I can't believe I had to scroll down this far to find the most obvious answer.

The rest of the country doesn’t give a damn, but they will once they don’t have cars, phones, or computers.

EXACTLY this. Luckily a good chunk of South East Asia is sick of China's BS. Japan, SK, Vietnam, and others are ready to stand by Taiwan. Yes, Taiwan is technically out numbered and under equipped, but the world needs Taiwan more than it does China. I don't expect it to go down without quite a few other countries stepping up.

Invest in a skin colored wetsuit?

Seriously though, you and I know it's all superstitious hokum, but if it makes life with your parents easier, just nut up and do it. There will probably be some celebration and a good meal following. It's not going to diminish what you believe or know.

Rich people don't gamble?

Sure they do. They gamble with our jobs, our environment, our planet, and our lives.

OMFG the endless sports betting ads on YouTube the last 24 hours....

This might sound crazy, but every single "teacher" is a person with their own opinions.

You're right. It does sound crazy. Literally NO ONE goes to university for a professors OPINION. They go to learn objectively FACT based knowledge.

If OP is paying to gain access to that knowledge, he deserves an education that's free of ignorant opinions.

That would be the end of TSMC. Their biggest customers are AMD, Apple, and Nvidia. The US has been arming and training Taiwan for nearly a decade. If China make a move on Taiwan, we're going to war, and a fair number of US allies are joining us. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

There isn't a single word in that article about China building out their semiconductor manufacturing.

Lol. All good. Poe is dead.

Aren't majority of these microchip/semiconductor manufactures based in China?

No. Taiwan produces 51% of the world's chips. China doesn't even account for even 25%, and most of what China does make is memory and LEDs.

And yet we're cool with selling Taiwan weapons and training.

Yeah, the water issue is no joke. Those fabs use MILLIONS of gallons DAY! Its going to squeeze what little farming is left in the area out of business.

Taiwan does not have anywhere near the same production capacity as China.

Taiwan's chip production by FAR outstrips China's. Most of China's capability is 10-20 years behind Taiwan's.

It's not my opinion, it's fact.

Then your "facts" are out as outdated as China's chip fabs.

"Taiwan is the country that produces the most number of chips globally, thanks to TSMC – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which controls 51% of the global chip market."

Stop preaching about crap you know extremely little about.

Practice what you preach.

The guy you're responding to doesn't believe chips are produced heavily in China.

The chips that matter are not being produced in China. They're being produced in Taiwan and Japan. The chips automakers are short of are made in Japan.

He doesn't understand the reality that most microchip production takes place in China and East Asia as a whole.

This is also completely untrue. China has a total of 75 chip fabs, most of which are only capable of producing technology that's 10-20 years out of date. Of the remaining 25% that are capable of node sizes oner 40nm, the majority of those fabs produce memory for solid state storage.

Japan has over 100 chip fabs that produce slightly newer technology. The US has over 100 chip fabs. There's several hundred more split among dozens of other countries.

I think chips need low humidity.

ZERO truth to this. Chip fabrication is not an open air process, and is more water intensive than just about any other industrial activity. A typical semiconductor manufacturing facility uses two to four million gallons of ultra-pure water per day.

When it comes to matters of national defense, it is high time to start forcing manufacturers to produce in the US. Microchips and semiconductors are one example of this

We do produce chips in this country. There's over 100 fabs in the country, primarily in Texas, Arizona, California, and Oregon.

The idea of the US being competitive in the consumer market for large scale chip manufacturing is laughable.

There's over 100 chip fabs right here in the US that disagree with you.

Apple is giving China more than $200B to build out their semiconductor manufacturing.

I can't find any coverage of this. You have a link?

Taiwan doesn't exist. It's part of china.

Is that why the US has been supplying Taiwan with military hardware and training for the last decade?

Intel has Chinese fabs

Intel has ONE fab in China, TEN in the US, three in Ireland, one in Costa Rica, and one in Israel.

its not the silicon that China can really hold hostage. It's the PCBs, power supplies, and everything else that goes around the silicon that could be.

That's not remotely true. There's 185 PCB manufacturers in the US alone. There's THOUSANDS of non-Chinese around the world, and I'm sure they'd appreciate the business.

There are power supply manufacturers in Taiwan as well as other countries.

Question where are the raw materials for those micro chips mined?

China used to be the top quartz exporter, accounting for 16% of the world supply, but it's telling that they've turned to Africa lately for their supply. India is the #2 exporter at 13%, followed by Brazil (8.9%), Turkey (8.9%), Spain (8.4%), then the US (5.4%).

China has almost all the rare earth metal mining rights

No they don't. They're trying to corner markets, but it's a BIG world. Can't possibly monopolize it all.

and is the only country refining rare earth metals.

Not even remotely close. Plenty of refining going on in other countries like Vietnam. Also, the US isn't sitting idly by letting China do this.

We and the rest of the industry are absolutely making a massive share of our chips in China...

That is laughably NOT true. There's nearly 100 chip fabs in the US alone. There's 89 in Taiwan, which is NOT China, despite their best efforts. Japan has 110 chip fabs. South Korea has 21. 17 in Singapore. 21 in Germany.

China has 75 fabs, and nearly 3/4 of them are only capable of producing chips below 110nm node size. China is WAY behind the rest of the world technologically when it comes to chip manufacturing.

you're kidding yourself if you think China isn't one of the leading sources of chip manufacturing.

No, YOU are kidding yourself thinking that they are. All the top tech is made in Taiwan, Japan, and the US.

There are also recycling efforts for lithium batteries to recover the metals used in the batteries, though these are still costly.

That's ramping up quickly too. The lithium recovered from recycled batteries requires less energy to process and fewer steps to obtain the necessary purity.

Mining the materials is super destructive to the environment

It's not any more destructive than any other type of mining. Chile, which is the #2 producer, literally scoops it off the surface of the Atacama Desert.

They already mine lithium in Africa and now they got mining rights in Afghanistan from the Taliban

Zimbabwe is 5th in production globally, behind Argentina then China in lithium producing nations. The number one producer is Australia, which is not only a close ally, they're in a pissing match with China. China acts like it's in charge, but it's about to find out just how dependent they are on the rest of the world.

nearly every base component, especially batteries, all come from China.

Wut? 77% of lithium batteries were made in China in 2020, but that is projected to fall to 65% by 2025. The US is currently the second largest producer, soon to be eclipsed by Europe in the same time.

they provide all the materials.

Not even remotely true.