All About Ships.

Response to a friend's Facebook post.

WHAT matters is what or who produces the raw materials to build ships. Aluminum: China, India, Russia. Steel: China, India, Japan, US, Russia. Brass: Italy, South Korea, Germany, China. 

       Obviously, China has all these and they also build as a priority over exporting the materials. Same case with topmost "ingredients" per "green economy." China has a lot of lithium (for EV manufacture) and silicon (for microchips). So China is #1 in EVs (BYD over Tesla, although Elon Musk buys lithium in China via his factory in Shanghai).

       Meanwhile, China has already solidified its trade partnership (per silicon/semiconductors) with Taiwan. No brainer: They are blood kin, the One-China rhetoric is just political blah sideshow. Sure, Joe Biden is worried that China will clog the global market of "green economy" exports after the US sank $6.6 billion and $6.4 billion investment with Taiwan's TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung for factories in Texas + huge ass tax incentives and bailouts to local/US manufacturers. 

       But Joe employs an annoying hawkish tact to break the Chinese though he also sent Treasury chief Janet Yellen and State secretary Antony Blinken to Beijing to confer or negotiate. How can Janet and Antony deal with stuff when their boss keeps on derailing talks with his dirty mouth and "security threat" intrigues. 

       And now the Philippines is expectedly dragged as a pawn in that pissing drama in the South China Sea. That is Washington's brinkmanship playbook at work, for them. Not us, Filipinos. 

       The Chinese are not that stupid to bite the bait. Check, why would the US hand Taiwan military aid (most recently, packaged with aid to Ukraine and Israel)? First, Taiwan is rich. It doesn't need aid. But hey why not, they now got a factory in Texas. The Chinese (China or Taiwan): It's all business. No war. Refer to Sun Tzu. His art of war is about defeating the "enemy," without fighting. 🛳⛴🚢