of what?

We gotta make sure this passes the clown captcha test. Otherwise it has the same energy as "the American civil war was just for states rights"

So we're in agreement with the obvious fact that China is running drills to cut off Taiwan from external aid in case it has a conflict with Taiwan, right?

To cut off the island from outside support in a conflict with...who?

This seems like a great way to be fired for a misunderstanding. It's not worth it.

Magic smooooke

Snapchat allowing this on their platform is the insane part to me. How are they still operating if they're letting CSAM on the platform??