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Comment by alphabetting | Hacker News Reader

The supply of TSMC chips won't disappear bc the US will defend Taiwan. It's far too important. The companies with major reliance on mainland China (Apple) are the ones that need to worry.

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You really think TSMC will be able to fabricate and export chips at a significant fraction of full capacity during a war with China?

I'm doubt full capacity but I think there's no doubt the US will defend Taiwan with full force of military to protect those chips and this order is more evidence of that. They now seem to get how important AI is to future global order.

Yeah, and when China decides destroy their fabs with missiles. What are are you going to do then. In case you don't know, missile defense doesn't actually work well.

Well obviously if China wants to cripple the world's chip supply that would suck. They're not going to be allowed to control them though. Those fabs are rigged to be physically bricked if China is close to capturing TSMC anyways.

I don't think China will destroy the very thing they're trying to capture.

China would like the fabs but it's not the fabs that drives them to re-unify with Taiwan. That desire pre-dates the fabs by decades.

No, but trivial to shutdown fabs by destroying power infra down the chain. Capturing fabs that run on sanctionable supply chains to get look at hardware is secondary to PRC preserving fabs as barginning chip to restart semi production once countdown to western hightech industrial collapse starts ticking.

Is it possible to move fabs to bunkers? I know nothing about fabs so I know my question is probably naive.

Protection against a nuclear power is not that easy. If US plans to escalate it with full power against China, chips would be the least of my worries, than earth being fit for life after the war.

Probably yea

A Taiwanese war immediately means a naval blockade, the us won’t be able to lift it with any certainty. There is 0 interest in a hot war with China among Americans. I doubt we’ll see any American military action that could lead to a deployment other than naval.

> I doubt we’ll see any American military action that could lead to a deployment other than naval.

Err, you other points aside - that's how you'd contest a nail blockade, with an opposing naval force.

Outright sinking more than a couple Chinese naval vessels would lead to a conflict Americans aren’t interested in.

The US government is more than willing to go to war to keep the world's chip supply out of China's hands. They're also pretty good at ginning up support back home.

The Chinese would be the ones to sink American vessels first. You don't simply declare a blockade, you enforce it. By sinking American ships that don't accept your blockade.

> TSMC chips won't disappear

Of course it will. US isn't capable of defending TW anymore. They may spoil an invasion, but there's nothing US can do to prevent PRC from trivially destroying infra the keeps fabs operating. You should expect the entire semi supply chain in East Asian (which supplies the world) to stop functioning if US tries to intervene on TW, especially using JP or SKR infra, nearly everythign critical is within 60m PRC missile range. The reality is PRC has much more leverage over global semi supply chain in even of war vs US who has leverage during peace via sanctions.

> major reliance

Are all in US in terms of high tech industry supported and actual patent fees extracted from production of semi. PRC will lose bunch of manufacturing jobs, but indigenous semi efforts will keep chugging along. Both will be reset to as far back as 1980s tech depending on how PRC escalates, which ultimately cripples US as tech leader more.

there is no much defense from barrage of cruise missiles on tsmc facilities.

Saudis couldn't defend their oil assets from Iran drone attack for example.

Bombing TSMC facilities would be extremely counterproductive to the CCP objectives.

I am not sure they realistically expect to take them without being damaged. If China really invade, US may decide to destroy it themselves.

Counterpoint: Wolf Warrior Diplomacy is extremely counterproductive to CCP Foreign Policy and diplomatic goals. It does it anyways.

I'm not so sure. Doesn't seem to be hurting them much.

Physical production of things during a war is probably quite hard. Also, one of the likely scenarios for the war is a blockade enforced by missiles. [1]

[1]: NYT: How China Could Choke Taiwan (https://archive.ph/gS6qb)

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