[arter4]

>I expect a Taiwan incident of some sort to happen, although I hope it will be a minor one.

>Either that incident or the continuing hostilities in Ukraine (which are likely to last another year at least) will cause the economy to tank again, screwing up the markets to a fair degree.

I'm not an economist or a diplomat, but I would argue that a serious Taiwan incident may be worse than continuing hostilities in Ukraine from an economic standpoint.

First, because the surprise effect is probably relevant. We have been dealing with the situation in Ukraine for a while. We know trades with Russia are very limited, European countries know they can't get reliable gas supply from Ukraine, and so on. Yes, things may get worse, and Western countries might send more (or less) money and aid to Ukraine, but at least we have already covered our bases. When it comes to Taiwan, if something significant happens, it will probably affect the semiconductor business, which goes from CPUs and GPUs to photovoltaics, all things that are highly relevant to our economy.

Also, China itself is much richer than Russia, so a prolonged China-Taiwan conflict may last for a really long time.