Decoupling and the Politicization of Supply Chains: Democracy Chips and Dictator Gas – „Made in Democracy“
In the context of the emerging new cold war between West and East, the Sino-American conflict and decoupling, the supply chains and products are now also being politicized. Pioneer: „Democracy chips“ from Taiwan and the USA:
“Taiwan touts ‘democracy chips’ in meeting with US state governor
TAIPEI (REUTERS, AFP) – Taiwan wants to ensure its partners have reliable supplies of semiconductors, or “democracy chips”, President Tsai Ing-wen told the governor of the US state of Indiana on Monday (Aug 22), saying that China’s threats mean fellow democracies have to cooperate.
Governor Eric Holcomb is making the third visit this month by a US delegation after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a brief trip, infuriating China, which views Taiwan as a renegade province to be reunified, by force if necessary.
A week after Mrs Pelosi’s visit, five US lawmakers, led by Senator Ed Markey, visited Taiwan.
China staged extensive military exercises near Taiwan after Mrs Pelosi’s visit. Taiwan rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only the island’s people can decide their future
„Taiwan has been confronted by military threats from China, in and around the Taiwan Strait,“ Ms Tsai told Mr Holcomb during the meeting at her office in Taipei.
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Mr Holcomb is due to meet representatives of Taiwan’s semiconductor companies on his visit amid an expansion of links between his state and the island, which is home to the world’s largest contact chip maker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC).
„Economic security is an important pillar of national and regional security,“ Ms Tsai said. „Taiwan is willing and able to strengthen cooperation with democratic partners in building sustainable supply chains for democracy chips.“
Mr Holcomb talked of the efforts his state is making in supporting the tech industry, pointing to a June announcement by Taiwan’s MediaTek, the world’s fourth largest chip designer by revenue, of a new design centre in Indiana in partnership with Purdue University.
Oh dear, I’m driving a gas-guzzling, carbon-authoritarian, Uyghur blood-sucking dictator VW instead of a democracy car, if that already exists, or a bio-democracy bike. Yes, and to my shame, I also know about German history: Hitler, Blondi, Ferdinand Porsche, Wolfsburg and Volkswagen is already national , maybe nationalistic, folkish (völkisch”) and a people´s car. Not politically correct. Or should I choose another German brand, but was histrically with party donations to the NSDAP, German Autobahn, forced laborers and other aspects or vice versa: Which German company didn’t have „dirty“ relations to fascism- not as an excuse. Well, how about a Democracy and Liberation Ford, especially since „the Americans“ liberated „us“? But it’s like IBM with the punch cards for the NSDAP and Auschwitz, because there was also the anti-Semite and Hitler sympathizer Ford, who also wrote such programmatic publications as „The International Jew“ and thought that motorization and the German autobahn under Hitler was great (although the first autobahn was built under Adenauer and the first Ford plant in Germany was built in Cologne). Well, after the alleged end of Fordism and Japanese just-in-time – kaizen-lean production, this is likely to be seen differently in the age of post-Fordism and maybe the end of globalized lean- production.
Reminds a little of Freedom Fries instead of French Fries at the height of 9 11 and the Iraq war of 2003. Well, after Scholz’s visit to Montreal, there will soon be Freedom Democracy LNG from Canada instead of Dictator Gas from Russia – after a peaceful hunger winter. But to calm my moral conscience and to support the Free West, I also eat Democracy Chips to survive:
But what do I see? Ungarisch /“Hungarian“. Is there perhaps the autocrat Orban in there? Well, then I’d rather treat myself to a regional Bio- Democracy apple wine ( Äppelwoi) from Frankfurt and Germany – as German an “deutsch” as the Deutschländer and Rügenwalder sausage. Or not? Should I have missed something? Well, in an emergency then I’d rather prefer Hipp baby food and Mr. Hipp, who vouches with his name and does brand advertising with his name or Trigema – this is the original German, economic nationalist, if not Trump, but Trupp, i.e. Mr. Grupp and – with the exception of the patriarchal behavior – not to be confused with Krupp, who is the last remaining textile industrialist producing in Germany, who resisted the outsourcing globalization mania and who promises German jobs with his advertising chimpanese. You know that everything is German, especially since it is known that Germany is the world’s leading cotton producer. At least Mr. Grupp is sitting in Kretschmann-Badenwürtenberg, which is governed by a green government, and according to his own information he votes green, while his two children are the black sheep of the family who voted for the CDU and Merkel. But Mr. Grupp shouldn’t miss the latest trend, as he stated that he had no qualms about buying and consuming Ladas and other products from Russia.
Putin will look for symbolic, charismatic multipliers. One possible development is that Trigema boss Grupp will defect to the AfD and become its prominent spokesman for German medium-sized entrepreneurs threatened by sanctions and start a career as anti-American mouthpiece. So far he has voted green, in contrast to his children, who voted for Merkel and the CDU, so they were basically the black sheeps of the family. Grupp is already loudly speaking out against the sanctions and sees the USA as the actual cause of the war.
“The Americans control everything in the background” – statement by Trigema boss shocked experts
Grupp’s company and person have a strong symbolic character, are considered to be the company that has been decoupled except for the cotton supply, that produces in Germany, regionalizes, has withstood the outsourcing madness of the old globalization, the German model entrepreneur. It is therefore important for the Ministry of Economic Affairs that he, as a possible pro-Putin symbolic figure, does not go bankrupt and is turned into an enemy, but rather that he is brought into the transatlantic democracy camp before he becomes an advocate of Putin and the AfD. And be it with the preferred delivery of his company with Democracy LNG.
Ex-NATO General Naumann commented: “I had already seen the interview with Grupp and felt the same as you. Not surprising for his generation in my experience. I have repeatedly experienced the dull fear of Soviet power from 1945 and the frequent anti-Americanism of the same generation. This mixture creates a mystical connection with the Russia that may have existed in Tauroggen in 1812. Nevertheless, I hope that ways will be found to prevent Mr. Grupp from becoming the torchbearer of the AfD. His mascot Charly wouldn’t understand that.“
Yes, maybe the Alliance of Democracies and the NATO should give advertising chimpanzees Charly a few bananas so that he can persuade his master to choose the right side and not mimically and IQ-wise fall behind the chimpanzee like the Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan once did in “ Bedtime for Gonzo“. At best with Democracy bananas – but then we would have some image problems with Chiquitta.
With the „democracy chips“ there may be signs of a trend reversal. But this can also be remedied: In order to calm the good conscience sustainably and to be morally transparent and then democratically and political correct, as befits critical and democratic-ecological-social responsible citizens and well-bred subjects, you should simply add to the food traffic light , the information on the place of purchase, product content, green footprint, sustainability, genderphilia, calories, organic and animal welfare labels, etc., as with the purity law for German beer, a democracy content specification for each product. A democracy traffic light could still become reality under the traffic light coalition or a democracy label or at least “Made in Democracy”. The politically correct debate should then flare up for products with less than 50% democracy content and whether that is really “Made in Democracy”. But first wait and see whether this democratization hype prevails in view of the increasing number of authoritarian states in the world and if Trump or a similar Republican should be elected, who, as is well known, care little about democracy and human rights, and perhaps also want to establish an authoritarian US system in the long term, Democracy Chips would quickly become branded as „America First Chips“ or „Anti-China (Virus) Chips“ or „Patriotic Chips“. And the EU, which is also struggling with autocrats within its community of values, might then have problems regarding the democracy content of its transatlantic Big Brother and on its own behalf.
