Taiwan bans recruitment for jobs in China | Hacker News Reader

Taiwan bans recruitment for jobs in China

asia.nikkei.com

217 pointsbaybal2181 comments

Nice post about how Taiwan's work environment is sadly missing its potential:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19492995

> komali2 on March 26, 2019 | parent | un‑favorite | on: Google will open a new office complex and add hund...

>>Last year, the project trained about 5,000 students in AI technology and 50,000 digital marketers.

>I feel like Taiwan represents a talent opportunity like no other. I dream of starting an engineering company there that is literally a clone of some upcoming business model, and doing nothing but capping the work week at 40 hours and guaranteeing 4 weeks vacation. I could snipe the best talent on hand in the country, which is at the very least equal to some of the best silicon valley has to offer, at nearly half the rates. Lord forbid we target foreign contracts and the company can pay near US rates. I'd pilfer everyone's engineering department ;)

>Overworked, underpaid, extremely competent was my experience of Taiwanese engineering. Google is good to step up in Taiwan - I believe it will pay dividends for them. I wonder what the Google work culture and salaries are like for their Taipei 101 office engineers? Last I checked it was about 2,000$/month for entry level.

I understand the why, but I feel like they could also ask TSMC to pay their workers more.

Say India did the same for software engineers leaving for the US, we'd see it as government overreach.

China is offering triple the salary to those people.It's impossible to keep up for a country as small as Taiwan. The end goal for China is not to immediately outcompete TSMC but make Taiwan beg to be integrated into China.

Very similar to how the US used military spending to cause the USSR to exhaust its resources.

That’s a popular thought in the US, in particular among political activists, but from what I understand, economists dismiss Reagan’s unprecedented peacetime deficit spending on the military, and rather point to internal inefficiencies in the Soviet economy, and critically the global price of oil.

Like Russia today, the Soviet Union’s economy was centered on exports of raw materials, in particular oil and gas. Wells were needing to be recapitalized, but with low prices the money wasn’t available to revitalize the economic engine of the country. Luckily for the Soviet Union, the oil crises of the 1970s jacked up the price of oil, thus allowing them to stave off collapse until prices fell back to their historical average. In other words, if it wasn’t for OPEC, the Soviet Union would have collapsed under Nixon or Carter.

https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/20070419_Gaid...

https://www.rbth.com/history/331825-saudi-arabia-oil-crisis-...

https://carnegieendowment.org/2017/03/29/formation-and-evolu...

What's your take on the future of China, Taiwan, Asia, and the US?

China - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY_zsc0wf1Y

I am not an expert on geopolitics and when it come to CCP's data. I'll always assumed false/fake then verify but one thing is real is the One Child Policy. Xi want dual circulation economy but I highly doubt that's going to happen with its population decline. China going to deal with labors, support older population, long term impact on economy...etc.

if Peter is correct, China is becoming another old folks home like Japan. China's birth rate is already approaching Japan's level.

Africa and India have young populations, they’ll be the powerhouses of the second half of this century.

So if I remember correctly Soviet military spending reached 10% of their GDP which was unsustainable.

I wonder if that was due to GDP falling with weak oil prices, or just rising military budget with a stagnant economy.

Probably all of the above.

Fun fact: No one knows how percentage of GDP the Soviets were spending on their military, but 10% is the low estimate. (See second figure.)

The fifth figure should put to rest the idea that the Soviets tried to meet an increase in US military spending in the 80s. They didn’t. In fact, the president exact opposite is true. The US increased spending due to an increase by the Soviets in the mid 1970s. Soviet spending didn’t really increase at all in the 1980s.

https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-military-spending/

TSMC had 17 billion USD profit last year, right? How come they are unable to triple or in fact pay 10 times they already pay? It's simple greed in my book. It's always CEO cry that they cannot find talent while flying a private jet and offering 5 digit salary.

Also note that 3x is not only for TSMC employees. Even for fresh CS graduates, China mainland pays way more than taiwan.

https://www.payscale.com/research/CN/Job=Software_Engineer/S...

https://www.payscale.com/research/TW/Job=Software_Engineer/S...

It's about 1/3 more, if we only consider big cities like Beijing / Shanghai / Taipei, the difference is just larger. SWE is almost the best paid job kind there. Hardware is similar.

I have to say the best way is to pay more. They deserve it. Just blaming the other side doesn't help.

Similar to the US poaching Canadian software folks.

But, that's now how capitalism works. Capitalism is workers must compete for jobs, services and goods. Capitalism for companies and rich are how to buy off the right people and laws to prevent competition.

I remember in business school how it drilled into us that there are only two important numbers in a company. The price of your product, and the cost of your product. "You can only dictate your cost of your product because your market dictates what you can sell it for." Every time I hear things like "we can't find enough people" or "yeah, but then we'll just pass it along in our cost to customers," I know how much we don't have capitalism.

From your comment I am not sure that I understand if you agree of disagree with the move.

Capitalism here is not the issue. If China pays more they get the workers. That's capitalism as its core. If TSMC wants to retain their workers they have to dig in their 40% profit margins and increase salaries to compete for talent. If they want to increase the price of their chips to account for that payroll increase that will make Samsung (or whoever else) more competitive and that's capitalism as well.

> Every time I hear things like "we can't find enough people" or "yeah, but then we'll just pass it along in our cost to customers," I know how much we don't have capitalism.

I agree and it makes me angry, individual freedoms are and should stay a thing. If you can't pay your employees a salary that makes them want to work for you, they are not the problem and your competitors are not the problem.

> If TSMC wants to retain their workers they have to dig in their 40% profit margins and increase salaries to compete for talent.

I agree completely. I was trying to comment on the Western narrative about capitalism: "Capitalism is all fine and dandy unless it impacts me negatively."

The market doesn't really dictate your sales price. The market may dictate the price vs sales curve.

If you raise prices, usually unit sales will fall (although, not always) and sometimes there's a big cliff as you approach (or surpass) competitors' prices.

Try and increase prices by 1,000,000,000x and say the market doesn’t set prices. Markets give you wiggle room, but maximum profit is the goal not simply moving some units.

For those to don’t understand.

Your unit cost is some function based on the number of units produced. f(x)

The market will buy some number of units at any price point. S(P). Now you have two functions and you want the maximum of [ S(P) * (P - f( S(P) )) ]. Thus the market determines both the number of units sold and the price.

Of course that’s assuming you’re not selling a finite supply of something like say oil etc. And of course advertising and segmenting the market can further boost profits etc.

If you're competing with the government of China, then capitalism isn't really the rules of the competition.

Why not? Globally, they're a corporation like any other

It hits at a flaw in capitalism where rich people get to dictate what poor people do, but we generally don't mind that

By "they", I presume you mean the PRC. But there's more to capitalism than just the existence of corporations. The PRC is not responding to market forces like price signals.

TSMC pays very well compared to other companies in the same market. I'm guessing you are hearing from people who've never worked for UMC or PowerChip!

Of course, the other fun fact: ANY TSMC employees who went to China will never get jobs in Hsinchu et al. ever again. One-way decision only. Burned bridge.

TSMC here is really a placeholder for Taiwanese companies.

> TSMC pays very well

Many big companies indeed pay relatively well in comparison to other professions, but workers are heavily underpaid. You can't justify the fact that companies have multi-billion profits and they pay "market rate" salaries at the same time. This is exploitation of workers, but because the amount they are being paid seems to be big, nobody seems to be protesting. Most tech workers should be earning in seven digits.

I think it's more akin to sanctions on doing business in Iran.

The CCP is a direct hostile threat to Taiwan, I can understand why they're doing this.

Wouldn't they do the same if it was France poaching them? The language and cultural barrier make it harder for European or American countries to recruit them, but I have no doubt they'd react similarly if they saw significant numbers leaving for Europe.

They might and I'd argue that would be wrong.

In the case of the CCP though, I understand it.

why the double standard?

France isn’t planning to invade Taiwan.

Then just do a sanction on business with mainland like U.S. did with Iran. As it is, these are very targeted moves. Taiwan to decoupling from China would only be good for them.

> Most tech workers should be earning in seven digits

According to which metric?

1 million Taiwan dollars is 30k USD

Compensation isn’t dependent upon value added. That simply indicates a soft ceiling to compensation. It’s all about supply and demand. If there is a supply of skilled people will to work for $X, that’s the comp.

I wonder how companies marketing their roles at "market rates" does not amount to wage-fixing? If every company agrees that work should cost them $x at most, then you don't really have supply and demand principle. I think this is only legal because because it is hard to prove within current legal framework. I think we should have a regulation that will make employers redistribute 30% of profits among workers as a bonus. That may of course lead to companies making artificial loses (as they do to avoid paying corporation tax) and ultimately a cat and mouse game.

Well, unless companies collude (tech is a good example a while back), they compete for labor so you’d assume they arrive at the market rate eventually.

As you said, mandating they distribute profits will just result in gaming the system.

The labor market, just like any market, prices goods according to supply and demand, not value.

UMC and PowerChip are not remotely "in the same market", unless you define market to mean "China".

TSMC competes with Samsung and Intel. If they don't compensate their engineers accordingly they can expect to lose them.

What? No they don't. TSMC starting wages [1] for a Masters degree candidate is $19,500 USD per year, for a bachelor's degree is $13,000 USD per year. Their median salary is less than $60K USD (which includes US engineers who are paid much more).

They were finally shamed into a 20% above the board wage hike last November [2] but before then, they went a solid 10 years of 3 - 5% COL adjustments.

They might pay well compared to other Taiwanese semi companies but that's only an indictment over how dismal the Taiwanese employment situation is. They're not lacking money, they're just cheap because the executive team culturally does not believe in rewarding talent.

[1] https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3925769 [2] https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4052667

Yeah, but the key difference is that Taiwan is under direct threat from China. Mr. Xi openly said that he will take back Taiwan by force if necessary. Weakening the Taiwan semiconductor industry is certainly part of this playbook, too.

Imagine if the US would consider India to be part of its territory and asking for a "re-unification". I am sure that in this case India would try to prevent key software engineers from leaving, too. Actually, I am surprised that Taiwan has done so little so far.

All that may be true, but the net effect of this policy is to artificially depress wages of people working in Taiwan. Even if one buys into the "existential threat" model, it seems like forcing that burden onto the backs of your most important competitive asset is... sort of horrifyingly counterproductive.

Presumably they would be poached to work in China and not Taiwan.

That's the policy. But the effect is that TSMC doesn't need to raise salaries to retain workers, they can rely on the government to prevent the workers from being recruited in the first place.

(edit: Can I say how amazingly hilarious it is watching all these notionally free-marketeer libertarians who believe in just compensation rush in to explain why it's totally OK for the Taiwanese government to shamelessly restrain trade as long as they're trying to stick it to the PRC?)

Taiwanese workers may find their wages lowered due to lack of China bidding on their salaries, but there's still the rest of the world.

The vast majority of the pressure comes from China.

TSMC will always lose that bid against a hostile state actor (the PRC) which can totally ignore market value in pursuit of strategic goals.

It’s absurd people dumping on Taiwan don’t realise this. There is no way for Taiwan to compete with CCPs deep pockets if the CCP has decided it needs these engineers at all costs.

But again, TSMC not only isn't trying to compete with "CCPs deep pockets", they're not even trying to compete with Apple or Intel! The time for that complaint is if they're still seeing poaching despite paying FAANG-scale salaries commensurate with their now-FAANG-scale revenue.

To wit: TSMC is one of the big boys now, it's time to act like it and pay their workers. What they're doing right now is trying to cheat by using their government as a weapon against their own employees.

It doesn't aritificially depress wages if China was offering artificially high wages in the first place.

If these people really are critical to the survival and future of your country, how can any wage be too high?

You're thinking in absolutes. We would both agree that a billion dollars a month is too high.

And I don't see how what you've said is related to what I said, which was a critique of the idea that this move is artificially depressing wages when allegedly it's an attempt to stop poaching of key talent at artificially high non market rates.

>We would both agree that a billion dollars a month is too high.

I would not necessarily agree. There are CEOs who make around that amount, why shouldn't an engineer make that much if they're equally important to the organization?

From what I could gather from Google, TSMC engineers make far less than I do as a FAANG engineer, and TSMC posted a ~$14 billion profit last year. If these employees are so important to Taiwan's future, why can't they at least pay them FAANG-level salaries? It's not that they don't have the money.

Because they're not equally important. Most engineers don't add billions of dollars of value. If a miscellaneous engineer resigns, it will have in most cases little impact on the prospects of the company. Most add only incremental value. The superstar seven figure ICs do get paid as such but they're rare, most people aren't that capable of that much value add as an IC.

The company made billions in profits. That could be due to a number of reasons. IP, relationships, network effects, scale economies, regulatory capture, brand equity, etc.

>Because they're not equally important. Most engineers don't add billions of dollars of value.

Let the market decide that.

>The company made billions in profits. That could be due to a number of reasons. IP, relationships, network effects, etc.

That's not the point. The point is they're using the government to make it harder for their engineers to find other work, rather than just pay them higher wages so they'll stay on their own accord.

If the workers aren't important, then they don't need laws to stop them from looking for jobs elsewhere. Are us software engineers more important than those in other countries with comparable costs of living? That's hard to answer in general, but software engineers in the US are paid much better on average than in most European countries. Of course there are exceptions but hacker news is full of stories talking about this issue (many euro engineers come to the us bc we pay so much more).

It's very hard to overcome economics. If they don't pay their engineers at TSMC something approaching alternatives, they will start to leave. It doesn't matter whether the company made billions of dollars because of a few people - the company will struggle if they start losing their engineering talent. So that kind of sets their value.

What I'm arguing is that they'll need to pay better wages, otherwise people will leave, regardless of this law about advertising jobs.

There are other places in the world Taiwanese talent can work. And other sources of FDI in Taiwan that can create wage competition -- see other comments about Google.

China is uniquely and specifically trying to destroy Taiwan. The exception makes sense and doesn't have a totalizing effect.

This is kind of an anti-dumping measure by Taiwan.

It's not an anti-dumping measure. TSMC would be profitable paying their workers that much and so will be SMIC.

Most Indians would be thrilled to become US citizens.

So this is not a good analogy.

The Chinese companies are owned or funded by the government, they don't have to worry about profit. It is geopolitical economic warfare. A company cannot compete against that without government help.

I could see apple or Google outspendimg the chinese government.

Not worrying about profit is a function of wealth rather than government in particular

capitalism does not work any more since we have unlimited money supply, efficiency is not an issue any more. What you are suggesting is that to let the market work, which is a very conservative idea now.

A surprisingly silly move from an otherwise intelligent country.

* Taiwanese prosecutors alleged last month that China's Bitmain Technologies, the world's leading cryptocurrency mining chip developer, illegally lured more than 100 engineers in Taiwan to boost its artificial intelligence prowess.*

Ah yes, the illegal “offering money in exchange for services rendered” offense.

That seems like it's ignoring some other important circumstances, like a month ago, when their neighbor was staging military drills and threatening their existence if they don't agree to be annexed? https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2021-04-09...

You see what has happened in Hong Kong. This is a bit more nuanced than an issue of pay.

That article is vague even by the standards of Western reporting about China. This Reuters article about the same event is more specific: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-defence-idUSKBN2BU...

It says Chinese fighters flew inside Taiwan's air defense identification zone. Here's a map which shows Taiwan's ADIZ: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/JADIZ_an...

You can make your own judgement as to whether that action constitutes an escalation of threat. As far as I'm aware, China's stance on what actions would trigger a military response regarding Taiwan has not changed in decades.

That stance being: we own Taiwan and we will depose their government by force if necessary, eventually. China senses this moment as one of profound weakness for the West. What makes you think they aren't preparing to strike while the iron is hot?

Top brass in the U.S. military is saying an invasion is likely within the decade: https://www.newsweek.com/top-commander-fears-taiwan-could-in...

Edit: I fail to see how China invading Taiwan could be considered a "military response", rather than a blatantly illegal land grab according to international law.

Edit 2: The international law in question is the one forbidding annexation: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/07/israelopt-10-...

> we own Taiwan and we will depose their government by force if necessary, eventually.

Until very recently this was Taiwan's stance on China.

What exactly would China gain from invading Taiwan? My understanding is that their main goal is preventing the expansion of US military presence and bases in the region, which Taiwan's pro-independence party supports.

Response to your edit: China invading Taiwan would not be an annexation according to international law. A small minority of nations recognize Taiwan's sovereignty, and historically it is not a sovereign nation. Taiwan represents the losing side of a Chinese civil war that recently decided it wants to be a sovereign nation as its hopes of retaking the mainland have evaporated.

A propaganda coup, first of all. They have been promising their increasingly nationalistic populace this prize for nearly a century.

Second: They eliminate a very important forward operating base for any future containment of China by Five Eyes & Co.

Third: It's 23 million people who have built an advanced economy. Being able to siphon that wealth will be a massive boon for the CCP and other parts of China.

The rationale for invasion is clear. Particularly if they have calculated they can't or won't be stopped. I know more than a few mainlanders and they all strongly believe that Taiwan and China will be "reunified" within their lifetime.

Edit: Does anyone here care that none of the Taiwanese want to be part of China? Yes, they are the "losing side" of a civil war from almost a century ago. That's completely irrelevant given how long they have had sovereignty at this point. That they are not more widely recognized in the international community is a tragedy. The U.S. is correct to continue to support their independence.

> Third: It's 23 million people who have built an advanced economy. Being able to siphon that wealth will be a massive boon for the CCP and other parts of China.

Ah yes, the filthy lucre of siphoning an economy with 4% of their own GDP.

4% is 4%. They are paying the expenditures to maintain their military. Why would they not be looking for a return on their investment? It's strange we're even arguing about this given that their official position is that they will invade in due time if Taiwan does not unconditionally surrender.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-taiw...

"In its annual work report this year, the Chinese government removed the word "peaceful" from long-standing references to "reunification" with Taiwan."

Their official position is that they will invade if any of a few specific things occur. And China's military spending is less than 4% of their GDP last I checked. That seems pretty good to me given all the geopolitical aggression they're receiving from the country that makes up 38% of global military spending.

The U.S. guaranteeing the independence of a free democracy is not "geopolitical aggression". Claiming sovereignty over land you have not controlled for an entire human lifetime quite certainly is. I'll end my participation in this discussion with a quote from the Taiwanese:

"We fill fight a war if we need to fight a war, and if we need to defend ourselves to the very last day, then we will defend ourselves to the very last day"

https://www.businessinsider.com/taiwan-warns-fight-to-end-co...

>The U.S. guaranteeing the independence of a free democracy is not "geopolitical aggression".

So it was geopolitical aggression for the 40+ years Taiwan couldn't even pretend to be a free democracy? I don't understand how the internal government can be the decider over whether it's aggressive.

> So it was geopolitical aggression for the 40+ years Taiwan couldn't even pretend to be a free democracy?

Yes, it was still aggression. The US opposed it then under the grounds of "containing Communism" rather than "defending democracy".

> I don't understand how the internal government can be the decider over whether it's aggressive.

If you invade somewhere to take it over against the wishes of the locals, that's aggressive. How is that hard to understand?

>If you invade somewhere to take it over against the wishes of the locals, that's aggressive. How is that hard to understand?

I have no idea what part of my post made it seem like I wouldn't find an invasion aggressive, it clearly would be. I wasn't discussing an invasion at all.

Then I clearly misunderstood this line:

> I don't understand how the internal government can be the decider over whether it's aggressive.

Would you explain what you meant by it?

(And, my apologies for the yelling. I in fact thought that you were saying that an invasion would not be aggression, which... yeah. We both agree that such an idea is wrong.

That providing substantial military support to a nation bordering an empire is an aggressive act no matter the form of government the border nation has.

Yes, kind of, but also no.

Yes, it riles up the empire. They don't like it. They certainly regard it as a hostile, aggressive act.

But you're not providing enough military support for the smaller nation to invade and conquer the empire. It makes it more expensive (perhaps prohibitively so) for the empire to conquer the other country. That's only "aggressive" if the empire was intending to conquer the other country, and only because it removed from them an option that they really wanted to use. They don't lose a foot of ground. All they lose is the option of themselves invading.

>But you're not providing enough military support for the smaller nation to invade and conquer the empire.

The fear isn't that the border country tried to invade, the fear is that the country providing the arms will use them as a stockpile to invade. A buildup of arms along the border has been seen as an aggressive provocation for millennia.

Bringing this back to the specific instance at hand: China sees the buildup of arms in Taiwan as a stockpile for the US to invade mainland China? No way. (I mean, yes, they might be paranoid enough to see it that way, but it's completely divorced from reality. There is exactly zero chance that the US would do so. What's much more likely is that they would use it as an excuse to move to "counter US aggression".)

>I mean, yes, they might be paranoid enough to see it that way, but it's completely divorced from reality

It began in ~1950, when it had been less than a decade since the latest of the several times the US has invaded China. It's not unreasonable to worry that the US would lead a new Eight Nation Alliance to return the Kuomintang to power.

It's less likely now, but it could still be used in some kind of proxy war somewhere like Korea. Arming the border does far more than just prevent China from invading.

Unless you succeed, in which case you become the locals and kicking you out is aggression

Taiwan was run by a military dictatorship until 1986

*edit: 1986 was a long time ago, but the point is that the KMT was a corrupt and unpopular government which lost to the Communists, but the US held its nose and propped it up for 30+ years until Nixon needed a counterweight to the USSR and opened relations with China.

> The U.S. guaranteeing the independence of a free democracy is not "geopolitical aggression".

This is a naïve view of geopolitics. Check out where Kurds ended up by counting on the US.

I never said the U.S. was likely to uphold their promise to prevent an invasion. The U.S. is however providing the Taiwanese with advanced military equipment. And their threat of defending Taiwan, no matter how hollow you judge it to be, is perhaps the only reason Taiwan is still an independent nation in 2021.

The US has interests in Taiwan, and none in Kurdistan.

Some of those interests are economic, and Taiwan knows not to give them up.

Others are geographic, and won't go away unless china finds another way to the ocean

> The US has interests in Taiwan, and none in Kurdistan.

So they stayed in Syria just for fun? Middle East invasion is about pressuring Iran, as much as Taiwan is about Mainland China.

> Does anyone here care that none of the Taiwanese want to be part of China?

It would probably help if Taiwan had nuclear weapons. China wouldn't risk an invasion. That or maybe I don't know enough about Asia.

> Third: It's 23 million people who have built an advanced economy. Being able to siphon that wealth will be a massive boon for the CCP and other parts of China.

Right, who's going to buy from China-occupied Taiwan? In this scenario, there's going to be a massive disruption of Taiwanese economy. By the time it's over, someone else will outcompete them. It's not 17th century, capturing land doesn't guarantee any advantages.

> Edit: Does anyone here care that none of the Taiwanese want to be part of China?

I get you. Crimeans don't want to be a part of Ukraine either, yet the "international community" pretends they do. Life isn't fair, and Taiwanese not wanting something isn't going to change anything.

> Crimeans don't want to be a part of Ukraine either, yet the "international community" pretends they do.

I don't think the international community pretends any such thing. It just doesn't oppose it strongly enough to start a shooting war with Russia.

> Right, who's going to buy from China-occupied Taiwan?

We've been buying from China-occupied China, including Xinjiang. Color me skeptical that international trade with China will fundamentally change in response to an invasion, ahem, "reunification". Taiwan's largest trading partner right now is mainland China. That will only accelerate with annexation and can offset export losses elsewhere.

> I get you. Crimeans don't want to be a part of Ukraine either, yet the "international community" pretends they do.

The U.S. is also correct to oppose the annexation of Crimea and further destabilization of the Donbass.

It's none of their business, tbh.

>Does anyone here care that none of the Taiwanese want to be part of China?

Who cares what they want? The confederacy succeeded from the Union and the Union invaded it.

Access to the ocean.

Right now, America owns China's coast, with the aim of making sure China has to get America's permission to get to ocean shipping routes.

A PRC Taiwan gives china a free access point to the Pacific.

Which international law would China be violating by invading Taiwan?

Taiwan fits all criteria under international law for a country. Plus CCP would kill hundreds of thousands or millions during a forceful invasion of Taiwan.

Laws always have loopholes. It's clear that the CCP would be doing something evil by attacking a peaceful island nation. They want control.

> Plus CCP would kill hundreds of thousands or millions during a forceful invasion of Taiwan.

> They want control.

Does not add up. Who're they going to control if they kill millions? I mean, why do they even have to start a military offensive when they can eventually outcompete Taiwan? Just think how many top-rated universities China has.

> Does not add up. Who're they going to control if they kill millions?

Their citizens on the mainland. The CCP believes that if they don't look good, their days are numbered and revolution will be inevitable.

A survey conducted by the Harvard Kennedy School found that satisfaction with the central government in China rose from 86.1% in 2003 to 93.1% in 2016: https://ash.harvard.edu/publications/understanding-ccp-resil...

Is the US government's abysmal approval rating by comparison a sign of our free thinking and freedom, or do you think we'll have a revolution here soon?

This is laughable. Chinese citizens are required to approve of their government, lest they run afoul of the national social credit system. That the study was conducted by a Western organization is irrelevant. Chinese citizens know that their communications with the West are not private, and perhaps even especially subject to monitoring and intrusion from their government.

Edit: I usually don't call out blatant CCP astroturfing on this site. But I want to draw everyone's attention to the video that u/xtian just shared in the comment below. It's clearly Chinese Communist Party propaganda. It's tagged #serpentza and #laowhy86 because those are the two most famous Western streamers who have lived in China for decades. The CCP specifically targets people who watch their videos for counter programming. I'm done interacting with this "person", but will respond to comments from others.

Check out serpentza's youtube for the truth about China:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl7mAGnY4jh4Ps8rhhh8XZg

Yeah true the only way to know their real interests is to listen to the West. That's why when native Chinese people say the social credit system doesn't exist I call them liars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaPvnGhbj9A

Edit: chitowneats, if you don't believe I'm a real person message me on Keybase. We can discuss whatever you'd like. Or just keep believing it's impossible for any real person to have political views that fall outside the boundaries set by NATO propaganda.

Anyone here with any technical literacy knows that the fact that you have a keybase account, and associated pseudonym, does not prove anything.

Edit: Response to the comment below. Being rate limited.

The West is past the point of naively believing that the CCP does not have multi-decade information ops being conducted against their governments and citizenry.

Also, that was exactly your assertion. What would be the point of bringing up your irrelevant keybase account if it was not an attempt to mislead me and others on this site?

Thank you for your insightful comments and sorry for the hate you receiving by not towing the NATO line!

> This is laughable. Chinese citizens are required to approve of their government, lest they run afoul of the national social credit system.

It’s your word against someone else’s. I only know about China from personal anecdotes. And you know what, whenever I ask my Chinese colleague if these things are true she tells me it’s bs. So what do I believe?

And when you resort dehumanizing your opponent is when you start loosing the argument. When you say that guy is on CCP payroll, you basically claim it’s impossible for a person to have an opinion that differs from yours. Which is ironic since you’re bashing China for being an evil dictatorship.

Because the people who answer the survey cannot freely express their mind, otherwise another mysterious group of people will start to kill them and their families. Everyone knows CCP controls these assassins through their seat at the High Table. Free tip: you can hide inside the Continental Hotel where these assassins cannot kill you on that ground.

Don’t forget organ harvesting and rape squadrons.

They're going to remain in control of the mainland population, by giving them a big patriotic victory. (And by delivering on what they said, over and over, that they were going to do.)

It's about more than the population of Taiwan or the strategic importance of its chips: it means control of the South Chinese Sea. Between the US Navy and Taiwan's alliance, China's broader ambitions for economic and military control of the region are stymied.

> Taiwan fits all criteria under international law for a country.

Taiwan claims that they're not separate from China. Their disagreement is over who should be in charge, not whether they're the same country currently engaged in a power struggle between regions.

Sure, they claim that. Try traveling from one to the other (either direction) without crossing border control. Or, try to find the common point of authority in the command structures of their respective militaries. They're two countries, no matter what they say they are.

You're confusing two things. The context of the discussion was International Law. You're talking about practical reality which is almost orthogonal to international law.

Yeah because if they claimed they were separate they would cross the CCP's "red line".

The Taiwan populace doesn't want to take over the mainland.

There's literally no way you can spin this that makes sense besides the CCP wants control of a physical island to push out the US/Japan.

It's not peaceful to play host aggressive armies and navies.

That would be https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-7 if I'm not mistaken. It is neither authorized or self-defense.

In practice, international law only applies to small countries with small militaries.

Correct

Sometimes, not even them.

>"The international law"

The law is only as good as there is an entity capable and willing to impartially enforce it. Meanwhile as it stands now any reasonably capable country can show big fat middle finger to that concept which makes it but a mockery.

Nuclear weapons + huge economy = I do whatever I want.

> Top brass in the U.S. military is saying an invasion is likely within the decade

So you're saying if China/Russia/Iran did not have any plans whatsoever, the US generals would just say "Alrighty, you can now defund us!". Those guys will cry wolf any day to get those sweet $billions.

I agree with you - it's an awful article, it was just the first one I found searching for the quote I was looking for. And you are right, more in the last four years Western and specifically in the US, coverage of China have been dubious, particularly some media entities. But I don't think the Strait of Taiwan tensions and the recent South China Sea escalations are anything that I need to find an article to document, though.

If China can drastically weaken the semi industry in Taiwan by hiring away their top talent to sit around and do nothing, it would be a stunningly inexpensive way to help achieve this long term strategic objective. They would be foolish not to try, and it's understandable and correct Taiwan would see it in this light.

You obviously know nothing about the geopolitical situation. Pretty much negates what you are saying.

When market conditions drive up the price of labor, the owners of large companies will:

1. legally or illegally bring in (or lobby the government to allow) an immigrant workforce to increase labor supply and drive down wages (e.g. us low skilled labor market)

2. collude with other companies not to compete over workers (e.g. tech industry anti-trust action from a few years ago)

3. pass laws against compensation reaching market levels (e.g. US during wwii, Taiwan today)

4. use forced labor (e.g. China today, US 1800's)

I don't like it anymore than you do, but it's not new, and I wouldn't call it "silly"

The money offered is illegitimate though, the government of the of the Republic has not authorized the rebels to print their own money.

The US have being doing just this since ww2.

This is meaningless. Taiwanese can still access job posting sites or be contacted by recruiters from Mainland China. There's no language barrier and they can simply buy a flight ticket to Shanghai and start working wherever they want with full Chinese citizenship.

The brain drain is serious and I don't see how it can be solved unless Taiwan can offer competitive salaries against first-tier cities in the mainland, 10% of Taiwanese population is now living and working in the mainland.

Taiwan isn't part of China. Using the term "mainland" is extremely loaded.

I think they used "mainland" here, so that it is differentiated from something like Hong Kong. And in this case, that differentiation actually matters and helps the context.

Tl;dr: the parent comment didn't use "mainland" to imply that Taiwan is a part of China. They used it to say "contacted by recruiters from Mainland China [as opposed to recruiters from HK]"

Ya exactly, China is part of Taiwan!

But seriously, this is a standard non-politicised term.

I think if you were to talk to hkers or taiwanese you would know that the term "mainland" is pretty well understood

Taiwan is an island in a country formally known as "Republic of China". So yes, it is China. The mainland is occupied by communist rebels, but it also belongs to the Republic of China. Happy to help!

Saying Taiwan isn't part of China isn't right, but neither is saying it is part of China. Similar the term mainland while maybe not liked by all Taiwan wouldn't necessary be that wrong either on technical terms.

Because things are complicate ...

Both Taiwan and China are "China".

Basically China/CCP claims the Taiwanese government are rebels, and the Taiwanese land belongs to China.

But Taiwan is also claiming that the CCP and co. are rebels and the Chinese/CCP land belongs to them.

I.e. both claim to "be" China.

So the reason Taiwan is called Taiwan and not China is because it's mainly limited to the island of Taiwan.

But this also means that using e.g. China/Mainland and China/Taiwan isn't wrong either.

In the end from a Taiwan historic point of few China/Mainland is the mainland they have lost.

I myself found it annoying that many western countries don't officially recognize Taiwan.

Until I learned about that fact, which explains a lot of things.

The relevant part is that Taiwan officially kinda sees themself as part of the historic/demographic/non CCP defined China, but NOT as part of the "political" China controlled by the CCP.

Naturally due to years separation both have developed in different directions and from a external point of few both China and Taiwan are separate countries with separate governments, land, politics etc.

Anyway I'm not a China/Taiwan expert, I hope I got things more or less right.

I guess the main takeaway is that the relationship between Taiwan and China is much more complicated than many people from the other side of the world believe it is.

I personally thought for a long time it basically "just" Taiwan is a country split of from china which aims to be independent from China and go it's own way but is suppressed by China but also somewhat protected by external forces mainly the US. Well I was wrong and things are more complicated than that.

We were not educated enough about this particular history in China but when I grew up I read a bit to know most of it. But I'm shocked it wasn't well known internationally.

I find the same situation in Ireland complicated as well after living there for 6 years. Before it was simply a naive 'why didn't NI unite with the republic of Ireland / why UK split Ireland up'. And being related to Britain and most events were in the press and it's english, there are still many people have no clue what happened. No wonder there could be so much misunderstanding and needless emotional arguments.

I can't speak for other countries or even the current education system but when I went to school in Germany history (and political) class was filled up with European History/Politics and Germanies past to a degree that most Asian countries only where covered in context of European history (e.g. Opium-Wars where covered, but e.g. Taiwan or the Indian-China relationship was hardly covered at all).

But things have changed a bit since I went to school, but just a bit. And somewhat it also depends on the teacher.

PS: If you want to know the conflict around UK and Ireland was covered. And was covered more deeply then the Opium-Wars, to some degree because it also was used as basis for topic in english classes. But it was also a time in school from which I don't remember much, because being a teen in puberty annoyed by english and in turn not caring about the UK at all. So I have no idea if the coverage was "good" or "bad".

Similar experience to yours. European history didn't constitute a majority of the history lessons in my old days but one can understand that (there is a lot!).

I'm certain the quality of education back then in China weren't up to scratch for sure but for the curious you can always get books if you have an interesting topic. I find books even superior media over history education because like you said younger me simply wasn't interested enough in class :)

I also can recommend Extra Credits (on YouTube), it's imperfect and simplified, but it still tries to be reasonable accurate for the kind of information source it is. At least it's much more concerned about accuracy then many modern (TV) documentation are. They also tend to have episode where they go through mistakes they accidentally had done in previous episodes..

EDIT: You to be clear they haven't done a episode about Taiwan (I think), but about other things I hadn't (or had) known about.

Thanks for recommending. Well that'll be a nice video idea :)

As I understand it Taiwan no longer makes any territorial claims on the mainland (Taiwan still claims ownership of nearby islets). Ball is in the CCP's court to invade before 2049, the centennial of the "peoples revolution". There is a strong symbolic desire to do so on the part of many in the CCP, but there is a smaller competing clique whose preference is to have a peaceful reunification (loaded term since many would say China was at no point really unified with formosa in recent centuries).

Taiwanese use the term mainland (大陸) to refer to China all the time.

Economic interdependence is a deterrent to war. No country's government can easily handle recessions, but a depression in China would severely jeopardize the Faustian bargain the CCP has given to the citizens of PRC: forfeit your liberties and you are guaranteed prosperity.

China is Taiwan's largest trading partner. Taiwan is China's 6th largest trading partner, but the total trade of Taiwan is worth more than 1/3 of China's total trade with America. That is an extraordinary amount for a country almost 14 times smaller than the United States.

If trade is reduced between the two countries, it could lessen the economic damage taken by the PRC if it were to initiate an invasion, or even increase hybrid and gray-area warfare. This would mean such actions would constitute less political risk for the CCP.

The alternative is that China will continue to salami slice and break every marginal norm they can to choke and bleed out the (ideological) competition.

Taiwan has to worry about large scale invasion but they also have to worry about China using size, lack of attention to the "small stuff" and inertia to much the same effect.

It looks like a very similar situation to Canada/USA

The major power will take every opportunity it can to screw over the smaller one

On the other hand, an increase in trade gives China (the bigger partner) more leverage to pressure Taiwan using economic measures. Suppose 60% of all campaign political contributions came from China's puppet companies in Taiwan. Or if companies that lobby against China's interests suddenly (or gradually) find themselves cut off from the Chinese market, while large, politically-connected Chinese companies start undercutting them in the Taiwanese market.

You don't need war to invade.

My thoughts were just dominating their economy, bankrupting them, then putting Chinese politicians in power to take over a failed state. It'd look more legitimate than Russia annexing Crimea and since it's economic and complicated, the average person wouldn't care meaning minimal media coverage. If a regular person has to read more than a paragraph to full comprehend what happened, it's just not worth worrying about.

It seems to be a misconception, that China can unilaterally inflict economic damage without suffering some of the same. For a similar scenario, consider the effect that Trump's tariffs and trade war had on both the Chinese and American economies.

But China can afford it and is willing to pay.

But I was describing subversion and takeover, not 'damage'.

And even in the case where the subversion is poorly executed and thus perceived as damage (or perceived at all*), China, due to its size, can withstand more damage than Taiwan. And this damage is merely a short-term cost China may be willing to pay, for the long-term benefit of controlling Taiwan.

*For an example, look at the Chinese trade war before Trump retaliated with tariffs [1]. Forced technology transfer, joint ventures as condition of market access, and unofficial policies and roadblocks, all to protect Chinese companies, while helping them take foreign markets. But because Xi Jinping publicly urged for "trade and cooperation" instead of openly stating his intentions, while continuing these policies, it was not perceived as trade war.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/business/china-technology...

Only ban recruiters? Amateurs. South Korea used to charge those moving employees with industrial espionage. (Maybe it still does, but at least I didn't hear about these "incidents" in recent years, so I'm cautiously hopeful.)

North Korea shoots employees who try to move.

"We're free market!" ... "Whoa whoa, not like that." Seriously just pay these people more.

Agree. TSMC is of strategic national importance. The people should be paid for the role.

1. TSMC pay its employees well compare to other companies in Taiwan. they are also know for paying big yearly bonus.

2. this news is interesting. i'm guessing we have reach to the point where Taiwan have to use this tactic to prevent brain drain. it also shown us how aggressive China is to make Made in China 2025, a reality. semis chip is the biggest China import.

3. there are several news about China poaching TSMC employees before. this is really going to test TSMC, from what i understand their high end node production process is componentized and not one person know the whole process from start to end. we'll see if that is true.

Yeah , if the Taiwanese government don’t want their engineers to go to China then they should be payed more. Or we could , here in the US start a program to attract talent from Taiwan , give them a green card or something.

I guess current TSMC employees can not leverage other job offers (most of them are from mainland China) to increase their salaries anymore. Essentially, the government is helping TSMC to keep the labor cost low.

Not a good take. TSMC is known for paying well above average in the industry, as well as having an internal culture of pretty fierce loyalty. On top of that, fab is very highly automated. Even though you need a lot of very smart engineers, head count is still very low compared to the value the fab creates. Suppressing labor prices is pretty low down the list of priorities for this industry. Costs are utterly dominated by capital costs to build a new generation of your fab every 2 years.

1. if employees are paid higher than average, why does TSMC need government's very targeted policy help. 2. the need to update the costly fab constantly might be the motivation to further squeeze employees. TSMC needs to invest even more to compete with US and China.

Because China is offering 3x the pay. Obviously this isn't sustainable. But China can pay higher (through government help) that disrupts things. The pay is so high no company could sustain business. It already creates a situation where competition is out the window.

The US and China should invest in their own fabs and become less dependent upon TSMC (which is happening and even if both dumped enormous funds into this it would take quite a long time to overtake TSMC. Which is why China is doing this in the first place).

> Because China is offering 3x the pay. Obviously this isn't sustainable.

in the software world, I've seen this happen and the salaries never get rolled back. So it will have to be sustainable...

Sure, but those company's extra cash flow isn't coming from the government, they are coming from capital investors. At the end of the day these two have completely different motives. A capital investor expects to get capital back, where a government may not. Motivation could be to harm another country, a long term (20+ years) technological investment, or many other things.

Considering the geopolitical situation we could interpret this as an attack and defense (economic warfare). TSMC is Taiwan's most important industry and is one of the reasons the West helps protect them (besides the military advantage of location). China has long said that Taiwan is not a sovereign nation and rather a rebellious territory that is acting illegally. What we're seeing is part of a war going on, not two companies competing (TSMC vs SMIC).

The government still expects a return, it just might not be in terms of profit.

How is two companies companies different from economic war?

> How is two companies companies different from economic war?

Are two companies fighting or are two governments? If I'm the government and hand you ten million dollars and say "hey, go poach some employees from that strategically valuable company that is in the country of my enemy."

I'm not sure what part you aren't getting. That the government is handing SMIC cash? Because I said that three times now.

American companies offered me 3x the pay of what Canadian companies did.

Moving was obvious? Somehow, amazon manages to stay in business.

This is just owners not wanting to reduce their share of the revenues

I think it would be a bit different if the US government handed Amazon money and said "hey, go poach your Canadian rivals."

Because recruitment from TSMC to China is not an ordinary labor market. TSMC vs SMIC has huge geopolitical implications for Taiwan, China, and the world at large even. Most companies don't have "CCP's intelligence services are going to spend millions to entice, bribe, or coerce our key engineers to jump ship" as part of their recruiting concerns.

As for point 2, TSMC's financials are public. They spend ~30 million a year on payroll. On the other hand they expect to invest a total of 100 billion into their next generation fab over the next 3 years. The idea that penny pinching salary is what enables their capital spend is hilariously out of touch with the scale of the relative expenses.

I don’t think only SMIC recruitment is banned based on the article. Could you give an example what "CPP intelligence services" are doing to "entice, bribe, or coerce our key engineers"? Politicizing all the recrements does not seem fair for employees. Basically, TSMC is trusting their employees, is that what you are saying?

This could be ONCE IN A LIFETIME career jump, using national security as a reason to deny employees’ career development and salaries negotiation doesn’t seem fair.

based on the article, it is not just semiconductor industry, it is ALL job listing. Wow, kinda of extreme.

Huh? You exactly describe penny pinching salaries

I'd expect 5-10 billion in salary based on your description

The problem is that the workers in the industry are severely underpaid. Even the "above average" pay may actually be way below what the workers should be getting. Let's say they have 50000 employees and for simplicity let's look at their 17 billion profit last year. Based on industry standard margin of 30%, each employee should be getting 100k USD extra a year on top of what they already make. That not adjusted for the role - some should be getting 1 million and others 10k. It's a pure exploitation however you dress it.

How free are mainland engineers to take jobs in Taiwan? Can Taiwan recruit from the mainland talent pool?

yes. and tsmc even has a fab (28nm) in mainland china.

This seems odd, but it's also unreasonable that a small economy would be able to defend itself from competition from a large state actor.

In 'free trade' deals, the big fear is you 'open up' to competition while the other nation uses massive government money to gut your industry, wipe you out and take over. That's why the legal language on Free Trade surrounds government intervention and subsidies.

China is huge and this is a 'primary strategic concern' for them, they will pay anything for the individuals they need, and of course, to give Taiwan a black eye.

This is literally a form of economic warfare we are seeing with a large country trying to wipe out a strategic industry in a smaller country.

So the action by Taiwan is understandable, even if it seems odd to use in the West.

So.. TSMC can't post job postings in Mainland China but what's to stop engineers from being hired to SMIC?

1. Taiwan barring its citizens from taking such jobs - that's what the story is - did you even read it??

2. Any person who left TSMC for SMIC is blacklisted now. They'll never work in Hsinchu et al. again.

Where in the article does it say Taiwan is barring its citizens from taking such jobs. It's simply telling the staffing companies to remove such postings. The engineers could still apply directly.

>Taiwan barring its citizens from taking such jobs - that's what the story is - did you even read it?

I just read the OP and found nothing about barring citizens from taking jobs.

Believe it or not, TSMC owns and operates a fab in Mainland China, a 28nm one. So I imagine it posts quite a bit of job posting in China. It has recently applied for fab expansion in China, asking for some of that sweet, sweet free money CCP is doling out.

From a Taiwan vantage point, is it feasible to ban domestic workers watching China located jobs via Linkedin or other such platforms?

Seems like too little too late.

what's left when people leave your tax heaven? where rich people will find low-cost slaves?

that'll happen to singapore soon

I think the recruitment ban policy is super-smart given the context.

Competing with China seems like a pretty low bar: imagine google's ban happy AI except that instead of banning you it takes your passport, cuts of government services, and potentially throws you in prison to have your organs harvested.

If you're actually losing employees to that you have a serious moral/retention/communication/pay problem.

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