Taiwan should destroy TSMC if invaded, suggests US military paper
datacenterdynamics.com
datacenterdynamics.com
Another option would be just embargoing ongoing supply/support to the fab, which has the benefit of being reversible.
The key part is precommitment and communicating this to the adversary. From Dr. Strangelove (and the real Perimeter/Dead Hand system): "Strangelove : Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, EH? Ambassador de Sadesky : It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday."
I don't know the fab equipment, but my limited understanding is the sheer equipment costs and experience are what limit it to a few places. Would a basic tear down with destruction of sensitive parts be enough to render it obsolete or at least delay greatly any production?
This is how Stuxnet worked on destroying the Iranian centrifuges for the nuclear program.
https://www.reuters.com/article/taiwan-china-chips-idUSL4N2T...
Which is cited in the CNN Business feature piece on the Taiwan semiconductor situation in light of the Ukraine invasion from last week :
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/06/tech/taiwan-china-conflic...
The PRC's strategists have certainly been doing those same calculations for many years now. If there is an invasion, it would not be to capture TSMC "alive". That may be a bonus objective, but it can't be the main objective. The West would also most certainly put an embargo on electronics manufactured there after an invasion, so we're at best talking about a bonus objective that may help China's internal market.
On the cost side, China would not be able to continue trading with the West in any meaningful sense. The Earth's economic sphere would split in two. That's a huge price to pay for a largely symbolic imperial gain.
The recent conflict in Ukraine shows that dictatorships are willing to make irrational decisions.
Like with the Russia/Ukraine conflict (which is horrible and there is no way to justify it), the US has a lot of benefits from this (EU no longer snugly with Russia, we restrict the flow of gas, etc). The parallels are clear: Isolation of a power (first Russia, soon China) that endangers the US empire and its ambitions, like the Dollar based world economy. The US has a lot of debt in China, right?
I just can't read news like this in isolation anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I think both regimes are pretty bad (although the US also had it's moment, just read Confessions of an Economic Hitman), but we have to think what the alternatives are, and we have to consider letting our culture of "more personal freedom" leak into these countries instead of forcing it upon them, or forcing them out if it, as we're doing with Russia.
Not saying I have all the answers, but war? And all this talk about "destruction" (broken nest), that can't be the best way.
Edit: Imagine living in Taiwan and the US army tells you to adopt a "scorched earth policy" in case of invasion. Pretty terrifying. Would be nice if they said something like "were committed to resolving this peacefully". I mean, sure they are the army but still...
We will never know this but if saying that NATO membership is off the table could have prevented the war, they should have pushed for it.
> and we have to consider letting our culture of more freedom leak into these countries instead of forcing it upon them
With PRC, this had been the approach itself but it turns out it is not going to happen. We shouldn't even expect PRC to follow the values of west, it should be up to them to decide what they want to do.
> Isolation of a power (first Russia, soon China) that endangers the US empire
It does endanger the US empire but it endagers other nations as well like you found in the case with Ukraine.
We can reject this as a potential outcome. Putin tells you why he invaded Ukraine. He has penned essays about this with little to no mention of NATO whatsoever. NATO membership makes no difference and is just rhetoric to confuse you.
If China and the US were to get into conflict, the cesation of exports would balance out the US's cancelation of debt.
It's not as big of a motivator as you think.
And because of inflation, the value that the U.S. has to make China whole by keeps reducing.
If the US sand China went to war, China could keep waving those pieces of paper and the U.S. would simply ignore it.
The world is a lot more dangerous place that it's been just 10-20 years ago, and it's not good.
The news is to get clicks. China isn’t going to invade Taiwan.
But an invasion of Taiwan doesn’t really make any sense. Likening it to Ukraine is poor reasoning because you assume the CCP has the same motivations as Putin, or that there are any similarities in logistics or war tactics. The U.S. would defend Taiwan, and an invasion would require months of buildup and would be an incredibly complex combined arms and logistical challenge. The Chinese have little to no experience in executing any sort of operation like this under real world scenarios. Even if they were to succeed somehow the cost would be unbearable. No. It makes much more sense and fits better with Chinese strategy to play the long game and convince Taiwan itself to reunite.
Painting the Ukraine conflict as something to reduce US risk is a view with aggressive blinders. Russia is a risk to European countries, foremost, without a doubt.
The United States absolutely does not want china to invade Taiwan. The loss of the TSMC would be disastrous. The loss of sanctions against China on a similar scale would be disastrous. Russia is not comparable. Russia’s economy was shit. It’s ok to walk them off. The oil is a significant piece but that’s really it. And it hardly harmed the US. An economic conflict with China would be very painful.
This is not scorched earth either. A dead man’s switch on an important asset is a very different thing from scorched earth.
The very aggressive sanctions (well, aside from gas, oil, etc) cannot be explained by the European history of accepting Russian oligarchs and money of dubious origin nor by the fate of Ukraine which let’s be honest no government in the EU really cared about so far.
The more plausible explanation was that the US told the EU that they won’t defend them unless they show a strong united front against Russia.
You know who wanted to be NATO-aligned? Ukraine. Ukraine wanted to be NATO-aligned so much that they put it in their constitution.
> in spite of the harmful effect towards Russia’s security
Codespeak for "Russia would like to reserve the right to annex neighbors at their own leisure back into the federation and/or have a few more puppet states". Next you are going to tell me NATO promised not to expand eastwards.
> The very aggressive sanctions (well, aside from gas, oil, etc) cannot be explained by the European history of accepting Russian oligarchs and money of dubious origin nor by the fate of Ukraine which let’s be honest no government in the EU really cared about so far.
EU and related states very openly threatened far-reaching sanctions and other consequences if Russia were to invade prior to the invasion. The reason the response is strong is because it makes a large difference to Europe if you are invading Georgia or if you are invading Ukraine.
> The more plausible explanation was that the US told the EU that they won’t defend them unless they show a strong united front against Russia.
Nothing like a good ol' "only the US has agency" meme to finish your TED talk.
When your neighbor’s Russia, China or the US what one wants is perhaps less important than what the superpower next door wants. Ukraine and the EU knew this and wouldn’t have tried anything on their own unless the US wouldn’t have offered guarantees. Except unfortunately for Ukraine nobody can guarantee that Russia won’t bomb them to bits and whatever happens they’ll continue to have an angry neighbor with thousands of nuclear weapons on their doorstep.
There is no such right to annex neighbors, that idea is silly. Superpowers do whatever they can get away with and Russia can certainly invade Ukraine, even if the outcome remains to be seen - could be anything from loss of territory to global destruction.
The EU threatened things, but there was lots of disagreement internally and there’s still disagreement around for example energy imports. It makes a difference, but it’s no secret that the EU expected Ukraine to quickly fall and afterwards it would have been sanctions as usual.
They don’t need the US to be terrified about living next to an aggressive China.
And almost the entire point of TSMC is to make Taiwan too important for China to attack, and the U.S. dependent enough on Taiwan that it eventually provides Taiwan with a security guarantee.
Only people with blinkers who cannot think beyond the US a would come up with the idea that any of what the US aid suggesting is news to the Taiwanese.
The Chinese are very confident in their ability to develop any technology eventually, to them it is just a matter of time and money.
That simply isnt true, TSMC are building manufacturing capacity in Arizona/Texas at an impressive clip, it has been pitched as capacity expansion, but there is obviously a strategic fall back element to the expansion gained by having the processes, chip lines and IP associated with a duplicated offshore location (which the US would be ideal to safely house).
https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-tsmc-looks-doub...
Pretty good read about some recent fraud in the area: https://chinatalk.substack.com/p/billion-dollar-heist-how-sc...
14nm and ~10nm are around the corner: they already have the ability but the supply chain there is not sufficiently dewesternized, making it prone to sanctions, and the market demand for those nodes are not big enough so they haven't scaled up those nodes yet.
That there are fraud causes and that progress on sub-7 nm has been very slow so far is true. But that doesn't mean that long-term trends are negative. In fact, all the sanctions have created an economic opportunity that they otherwise won't have: they now have a large domestic market for future domestic sub-7 nm chips, a market that they otherwise wouldn't have because it was too easy to just buy foreign chips or to contract foreign fabs.
Where have you seen the ability to produce 10nm? I thought that was currently beyond capability.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/24/asml-the-biggest-company-in-...
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-companies-that-manufactu...
The higher up the value chain, the more difficult things are. And that pole keeps getting higher every year. So it's not a matter of 'catching up' - it's 'catching up and then getting ahead and staying ahead'.
And, that pathway is quite some time.
I'm not sure the factories themselves are hugely relevant, because with all of he talent, supply chain and operational issues and know-how scrambled up, it'd take them forever to get it back up.
Those fabs would be a bit of a write off no matter what.
So, IMHO, this suggestion from the US military serves US interests (the US Army War College is obviously looking after US interests not foreign countries'), probably because destroying TSMC facilities in Taiwan would prevent the mainland from acquiring state-of-the-art tech, or at least slow it, and would prevent mainland China from 'owning' the global semi production capacity. On the other, as things stand, this would wreak havoc on international semi markets and global economy.
Lastly, any looming invasion would be known many months in advance because of the massive scale of the military build-up (probably bigger than D-Day) and be preceded by large scale air attacks.
All Pooh cares about is being able to put his name against concluding Maos war. “I did what no one else could”
This is not to say that their behavior is justified (nor am I saying they are not justified). My point is that proper understanding is important no matter whether one agrees or disagrees.
At the end of the day, Xi wants to achieve the goal of invading Taiwan and destorying the remains of the ROC. It's plain and simple. There is very little benefit to taking Taiwan, there's no valid claims to Taiwan. The majority of the people here don't identify as being part of China and don't want to be part of China.
This conflicts with your subsequent statement -
>If anything the push by the mainland to develop its own semi industry is aimed at avoiding 'suffering' from sanctions and loss of Taiwan's production capability.
The reason they are developing their own semiconductor industry is they are acutely aware that Taiwan's production expertise and capabilities are currently irreplaceable. And until they have caught up, it is a massive risk invading Taiwan and destroying TSMC in the process. So the deterrence effect is obviously there, whether how long that is effective for is another matter.
The mainland knows it needs to develop its own semi industry. It's already having issues because of US sanctions, and would likely face even more sanctions if it decided to invade Taiwan, not to mention the risk of destruction of Taiwan's facility, indeed.
On the other hand, as things stand destroying TSMC would hurt everyone, as you say. China is working on reducing that hurt because it is obviously sensible to do so, the US are also working on reducing that hurt for the same reason. But the historical and political forces are such that I don't think China would be deterred because Taiwan planned to blow up TSMC facilities...
So, IMHO this is just the US trying to make sure that China would not get TSMC fabs as that would be the worst outcome for them, not a deterrent.
It's not that the people in Taiwan overwhelmingly want 'independence', by that I mean that they oppose re-unification, is that they do not want the communists (which is the whole reason of the current situation in the first place), and the 'independence' camp is suiting US interests.
Ultimately I believe that the mainland is willing to sustain a level of economic pain to get hold of Taiwan but this would be calculated based on domestic politics, not TSMC's fabs.
A deterrent doesn't have to be 100% effective, it just needs to have a deterrent effect.
TSMC itself also doesn't want to be subjugated by a PRC invasion. It's not just a play to protect US interests. Not sure what the motive is to portray it like that.
- Factories like that would be unlikely to survive an invasion in any case.
- China has domestic chip manufacturers that would end up being a lot more dominant. I'm sure their long term strategy is to not be dependent on Taiwanese imports. I'd be surprised if they have not been implementing that strategy for many years. A threat like this would only accelerate this.
- Threatening with economic suicide is not a great defensive strategy. Somebody might call your bluff.
Of course what the Ukrainian situation has made very clear is that you can invade a country and behave like animals without triggering offensive actions against you from other countries. That's a line NATO just won't cross. Taiwan is not a country many countries even actually acknowledge as a country. They are not a NATO member. Clearly, if it comes to an invasion, they have the choice between economic suicide plus destruction and a quick capitulation. The Russians are doing a great job of show casing what it looks like when you choose to fight.
Countries are happy to supply weapons to Taiwan and the Ukraine. However, the world is much more dependent on the Chinese economically than it ever was on Russia. Russia is a tiny market to export to and it does not export that much else besides oil and gas. China on the other hands exports a lot of stuff that is integral to supply chains around the world. And it's a huge market. And it's going to be the largest economy in the world pretty soon.
The deterrent against a Chinese escalation in Taiwan would have to be economical. But economical sanctions at the scale Russia is currently is experiencing would be a form of mutually assured economic self destruction that is simply unthinkable. It's basically the nuclear option and about as desirable for any side. Even the mere threat of that would cause economic unrest world wide.
But it’s a great risk to China to attempt something like this, too great of a risk, which is why it won’t happen. Both sides are pretty satisfied with saber rattling. For China and the CCP it makes much more sense to just wait and perhaps play the soft power game. Although they screwed up with Hong Kong and turned a lukewarm-friendly Taiwan back into an anti-CCP Taiwan. They should have (from the CCP perspective) went after Taiwan first. They’ve had two great opportunities and didn’t take either (HK takeover timeframe and March 2022)
On the contrary, this is not an existential issue for the US and they would not intervene directly against China (they've always been very careful never to commit to intervening).
It's similar to the situation in Ukraine. The US are helping Ukraine but they do not want to intervene directly and certainly do not want to start a war with Russia. Well, China is a much more formidable adversary than Russia and the US will never effectively declare war against them.
For China the issue is (1) they could not afford to lose an invasion attempt (domestically it might mean the end of the regime), which is quite a big undertaking, and (2) the fallout on the world stage may be too big politically and economically. And so the military option has not been a good one so far and the status quo suits everyone.
There’s no benefit to verbally committing so you don’t need to do that. Better to keep China guessing. But there is 0 doubt that the US would intervene. This is an existential issue because if China invaded Taiwan successfully it shows the U.S. military can be defeated, and greatly diminishes their security guarantees and ability to project power in Asia. It’s similar to if Russia defeated the U.S. and forced military presence out of Europe. There is little doubt here.
It’s not at all similar to Ukraine. Like in any way whatsoever. If you have any specific questions I could probably answer those as to why it’s not similar.
I think the consensus is pretty much what I wrote in my previous comment: The US would not start WWIII over Taiwan, obviously, and thus would not attack China but would help Taiwan (supply of weapons, intelligence, and other aid like in Ukraine).
The US would only start a war against China in case of 'existential' threat, indeed. But that would mean China attacking the US, which they obviously won't do for the same reason.
> This is an existential issue because if China invaded Taiwan successfully it shows the U.S. military can be defeated
How would that show that he US military can be defeated if the US did not intervene directly? And how would that be existential? Also the US military has effectively been defeated a number of times before. Even directly against China the US did not fare that well during the Korean War and that was when the gap between the two countries was arguably at its greatest.
> The US would only start a war against China in case of 'existential' threat, indeed. But that would mean China attacking the US, which they obviously won't do for the same reason.
I don't think that's the consensus at all. It's what I'd call "status quo" thinking. You are reasoning by analogy which doesn't apply here. Why do you think the US has all of these bases, is training Taiwanese troops and selling them weapons, and patrolling the South China Sea? Without US intervention there's nothing preventing China from attacking and taking over Taiwan. You're not understanding the strategic implications here. The U.S. isn't playing around here and building up all of this stuff for no reason, it will defend Taiwan for the foreseeable future. Not doing so flies in the face of pretty much all US policy and military actions. I don't find that to be compelling whatsoever. This actually reminds me of people who thought that the US wouldn't defend the Baltics. You're projecting your own calculations and reasoning onto what the US as a nation state would do and it just doesn't work here.
> How would that show that he US military can be defeated if the US did not intervene directly? And how would that be existential? Also the US military as effectively been defeated a number of times before. Even directly against China the US did not fare that well during the Korean War and that was when the gap between the two countries was arguably at its greatest.
I can't think of a time that the US has genuinely been defeated, militarily, in a war. There have been more so political statements, but the US has not faced a peer or near-peer adversary and lost so far and these types of wars are entirely different ball games. People like to cite Vietnam or Afghanistan but those are not similar. The last war we've fought against an industrial nation was World War 2. Nothing else is very comparable.
> How would that show that he US military can be defeated if the US did not intervene directly?
Because the US would intervene to start with. But if the US doesn't intervene it brings into doubt the ability of the US to check Chinese military power in the Pacific. It completely rearranges security agreements and economic ties to the detriment of the US.
I think one thing that you and others in the US should realise is that the US won't be able to check Chinese military power in the Pacific indefinitely.
The historical trend is that the US have found a country that is bigger than that they are and that is starting to have the means to assert its own interests. The US' "ownership" of the Pacific is the legacy of US imperialism in the region, but "this too shall pass".
And, maybe, if one day the mainland decides to take over Taiwan militarily it will mean a watershed moment when this becomes visible in facts as they will have no doubt calculated that the US will have no choice but yield.
I agree, well, in theory. But anything can happen. The US could dissolve. China could have a revolution. China could stop caring. Who knows? But for the foreseeable future I think that this is the case (US can check China in the Pacific).
But to your point, it seems inevitable that the US will maintain interests but likely lose its current foothold in Asia. But that just lends credit to my statements that China won't invade Taiwan. There's no point when you can just wait for the inevitable. They rushed it in Hong Kong and delayed this inevitability by scaring the Taiwanese who were lukewarm toward China and increasingly warming up via economic ties and Chinese influence on Taiwanese politicians. But similarly to Hong Kong, if China were to invade not only is there a serious chance that they would be defeated by the US and allies, if that fail to take Taiwan in a meaningful strategic sense they'd likely just cause themselves harm internally and further delay what appears to me to be an eventual loss of US presence.
They've also never committed not to intervene and made many implications that they might. No one really know what the US would do.
I agree that China is way more important as a manufacturer of goods than Taiwan. But I think Covid has shown that companies need a more diversified manufacturing base.
The question right now is, can China ramp up its plan to be a leader in AI and chip building fast enough?
Ensure you’ve published this entire process of disabling the fab publicly.
No reason to not prepare similar plans in factories.
Cartoon sticks of dynamite hanging from the rafters while everyone is tripping on ignitor wires is not a pleasant place to work in.
Having a box full of explosives in a remote shed on the property and having the on-site security team trained on when and how to use them: you wouldn't even notice in the every day.
What matters really is not the few minutes it takes to unlock the shed, unlock the box and carry it inside. What matters are the processes. Who is authorized to call for evacuation and destruction of the fabs? (Is it a political decision or one the military can do on its own?) How do they send the message to the fab? (Remember, civilian communication might be down in case of an attack and even military communication might be disrupted.) How will the team on the ground verify that the order is coming from the proper source? (You don't want some adversary to be able to impersonate your command chain and cause the unintended destruction of your fab.) How will the workers be evacuated? Do we need to finish a roll call before we destroy the fab, or just give enough time for everyone to leave? If the second how much time?
How are these steps trained for and exercised? If you have answer to all of these questions I would say that the fabs are "rigged to blow". If you don't then you will be forced to improvise in case of an attack which hurts your chances of deterring the attacker.
Why the fascination with violent methods instead of effective methods?
You mean the fact that there is a process, or the actual steps you plan to take?
Publishing that you have a process and intend to destroy the fabs in case of an invasion is a great idea. To quote Strangelove: "Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret!"
But if you mean publishing the details of how you intend to do it: I don't see a point. That just invites your adversary to start thinking ways of countering you or recovering from the damage. That lowers the deterrent effect for no benefit.
The US military's track record of promoting peace and prosperity in foreign countries is not great.
Don't get me wrong, I fully blame Putin on this, but a deterrent was badly needed. We knew from Nov 2021 that troops were building up on Ukraine border.
US offers to station troops in a country -> US bad, imperialism
US doesn't offer to station troops in a country -> US bad for not protecting
X and NATO talk over membership -> NATO bad, aggressive, imperialistic, threatens Russia
NATO doesn't let X join -> NATO bad for not protecting against Russia
It’s not exactly something to be proud of and makes those countries vulnerable to political pressure from the US and a primary target in case of large-scale war. Beats being occupied by a hostile power by far, but being independent is still the best.
The West underestimates the overlap between Chinese and Taiwanese families, professionals, and other ties. This is not like North and South Korea where there's been generations with no contact so almost all ties are lost.
These are two societies which are largely open to each other in every aspect of life as long as you don't bring up one specific aspect of politics. Taiwan would look much more like Hong Kong than the West likes to think.
I think you are right that there are significant ties between the people of Taiwan and China. I don't know what the "West" thinks so I'm not confident talking about that.
What I know that all of your points about familiar, professional and other ties also stand for the Ukraine-Russia relationship. But the invasion doesn't seem to be going like Hong Kong for Russia, does it?
TSMC would be chinese, and the taiwanese too. It's not like they are gonna kick everyone from taiwan and claim the earth.
> If Chinese would knew that TSMC is blown up once they start invasion,
I'm not sure, they'd still be better with taiwain under their control than not.
If possible, Taiwan should keep TSMC so that the West has a reason to defend Taiwan.
There are other chip manufactures in the world too if people are willing to buy outdated technology (like 10 years in the past)
Also intel is investing a lot in manufacturing technology, it plans to be better than TSMC by 2025 iirc. Will it happen? No idea, but they are working toward this. I wouldn’t be surprised if the US government were financing this in some way
Due to some obscure legalities, Taiwan dropping the claim would amount to declaration of war
Your wording is a bit vague, but it sounds like you have it backwards. Taiwan's dropping of claims to the mainland may trigger a _Chinese_ declaration of war. That comes from certain interpretations of article 8 of the China's Anti-Secession law. Of course China doesn't actually have to declare war in this situation if they don't want to. They could always interpret it differently or they could simply ignore it (China's laws guarantee free speech after all and they certainly don't seem to have trouble getting around that).
China has cared about Taiwan for longer than semiconductors have been in existence. Whatever reasons China has, semiconductors is not one of them.
Furthermore China prefers peaceful solutions where it can, so as long as China believes it can build its own advanced semiconductor industry it won't use military means to do so.
Gaining control of TSMC will vastly accelerate this process, which makes this one big additional reason China has to invade.
Look at Hong Kong. Is China patiently waiting out the agreed upon 50 year period to assert their eventual control?
TSMC requires EUV. China is already banned from acquiring EUV so TSMC would be dead on arrival even without plans to blow it up.
Destruction of TSMC would make such conflict very very inconvenient for large part of the world. And China wouldn't want to upset literally everybody. It's probably close to usage of a strategic nuclear weapon.
Also, a strategic timing of an invasion and the threatened TSMC destruction may even boost the Chinese semiconductor industry: In a post-TSMC world, their less-advanced chips will suddenly be selling like hotcakes.
In this case, the blind spot of western liberalism - demography. Taiwanese fertility rates are below 1.3 for nearly two decades now, some years even dipping below 1. All China has to do is wait for 30 years - half of the island's population will perish of old age by then, the remaining 2/3 will be retirees
So, like China itself, which is aging faster than almost all other countries in modern history [0]. In 30 years (~ 2050), the proportion of Chinese over retirement age will become 39 percent of the total population.
Taiwan vs. mainland is technically like North vs. South Korea or East vs. West Germany.
Taiwan is a recognised Chinese territory. It so happened that there was a civil war in China and that the communists overthrew the government (which was already authoritarian and controlled by the KMT), which withdrew to the last province not under communist control: Taiwan.
For various reasons the communists never pursued them so the ROC remained in Taiwan while the communists founded the PRC on the mainland.
That's why the KMT is officially also pro-unification, in fact the ROC itself is of course formally pro-unification since its formal policy is that they do not recognise the PRC and claim the whole of China (including the South China Sea) as rightful ROC territory. At first they thought they might come back or that the communists regime would collapse, but, well, they're still waiting...
In practice that means that peaceful re-unification is not realistic, IMO, for as long as the communists rule the mainland.
"part of China" is always an ambiguous term because it means different things to different people. For instance, 'China' does not necessarily mean PRC.
For US it’s “broken nest”, for the Taiwanese that’s the only nest - before or after invasion.
This is obviously all in US's interest.
It's plainly obvious that US does not want the PRC to have access to TSMC, or anything like it. And this suggestion from US military academics is most likely based on the fact that the US is not going to send its troops in for Taiwan.
So far, nothing new.
PRC wants Taiwan back for reasons beyond just TSMC. It's probably the only one of the containment that the Chinese has a chance of breaching without going into full scale war.
If the situation gets bad enough for Taiwan to blow up it's own crown jewel in anticipation for war, at that point, what's stopping the Chinese from bombing the shit out of the rest of the Taiwanese government and military installation and follow through? Probably nothing.
Doing that is dumb for the lives of Taiwanese. It would only benefit the US and no one else.
A: The status quo
Or
B: A very very slow transition to a Hong Kong like situation.
In the case of B it would be nice for Japan, America, and maybe Australia to offer citizenship to those who want it.
I just can't imagine a hot war here. You don't have the pretext of separatists who want to rejoin China.
At the same time, war mongering is good for the media industry, so expect more of it.
https://www.jonstokes.com/p/why-a-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan
This strategy is the childish equivalent of "if i can't have it no-one can."
Imagine if you met someone for the first time with the opening line of, "if you try and steal my property I will burn it".
Politically speaking, China's way of taking tech is by buying the talent (people) and having them take a lot of the intellectual property of their former employer to their state sponsored tech companies.
This rhetoric of 'invading Taiwan' and that "Taiwan should scorch their country so China can't have it" is exactly how a military person with childish thinking would stand up to a bully.
My guns are bigger than yours. I'm not afraid of blowing up everything just so you can't have it. The list goes on and if you're open to destroying the world for your own political beliefs you should really think about ramifications for future generations.
The Russians right now are leaving land mines all around Kiev as they retreat. Imagine being so much of a piece of shit you think this is a good tactical move.
Again, "if I can't have it you can't either."
Thanks for perpetuating this thinking.
Just like Russia has no incentive to drop atom bombs and destroy the wheat fields. You may not like it, you may be infantile and effeminately emotional about it, but leaving landmines is a good tactic - yes. It's war.
Calling this childish shows your lack of comprehension and insight. Taiwan has little to lose and little to gain. China has a lot to lose and a lot to gain. From Taiwan's perspective, they can sacrifice a little to cause a lot of damage. What future generations think is irrelevant - they are not entitled to TSMC.
And what's more, China is not entitled to Taiwan. It's not that if I can't have it, noone can. It's that I made this, I own this, I am entitled to this, including but not limited to destroy it as well. You can't have it because it's not yours. You having it is a fallacy which should not happen.
It's funny to see someone on the internet justifying leaving landmines that eventually blow up and maim future generations of people. Keyboard warriors will never change.
EDIT: Russia, which also claimed they "won't invade", has a history of invading, even recently. They also had a reason to invade: situation in Russia was (somehow) getting worse and worse. China is the exact opposite - they hadn't invaded anyone in a long time, and their economy is booming.
If China didn't want to invade/assimilate/peacefully-reunite-with-a-gun-against-your-head Taiwan, it wouldn't object to it presenting itself as an independent nation, and it wouldn't have its 'One China' policy which means that other countries have to choose between them and Taiwan. If China didn't have designs on taking over Taiwan, it wouldn't impose sanctions on Lithuania for opening a Taiwanese Representative Office.
Thinking that China with its Nine Dash Line (as close to an invasion as you can get) does not have designs on Taiwan is naive.
Still, so far they are doing fine. This includes complying with sanctions, even in areas they don't technically have to - they are just doing it discreetly. Also I don't get your reasoning about pro-active measures: if anything, the West cooperating with China could convince them to ditch Russia. Antagonising them will have the opposite effect.
Another thing I've just noticed:
>If China didn't want to invade/assimilate/peacefully-reunite-with-a-gun-against-your-head Taiwan
You hadn't included the most obvious option, which is a properly peaceful integration. You are up front assuming that China is yet another warmongering empire, like USA or Russia, as opposed to eg EU. This is despite existing integration efforts (Taiwan is quite close to China) and obvious economic realities - wars hurt economy; Russian economy was failing even before the war, and American economy is looking good on paper, but the quality of life is lower than it used to be half a century ago; China, on the other hand, is booming.
To me, that's another example of US propaganda being widely accepted as truth.
[citation needed]
As for Tibet - they did, 70 years ago. And they changed it from a theocratic, medieval shithole with economy based on slavery, into a proper place to live. For comparison, US invaded Afghanistan a decade ago and failed to improve it in any noticeable way. Not to mention that Chinese didn't drone random weddings in Tibet.
What by destorying monastaries, killing people. Please. Tibet is not better off under China.
> [citation needed]
You living under a rock? China threw its toys out of the cot all week due to delegates flying to Taiwan.
Taiwan is not part of China, never has been, and has no right to threaten anyone for having any sort of relationship with Taiwan.
Edit: I see, not living under a rock, just hate America and believe China propaganda.
Imagine how your response would look like when applied to American South - that the Civil War was a terrible idea, because it destroyed a couple of churches and killed people, and the South isn't any better now without slavery. But given that you're repeating a trivially disproved lie (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1094118/china-per-capita...), I don't see the point in discussing this anymore.
>Taiwan is not part of China
Ah, I see you also know Taiwan better than its citizens.
FWIW, I don't hate America - despite its dysfunctional democracy and other drawbacks. What I hate is waging wars to distract its citizens from their own problems. And I'm kind of hoping USA can be the good guys this time, against Russia.
Btw, it's interesting that to you, simply not hating China implies hating USA. I guess that's yet another example of indoctrination.
So what you're saying is the American South was not part of the US and the US invaded it. And that any country that isn't doing as well as another country should be invaded and made better.
> Ah, I see you also know Taiwan better than its citizens.
Its China's own written history that tells us that Taiwan is not part of China. The people here do not consider themselves part of China and the minority who want to join China is growing smaller every day that China continues to threaten Taiwan, as well as whats happened with Hong Kong and Covid.