When I joined my current employer my first job was helping out on a Foxconn production line in Shanghai. Now, partly thanks to moves by Donald Trump, and partly because we don’t want to find our manufacturing partners on the wrong side of a load of sanctions, we’re increasingly moving production to countries outside mainland China (e.g. Vietnam). China is doing themselves no favours by going down this road.

I’m seeing questions from customers asking on our china/Taiwan supply reliance

That was a great article, thank you.  I hadn’t appreciated how much better workers rights were in Taiwan.  I’m finding more and more ‘non-forum’ stuff that I’m really enjoying reading

Crap, I’d bette grab one of those discount Commencals from CRC whilst I still can.

I can’t find any verification online that the USA is allied with Taiwan, as stated in the article. It seems to be only non nuclear countries, listed as:
Eswatini, the Vatican, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Paraguay, Belize, and island states in the Caribbean and Pacific, including St. Christopher and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Marshall Islands, Palau, Tuvalu and Nauru.
In other words…they’re screwed.

What’s your source for the USA @stwhannah?

I’m guessing you’re looking for something like the TRA Jekkyl

Wikipedia link

Congress

It’s a bit different to a formal alliance but it’s pretty much what most people would understand one to be.

So far as “screwed goes” you’re more likely to find that those countries you list would be screwed if China (or any other reasonable power to be honest) decided to invade. Taiwan has the significant benefit of being not only a major strategic loss to the USA if it’s subsumed but more importantly, a major economic one and you can rest assured you’re more likely to see the west go to war for Donald’s billions than a treaty.

Would the Chinese ownership of ports in a time of great sanctions have the possibility to cease or drastically reduce the supply of petrol and other fuels to the UK?

Well the Russian ownership of fuels in a time of great sanctions didn’t stop it* so I’d imagine not.

*or at least, what was stopped was only stopped because the little people turned out to have some scruples rather than any sort of sanctions which might cost the 1% a bit of money.

An actual shooting war with China would be a different thing, if the USA engaged, we would too, I can very much imagine the magic money tree would be found down the back of the sofa to keep those ports (and a lot of other things) running, the difficulty of course is ensuring the systems keep running which is more an artifact of design than money, but of course, we wouldn’t have let the Chinese buy ports and set them all up on software and hardware they have a “kill switch” for, that would be silly.

Thankyou Hannah: informative, interesting, thought provoking and relevant journalism. Much appreciated and worth holding on to my subscription a little longer for

Something like 90% of all high tech semiconductors are made in Taiwan, and there aren’t any fabs anywhere else to replace them. If China does invade and the TSMC fabs get damaged, there will be an almighty global recession for decades – no new high tech products (inc cars) for 10+ years…..

Remind me again how many energy infrastructure projects the Chinese are involved in globally and the UK?
Seems they’ve built leverage.

Nuclear armageddon? A storm brewing for the bike industry?

Remember WW2 and the disruption that caused for cyclists? Or how Covid killed loads of potential cyclists before they could buy a bike? Well, whisper it quietly, but a global nuclear war could be bad new for the bike industry, both by destroying its consumer base in one fell swoop, irradiating materials needing to build new bikes and, potentially disrupting supply lines and logistics in a way that could be almost as bad as ‘when that ship got jammed in the Suez’.

Not only could hundreds of millions of people perish, but the bike industry could be significantly impacted leading to a short of bikes and spares for centuries to come.

a global nuclear war could be bad new for the bike industry, both by destroying its consumer base in one fell swoop, irradiating materials needing to build new bikes and, potentially disrupting supply lines and logistics

On the …ummm… bright side, if your whole bike’s glowing, no need to keep recharging your lights. And you’ll be very visible to any traffic that survived the EMP.

@prettygreenparrot

they are amazing looking bikes and by all accounts amazing to ride.

i saw one hanging off of the back of a tesla in a car park near some trails and got a good look. a very interesting looking bike. they are not cheap, but no more expensive than similar bikes made in china.

prices of bikes is ridiculous only because they pass through so many people before the end user gets the product so make the bikes and parts closer to home and we all get better products at a reasonable price whilst supporting U.K. companies

Are they ridiculous? It takes either a ton of money (in machinery etc) or a ton of expert time to make a bike. Handmade bikes are expensive – which may be fair enough. But the price of bikes that most people ride (outside enthusiasts) is pretty cheap for what it is, isnt it?