Month: February 2025

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has announced the launch of a new military activity by NATO to strengthen the protection of critical infrastructure.  “Baltic Sentry” will enhance NATO’s military presence in the Baltic Sea and improve Allies’ ability to respond to destabilizing acts.

Leaders from across the region have addressed the growing threat to critical undersea infrastructure. The Secretary General said recent sabotage had damaged energy and communication cables.  

“Baltic Sentry” will involve a range of assets, including frigates and maritime patrol aircraft. The Secretary General also announced the deployment of new technologies, including a small fleet of naval drones, and highlighted that NATO will work with Allies to integrate national surveillance assets – all to improve the ability to protect critical undersea infrastructure and respond if required. NATO will work within the Critical Undersea Infrastructure Network, which includes industry, to explore further ways to protect infrastructure and improve resilience of underwater assets.

“Baltic Sentry will deliver focused deterrence throughout the Baltic Sea and counter destabilizing acts like those observed last month,” said U.S. Army General Christopher G. Cavoli, Supreme Allied Commander Europe. “It is indicative of the Alliance’s ability to rapidly respond to such destabilization, and shows the strength of our unity in the face of any challenge.”

Rutte also stressed the importance of robust enforcement. He highlighted how Finland has demonstrated that firm action within the law is possible, “Ship captains must understand that potential threats to our infrastructure will have consequences, including possible boarding, impounding, and arrest.”

According to a Rand study, “The strategic environment in the Baltic Sea region has undergone two key changes since 2022: (1) intensified North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)–Russia tensions due to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and (2) Finland’s and Sweden’s accessions to NATO. The region represents one of the largest interfaces between NATO and Russia, and essential civilian commerce and undersea infrastructure in the area are vulnerable to attack by Russia.”

Defense specialists caution that, while NATO’s expanded concentration on the Baltic is encouraging, danger persists. Julian Pawlak writing in the authoritative War on the Rocks website,   notes that “With Finland and Sweden joining NATO, there has been renewed focus on the strategic situation in the Baltic Sea. By joining the alliance, the two Scandinavian countries almost complete its encirclement of the Baltic and help consolidate allied defense efforts in the region. Yet the Russian Federation persists in the Baltic, and its influence remains threatening. Thus many of the optimistic assessments about NATO’s newfound dominance in the region do not reflect the reality, as the alliance has yet to figure out how best to defend against and deter Russia in this particular part of Europe.”

The threat comes from China, as well. Elisabeth Braw, in an Atlantic Council.org study, note that a Chinese vessel, the Yi Peng 3,  leaving the Russian Baltic Port of Ust-Luga may have been responsible for intentionally cutting two undersea cables. She reports that “On November 17, an undersea cable connecting Sweden and Lithuania was cut, and less than twenty-four hours later, the only communications cable connecting Finland with Germany was also severed. As OSINT investigators quickly gathered, the Yi Peng 3 was at the scene both times.”

On January 14, the President of Finland Alexander Stubb, Prime Minister of Estonia Kristen Michal, Prime Minister of Denmark Mette Frederiksen, Federal Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz, President of Latvia Edgars Rinkēvičs, President of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda, Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk and Prime Minister of Sweden Ulf Kristersson issued a joint statement proclaiming that they are  “…deeply concerned by actions, be they negligent or malicious, which cause damage to or threaten the functioning of critical undersea infrastructure. We strongly condemn acts of sabotage to critical undersea infrastructure. We are determined to deter, detect and counter any attempts at sabotage. Any attack against our infrastructure will be met with a robust and determined response. We stand ready to attribute hostile actions committed by malign actors, as appropriate.”

Photo: Swedish Naval vessel (NATO photo)

North Korea has tested a new hypersonic intermediate-range missile aimed which appears aimed at U.S. bases In the Indo-Pacific.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) recently noted that North Korea continues to advance its missile and nuclear weapons programs despite UN Security Council sanctions and high-level diplomatic efforts. According to the analysis, the country’s ballistic missile testing, military parades, and policy statements suggest that North Korea is continuing to build a nuclear warfighting capability designed to evade regional ballistic missile defenses. Such an approach likely reinforces a deterrence and coercive diplomacy strategy—lending more credibility as it demonstrates capability—but it also raises questions about crisis stability and escalation control.

The study suggests that Congress may wish to examine U.S. policy toward North Korea. This is particularly important, since The Pyongyang regime can now target the American mainland with ICBMs  It demonstrated its ability initially in various tests in 2017, subsequently in 2022, four times in 2023, and again in 2024.

 In a truly worrisome move, North Korea adopted, in 2022, adopted a policy expanding the conditions under which North Korea would use nuclear weapons to include possible first use in situations that threaten the regime’s survival. In September 2023, Kim promised to boost nuclear weapons production “exponentially” and diversify nuclear strike options.

CRS revealed that North Korean government statements show that the country is aiming to increase its stockpile of nuclear warheads and improve their design for a variety of delivery systems. Some nongovernmental experts estimate that North Korea has produced enough fissile material for between 20 to 60 warheads.

Another goal of its nuclear weapon program is to lower the size and weight of a nuclear warhead for deployment on missiles, called “miniaturization.” A July 2017 DIA assessment asserted North Korea had achieved the level of miniaturization required to fit a nuclear device on weapons ranging from short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). Kim Jong-un in January 2021 said that the country was able to “miniaturize, lighten and standardize nuclear weapons and to make them tactical ones.” In his January 1, 2023, speech, Kim said the country would expand its nuclear arsenal and “mass produce” tactical nuclear weapons. The 2024 ATA said that Kim ordered a “an increase in the nuclear weapons stockpile and the expansion of weapon-grade nuclear material production” in March 2023. The ATA said that “North Korea also unveiled a purported tactical nuclear warhead and claimed it could be mounted on at least eight delivery systems, including an unmanned underwater vehicle and cruise missiles.”

Recently, according to the Defense Department, The United States and South Korea (ROK) convened the fourth Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) in Washington, D.C.  The meeting was co-chaired by Ms. Cara Abercrombie, who is performing the duties of U.S. Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and Dr. Cho Chang Lae, ROK Deputy Minister for National Defense Policy. 

The United States reaffirmed its commitment to South Korea.  The American representatives stressed that any nuclear attack by North Korea would be met with a “swift, overwhelming, and decisive response.” They stressed that the United States reiterated that any nuclear attack by the DPRK against the United States or its allies would result in the end of the Pyongyang regime, And that commitment is backed by the “full range of U.S. capabilities, including nuclear.”  The Americans also reaffirmed the commitment to enhance the regular visibility of U.S. strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula.

Prospects for the future appear increasingly worrisome, as it deepens its military relations with Russia. Moscow has apparently exchanged advanced weaponry, including aircraft, in return for armaments such as artillery and infantry troops.

Illustration: Pixabay

The devastating California wildfires have been made even worse due to the priorities of the near-total rule of Sacramento’s progressive politicians. The harm they have done to what was once called “The Golden State” is not unique. It is widespread throughout the cities, towns, and states of the nation, and indeed, to the federal government as well.

Progressives dangerously fail to address actual problems and needs.  They ignore rational and worthy goals that should be pursued. Instead, they are devoted to virtue-signaling “green” policies that do little for the environment, but ravage the economy. They encourage racial and gender division, and bear responsibility for massive crime problems. Progressive ineptitude in foreign policy has led to a world in chaos.

The New York Post notes that “President-elect Trump, during his first administration, put Gov. Gavin Newsom on notice for his handling of repeated wildfires in the state, years ahead of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires currently raging…’The Governor of California… has done a terrible job of forest management. I told him from the first day we met that he must ‘clean’ his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him. Must also do burns and cut fire stoppers,” the former and upcoming president posted to X in 2019.’”

Californians pay some of the highest taxes in the nation, (yet face a $73 billion budget gap) yet Sacramentq fails to adequately fund needed infrastructure and public safety programs. One study reports that “The California State Water Resources Control Board recently released an assessment showing that nearly one million Golden State residents lack access to safe and reliable water. Further, the five-year price tag to address the state’s massive infrastructure needs could top $16 billion.”

So where does a big chunk of the money go? The House Budget Committee reports that “Benefits and services provided to illegal aliens in California in 2022 amounted to $22,821,903,942.”

Progressive environmentalists prioritize leftist goals over real needs and genuine environmental problems. The Manhattan Institute reports that, in fact, self-described environmentalists are less interested in climate goals than in replacing capitalism with socialism. The irony of that belief can be seen explicitly in comparing very similar areas, such as the old East Germany with West Germany. A 1984 Christian Science Monitor article reported that “A UN report …identified East Germany as the most polluted country in Europe. …the German Economic Institute in West Berlin calculates that East German sulfur dioxide emissions have reached at least 46 tons annually per square kilometer, or triple West German levels.” A similar comparison can be found between North and South Korea.

A similar result occurs in Progressive views on racism.

A Hoover Institution study notes that “…at least some of the politicians who are promising to address racism are the same ones who are responsible for the reasons so many Californians—particularly Blacks—struggle economically, decade after decade. These politicians must know by now that their policies, which reduce economic opportunities, increase living costs, and perpetuate a failed K–12 education system, have imposed substantial and disproportionate harm on Blacks, Hispanics, and women. But they continue doubling down on this failed agenda by passing new laws and imposing new regulations that make Black lives—and the lives of many more Californians—much worse off.”

The impact of progressive foreign policy has been a significant encouragement of war and threats by China, Russia and Iran. When Beijing assaulted the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone, then-president Barack Obama failed to provide even a diplomatic protest, despite the eventual ruling in favor of Manila by the World Court. As Russia threatened to invade Ukraine, President Biden signaled weakness. Both Obama and Biden demonstrated weakness in the actions by both Iran and ISIS in the Middle East. Today, encouraged by that, China is ramping up its bullying in the Indo-Pacific region, Ukraine is devastated, ISIS is regaining power, and Iran is weeks or months away from becoming a nuclear power.

The impact of Progressive prosecutors on crime is another example of failure. As noted by the Heritage Institute “Their policies encourage lawlessness, harm law-abiding residents (especially minorities), drive businesses out of cities, and demoralize the police by treating them like criminals.”

Despite the absolute failure of Progressive policies at home and abroad, biased reporting by pro-leftist media outlets have worked to dampen criticism.

Illustration: Pixabay

The United States served as the “arsenal of Democracy” in World War II, providing arms and equipment to its allies in the fight against the Axis Powers. In 2025, it may not be able to even supply its own needs.

The vast defense industrial base that gave America that capability has been dramatically reduced. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) recently noted that “Some analysts and policymakers have argued that the current capacity of the industrial base is insufficient for the demands of great power competition. As Seth Jones of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) framed the issue in a 2023 study, ‘The U.S. defense industrial base is not adequately prepared for the competitive security environment that now exists. It is currently operating at a tempo better suited to a peacetime environment. In a major regional conflict—such as a war with China in the Taiwan Strait— the U.S. use of munitions would likely exceed the current stockpiles of the U.S. Department of Defense, leading to a problem of ‘empty bins.’”

CRS notes that “some analysts and policymakers…argue that certain market developments (e.g., the consolidation of prime defense contractors since the 1990s or the widespread adoption of “just-in-time” approaches to logistics) have reduced the capacity and resilience of U.S. defense suppliers.”

Consider just one key weapons system, tanks. There is only one operational plant that can build them, a facility in Lima, Ohio. During that Obama Administration, attempts were made to shut it down, a move that would have been disastrous.

William A.  LaPlante, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, notes that a resilient defense industrial base is critical to the Defense Department’s ability to deter future conflict. The lessons learned from the Ukraine conflict have driven home the point.

“Very few people anticipated the prolonged, high-volume conflict we are seeing in Ukraine or that we might see again against a strategic competitor. We are relearning just how resource-intensive this type of warfare can be, and how dialing down our production numbers, and the just-in-time delivery model doesn’t work in this kind of conflict. We need a paradigm shift to meet the needs of today and the future fight.” 

The inadequate level of production that is being completed contains too many foreign produced parts.  Many years ago, in an off-the-record conversation, one of America’s top military leaders told me that foreign-sourced parts were a source of key concern.

George Whittier, writing for Industry Week, noted that “The military and its partners have become too dependent on foreign-made parts, materials, and minerals.”

An American Security Project analysis disclosed that “Chinese equipment has permeated military supply chains for over a decade. In 2012, the Senate Armed Forces Committee found that counterfeit parts from China were being integrated into several critical systems. These included artificial intelligence capacities in the Air Force’s Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft, the Navy’s Integrated Submarine Imaging System, and the Army’s Stryker Mobile Gun. With 1800 cases containing over one million counterfeit parts, the committee’s conclusion was that both national security and service members were being put at jeopardy.  Despite these findings, China continues to supply goods and services used by the United States for dual-use and defense purposes. From 2018 to 2022, there were 471 tier 1 Chinese suppliers of semiconductors and related devices to the US defense industry, more than any other country other than the US itself, and 299 suppliers in tier 2. Data analytics company Govini has identified a surplus of Chinese vendors and suppliers in twelve critical technology areas, including biotechnology, nuclear modernization, hypersonic, and space technologies that are vital to U.S. national security.”

The Parents Defending Education organization has released a report exposing extensive waste within the Department of Education, much of it taking funds from legitimate teaching purposes and shifting those dollars to leftist ideological propaganda.

Last January, the House Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services held a hearing titled “America’s Report Card: Oversight of K-12 Public Education”  At the hearing, lawmakers examined how billions of dollars in taxpayer funds distributed to state educational agencies to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on elementary and secondary schools and to help them reopen safely were frequently misused to support pet projects and left-wing political agendas.

The Subcommittee found that “The Nation’s Report Card shows test scores in reading and math have significantly declined.

Despite the well-known harms of school closures and ineffectiveness of remote education, Democrats continue to put politics before students.

“The connection between closures and learning loss is clear. Education recovery scorecard and return to learn data show that in math, the most in-person third of districts lost 44 percent of a year’s progress. The most remote third lost 60 percent,” Dr. Nat Malkus, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Education Policy Studies at American Enterprise Institute said during his opening statement.

“The President and governors, leaders on Capitol Hill, and in districts must decisively communicate that pandemic-era exceptionalism in schools is over,” Dr. Malkus continued.

School districts are increasingly investing in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs instead of focusing on student performance.

The recently released Parents Defending Education verifies those findings, exposing the misuse of approximately $1 Billion in grant funding. The analysis notes that:

• Total ED Grant Money Awarded (2021-present): $1,002,522,304.81.
• Total number of ED grants (2021-present): 229
• Number of States: 42 plus Washington D.C.
• Number of K-12 school districts: 296
• Number of K-12 students*: 6,766,158

Parents Defending Education breaks the grants down into “three buckets:

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Hiring: $489,883,797.81
  • This category includes DEI or race-based recruiting, training, and hiring practices. Read more about DEI Hiring in K-12 here.
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Programming: $343,337,286
  • This category includes general DEI programming and trainings, discipline including restorative practices, and youth activism.
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Based Mental health/Social Emotional Learning (SEL): $169,301,221
  • This category includes DEI based mental health training programs and SEL trainings and programming. Some grants covered two or all of the above categories, in those cases, the grant was counted only towards the most dominant category.”

The analysis provides key takeaways:

• Multiple grants feature programming that advances race-based teacher recruiting, hiring, and training, including the use of race-based affinity groups.
• Several grants were issued for youth activism programming widely used in far-left ethnic studies courses.
• A $4,000,000 grant was given for a 3-week residential “culturally responsive” computer science summer camp for 600 11th and 12th graders.
• Grants often feature Social, Emotional Learning (SEL) programming that uses curricula like Second Step and Harmony, as well as transformative SEL.
• The University of Iowa received a grant award of $1,261,718 to train 40 elementary teachers to “enact equity-centered education” in partner K-12 districts.
• The University of Missouri – St. Louis was awarded a $306,209 grant to train school counselors in Trauma-Informed, Antiracist Social-Emotional Learning (TIAR-SEL).
• The School District of Philadelphia was given $3,973,175 for its restorative justice program that is modeled after Oakland Unified School District’s (CA), and a program advisor is a far-left activist and former Communist Party USA member.
• A Michigan school district spent over $38,000 on an equity consultant for a one-day professional development and copies of their book.

From 2021 to the present, the Department of Education (ED) awarded to universities, school districts, and nonprofits 162 grants totaling $1,002,522,304.81. This report only captures grants that specifically included diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), restorative practices, and/or youth activism as part of the programming.

Recently revealed details of the relationship between a California council woman with Mike Sun, who has been accused of pursuing Chinese interests, has renewed concern about the relationship between the state’s Democratic Party and Beijing’s Communist leadership.

The Los Angeles politician is Sun’s fiancée. Sun has been accused of peddling political influence on behalf of the Chinese regime, court records show.

Published reports state that “Mike Sun, has allegedly worked with a recently sentenced Chinese agent to advance the Chinese regime’s political interests in Los Angeles. Court documents suggest the two have worked closely for years to align U.S. policy interests with Beijing on sensitive issues, with the Chinese agent Chen Jun telling Chinese officials that Sun—and the councilwoman—were part of a ‘basic team dedicated for us.’”

Sun is a former Chinese army member. Despite his record and ties, he served as the campaign manager for Eileen Wang in her 2022 bid for Los Angeles City Council 2022.

Chinese communists have already made extensive use of the California Democratic Party to play an outsized role in American political life. 

 Kamala Harris’ Vice Presidential running mate, Governor Walz has a history of being a devotee’ of Beijing. In 1993, according to the Star-Herald, as a teacher, he organized a trip to the PRC with Alliance High School students, where costs were paid by the Chinese government. In 1994, Mr. Walz set up a private company named “Educational Travel Adventures, Inc.,” which coordinated annual student trips to the PRC until 2003 and was led by Mr. Walz himself. The corporation was reportedly dissolved four days after he took congressional office in 2007. Since his first trip to China, Governor Walz has visited the PRC an estimated 30 times. While serving in Congress, Mr. Walz also served as a fellow at the Macau Polytechnic University, a Chinese institution that characterizes itself as having a “long held devotion to and love for the motherland.”

Governor Walz spoke alongside the President of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, which, a year later, the Department of State exposed as “a Beijing-based organization tasked with co-opting subnational governments,” including efforts “to directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda.”

In a letter to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray, Committee Chairman Comer requested information, documents, and communications related to the CCP-connected entities and officials Governor Walz has engaged and partnered with, as well as any warnings or advice the FBI may have given to Governor Walz about U.S. political figures being targeted by or recruited for CCP influence operations.

The Biden-Harris Administration’s relationship with China appears to have begun when Hunter Biden flew to China with then-Vice President Joe Biden aboard Air Force 2, and returned home with a vast financial gain, in return for no discernable commercial service.

Kamala Harris is a California Democrat.

The Biden-Harris Administration ties with China are just part of the Democratic Party’s concerning history with America’s most dangerous enemy.

  The late Democrat Senator from California, Dianne Feinstein, employed a chauffeur, who according to CBS News, was a Chinese spy, reporting to the Chinese government about local California politics for 20 years. 

The Chinese communist spy who compromised California Congressman Eric Swalwell, Fang Fang, also “socialized, networked with Rep. Judy Chu and then-Rep. Mike Honda, campaigned for now-Rep. Rho Khanna, volunteered for Bill Harrison, the mayor of Fremont, California at the time, and in some cases, developed romantic or sexual relationships with politicians to gain intelligence and send it back to her handlers, who were believed to be stationed in mainland China.” 

Donald Trump’s first campaign for President was marked by substantive warnings about China’s military, political, and economic policies. That may have been the prompt for the California Democrat,  then-Representative, now Senator, Adam Schiff’s vociferous (and, as subsequently revealed, wholly false) attacks on him.

The volume, intensity and consistency of the ties between significant members of the California Democratic Party and China require urgent and significant further examination.

China’s threats to violently conquer Taiwan, if necessary, has led Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to expand and diversify its operations in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), using engineering talent from several sanctioned PRC firms. It is a risk to TSMC’s position as a leading-edge company in the global chip industry. Last summer TSMC announced that it was shifting to a “Foundry 2.0” model to ostensibly avoid monopoly concerns. The Foundry 1.0 model does not include back-end products. However, it complicates the company’s global position. Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) want to shrink the technology gap between the mainland and Taiwan.

The plan calls for TSMC to expand to handle packaging, testing, mask-making, and other parts of the value chain, according to a recent Jamestown Foundation report. Foundry 2.0 comes with risks and may impact the Trump Administration’s support for Taiwan this year. The President made it clear on Monday that he intends to impose tariffs on imported chips to force manufacturing to return to the US.

“If TSMC cedes its dominance, the deterrent effect of Taiwan’s “silicon shield” would be greatly reduced,” says Matthew Brazil, the report’s author. He points out the company is now setting up fabrication plants in the United States at the urging of many of its main customers, including Apple and Nvidia. Some analysts are questioning whether TSMC will be successful in straddling a neutral line between Beijing and Washington, while Taiwan’s government labeled the move “a win-win business model for Taiwan and US industries.” 

TSMC’s new hedging strategy is viewed as more closely linked to Xi Jinping’s pronouncement on Taiwan than to President Trump’s tariff threat. The company is a target for Xi, as he pivots the PRC toward and economic model that Brazil says focuses on achieving dominance in several key technologies crucial for achieving a “Chinese-style modernization (中国式现代化)” and the country’s “great rejuvenation (伟大复兴).” It is a strategy long-practiced by Beijing; sometimes using illicit means to achieve its goals. 

The Jamestown Foundation report compiled a database that exposes the exchange of PRC talent between several of the TSMC fabrication plants, some of which has been sanctions by the US Department of the Treasury for violating exports controls or giving technology to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The report adds that others are on the US Department of Commerce Entity List.

TSMC’s Shanghai plant produces its 200mm waters, while in Nanjing it began producing 300mm wafers at the 16 nm mode in mid-2018. This makes it one of the most advanced lines in all of the PRC with excellent commercial viability. Brazil used a Chinese-based platform called MaiMai.cn (脉脉) to identify a large personnel turnover of dozens of former TSMC specialists and experts now employed at Huawei in advanced technical roles. He notes that former “TSMC engineers and technical experts can also be found at several other leading PRC firms under U.S. government sanctions.” These include Changxin Memory Technologies Inc., Yangtze Memory Technology Co., Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment, and SiEn Integrated Circuit. LinkedIn accounts indicate that several former TSMC and Maimai China employees list their address as in the Hanzhou Chengxi Science and Technology Innovation Corridor. This is a Silicon Valley like corridor but set up, funded and endorsed by Beijing’s Ministry of Science and Technology as a special science and technology development zone. It is the location of a large number of the PRC’s defense-linked technology firms that are subsidized by Beijing.

TSMC faces two risks beyond the loss of their intellectual property. If the company fails in its expansion attempt to move into other parts of the value chain, it could result in a global slowdown in technology worldwide due to the decreasing chip supply followed by steep increases in their products. Second, in the event of a kinetic war with the PRC, the Taiwanese company’s fabrication plants could be damaged which would also serve as a constraint on the global supply of leading-edge chips. TSMC currently holds 62 percent of the revenue in the global semiconductor foundry market, a share that is expected to grow to 66 percent by the end of this year. In comparison, Samsung controls only 11.5 percent of the market.

Since 2022, Beijing’s ability to project military power has grown dramatically, making the threat of physical action against Taiwan a greater possibility than only a few years ago, despite Xi’s lack of a definitive timeline for conquest. TSMC is hedging its bets on Taiwan’s ability to remain free at the risk of angering both China and the United States. With the new Trump administration policy of containing China, TSMC’s best bet may be to reduce the flow on talent to its Chinese competitors.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Illustration: Pixabay