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China has crippled the US military industrial complex with its acquisition of near monopoly over rare earths supply chains.
Yeah no one can dig a hole unless there's a government forcing them to dig it. Sure.
It is the refining of rare earths that is the challenge. Explaining this to you seems to require ongoing repetition...
China has spent 3-4 decades developing a rare earths refining industry that is more competitive than all others and so nearly all others closed down - the west mostly lost the ability to refine its own rare earths.
Now USA cannot fight a war of any scale without Chinas approval.
China maintains its embargo on any rare earths being exported where they could end up in military applications.
The US military is crippled for at least a decade. So much for your free markets fixes everything Libertarian dogma - your ideological blindness to reality just cost you your global hegemony.
Good government is a major factor in the wealth of nations.
Japan, Taiwan, South Korea are all monetarily and militarily subservient tribute states to the US. Their sovereignty is severely impaired. Today however most of their productive supply chains are enmeshed with China, not the US. Chinas mercantile success derives substantial strategic leverage...without firing a single shot. China has crippled the US military industrial complex with its acquisition of near monopoly over rare earths supply chains...without firing a single shot. Japan, Taiwan and S.Korea increasingly look to China for profitable trade, not the increasingly dysfunctional and insolvent US. Good government is a major factor in the wealth of nations.