Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

Would they. Biden has publicly stated. Taiwan relates to Ukraine like an elephant to a mouse. Without Taiwan, nothing will work for years, neither industrial production nor armament.

I firmly believe that a Chinese invasion would be defended against with nuclear means if necessary.

We are currently witnessing how easily Ukraine can be isolated, and this will increase. They are running out of shells, electricity, water, gas, and railways are increasingly destroyed. Without shells, you cannot fight the Russians; without heating, water, and electricity, you cannot survive the winter in Ukraine.

I strongly assume that China - no matter how much they may bark - would not attack Taiwan. Taiwan has a golden shield, which consists of the monopoly on the most advanced chips. Without Taiwan, nothing works, and there is a risk that Taiwan will blow up the things themselves before losing them to China.

There is a very worth watching video called "Will China Invade Taiwan Next?" by RealLifeLore. However, it is completely in English.

The Americans have deliberately kept the question about Taiwan open for decades. The military has conducted war games for many years on how to wage war between nuclear powers without catapulting themselves back to the Stone Age within the first few days (and on top of that experiencing a nuclear winter), but in the end, no one found a solution. The dependency has been recognized and efforts are now being made to reduce it. Of course, this is not easy, and for the foreseeable future, progress will significantly lag behind what is feasible. But that's not such a big deal, because most chips do not need to be high-end. We have long since reached a level where most applications work sufficiently well even with older hardware. Ironically, this could lead to Taiwan being conquered rather than defended in 20 or 30 years. What Biden says today is completely irrelevant in the long game.

Biden has publicly stated that Taiwan will be defended. And Biden is, like all presidents except Trump, not someone who just talks casually. Especially not on such a topic. It was also not denied or softened afterwards.

In addition, China is much more dangerous than Russia. Russia is finished in the end, the sanctions and the war will ruin it in the medium term. China, on the other hand, is catching up technologically, albeit slowly and at a qualitatively low level, but they are making progress.

That is also where the danger lies. Only about 10% of all chips come from China. China also massively imports microchips, especially the latest generations, which the Middle Kingdom cannot produce; they are still 2-3 generations behind.

That also makes Taiwan a target for China. A war will therefore likely become inevitable if the regime in China is not overthrown.

I apologize in advance that I have to interrupt again, especially now that the thread has somewhat gotten back on track, but..

on the topic of wrong paths, just the example "writing by ear" -> The method works perfectly fine. But what 95% of primary school teachers do is "You don’t have to pay attention to spelling"

is complete nonsense and I therefore cannot just let that stand. No idea how you come up with the crazy idea to write such rubbish.
Many parents and, as the last pages here show, the majority of the thread participants believe that no spelling awareness is developed during the 1st/2nd grade and fail to recognize the fact that the alphabetic strategy represents a huge step in learning written language, the blunt "today we learn the letter I, tomorrow M and then read and " is very demotivating especially for high-achieving children.

The apology is more than appropriate, because such amateur writing helps no one. Do you have any kind of pedagogical training? If not, please keep quiet... if you want information about the chimney, you ask the chimney sweep and not the primary school teacher... unfortunately, the reverse is less established. Everyone feels born to be a teacher, every child is gifted...