The more China advances domestically, especially in this area, the less it has to gain from invading Taiwan. China is getting to the point where the conquest is finally doable (rapidly advancing and massive military, plus a weak US president), but the potential gains are diminishing year to year.
I'd speculate that if they don't invade during Trump's term, they never will, and will pursue a different course down the road. China is nothing if not patient.
The motivation to invade Taiwan is rooted in the PRC's political and historical narrative about it's legitimacy and purpose, a narrative internalized by most Chinese, including especially the military. It's in a sense existential, not economic or realpolitik, and I don't see that motivation diminishing anytime soon. If anything it's growing stronger, as evidenced by the suppression in Hong Kong, which made zero sense without reference to how Chinese political institutions sustain themselves. The risk of an invasion sparking a conflict with the US is primarily what held them back, and at best economic and foreign strategic pain only secondarily, but all those risks diminish by the day, leaving China's raw existential motivation unchecked.
The biggest victory for CCP will be Taiwan willingly joining PRC. Nothing else will be a better testament to the CCP model
Reunification with the mainland isn’t a completely unpopular idea in Taiwan. The economic ties are already extremely deep (largest trading partner by far).
Reunification in Taiwan has nothing to do with chips, and militarily PRC was able to do so a long time ago. The political will in PRC to "kill other Chinese" is zero.
> The political will in PRC to "kill other Chinese" is zero.
Counts for nothing, these narratives are built on sand. Russians also saw Ukrainians as "brothers", as did South/North Koreans before the war, among countless other examples.
Their is always a political will in China to kill other Chinese since thousands of years ago. This works vastly different from the western humanitarian philosophy.
Invading Taiwan isn't about chips at all, and in fact chips are actively disincentivizing invasion. Semiconductor fabs and the oodles of atomically precise ultra clean and ultra expensive equipment inside absolutely do not mix well with bombs.
I'd speculate that if they don't invade during Trump's term, they never will, and will pursue a different course down the road. China is nothing if not patient.