This isn't good. Both China and the world benefit from the Chinese people having a global voice. Shutting off a channel - however imperfect - is counterproductive. Some of the discussions were finally improving as well, after the auntologist-led sessions of the past few days
What's more, encouraging mainlanders, HKers, and TWese to commingle and chat is the best way to heal the divides that feed political extremism on both sides of the strait.
It can create a lasting political consensus for solving the cross-straits problem without firing a shot, as people discover the other side is not monsters drawn out of a nightmare but ordinary people whose dreams are similar to their own.
If people on both sides of the strait can see that the other side has a lot more in common with them than those few differences currently exaggerated by their respective politicians, a solution is much more sustainable and less costly to achieve.
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1/ Getting a sense that the DPPs recent antics with TSMC are not being appreciated in the Biden admin, to say nothing of the EU
2/ The DPP is anxious because current trends that by 2025, China, the US, and/or Korea will be at or near parity with TSMC, and INDOPACOM will be unable to defend Taiwan even if it commits a sizeable % of its assets
3/ Which means if the DPP doesn't secure a hard security guarantee - something like a US tripwire on Taiwan in the next few years, they have no outs
And it's what the DPP privately communicated to the US during a talk about auto chip shortages yesterday - which, curiously, did not focus on auto chips and did not speak to the issue of prioritizing their production
This counterintuitive result is mainly because Taiwan island has nearly 8x as many soldiers per capita as mainland China (290k soldiers / 23m people vs 2m soldiers across 1.3b people).
2/ Once, at a reception, caught a bunch of HK girls gossiping about a mainland girl's lack of taste. "She's wearing so much Gucci. Doesn't she know that people who have been properly raised, wear Marni for casual and Valentino or Chloe for things like this?"
3/ Had a HK banker unironically tell me that "people like us are just working class, man" as he blew tens of thousands of HKD at a club.
In case it isn't blatantly obvious already, don't stick around in the US if you are Chinese and work in a STEM field - especially if you have expertise in AI, materials science, genomics, quantum physics, or any of the other 'sensitive' fields the US wants to control
No matter what, you'll be contributing to the economy of a regime that wants to keep China down, and you will likely be monitored by dedicated programs within US government agencies for the entirety of your career
Instead, you should either head back to China as soon as feasible - or stick around just long enough to get some valuable IP in your head and then leave.
Stick it to the US. Do everything you can to help China gain technological primacy.