Comment by rjzzleep | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rjzzleep | Hacker News Reader

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They're also building a fab in Japan and that one seems to be progressing much faster.

About the Invasion of Taiwan, I kinda doubt it. They just had local elections and the president Tsai said it would be a referendum on her stance against China[1]. IF that is really the case then it seems like the Taiwanese people have voted against being turned into another Ukraine.[2]

I am not currently in Taiwan, but a couple of weeks ago I could see 3 military cargo planes land in Taipei every day. I'd be curious how it looks today.

One thing to remember is that 17(or more?) billion of those arms that are destined to Ukraine were originally intended for Taiwan[3]. With all those (western) reports of the US running out of ammunition because Ukraine uses in 3 days what the US produces in 1 month[4], and given how isolated Taiwan is on a map I wonder how wise the whole endeavour really was.

I get that there are a lot of Tech people in the valley from Taiwan that have a more hawkish view on the relationship between Taiwan and China, but can we acknowledge for a moment that a) the valley is not representative for the world or any countries population and b) we also have to be a bit realistic about the facts on the ground.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-president-...

[2] https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/The-Nikkei-View/Taiwan-s-rul...

[3] https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-effort-to-arm-taiwan-faces-...

[4] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/11/27/world/u-s-europ...

> With all those (western) reports of the US running out of ammunition because Ukraine uses in 3 days what the US produces in 1 month[4], and given how isolated Taiwan is on a map I wonder how wise the whole endeavour really was.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons why china was so supportive of the invasion. It’s a test of Americas ability to supply a war (in proxy).

  > a test of Americas ability to supply a war (in proxy)

The Chinese know this well.

  The line between disorder and order lies in logistics
    - Sun Tzu

The US has less "skin in the game" now that the TSMC core tech can be found on US soil - that's what the parent and me are referring to. Taiwan is not able to defend itself without US aid.

ps. I'm not in the valley and it's not about "hawkish" views, it is pure power-play.

Oh absolutely, I can't say I disagree with you. But I'm just saying that it also means that if the US drops Taiwan they do have a lot of politicians that are sympathetic to mainland China. So it doesn't necessarily have to be an invasion at that point.

How much tech is there that wasn't there before that isn't ASML, NXP, etc. tech?

> Taiwan is not able to defend itself without US aid.

If you look at a topographic map of Taiwan, it's not so obvious. Rough terrain coupled with the fact that an amphibious assault is needed to even get to Taiwan, and then the troops there need to be resupplied by sea and air (both of which require infrastructure which can be sabotaged), make Taiwan a very good defensive position. Of course it couldn't last forever without external help, but even on it's own it's plenty to cause a massive embarrassing bloodbath.

Taiwan is a small island, it lacks lot of basic natural resources, like oil, iron ore, etc. One simple thing that China could do is to send their navy to cut off all the supply lines: it won't take long before Taiwan is degraded to third world country. Without the US navy to counter Chinese they do not stand a chance.

You're talking about it being hard to resupply Chinese troops over the air, how about resupplying the whole Taiwanese population?

>If you look at a topographic map of Taiwan, it's not so obvious

Assessments of TW's defensibility gets dimmer and dimmer with increasingly modern PLA capabilities. If you actually look at topo map of Taiwan:

https://i.imgur.com/Ds6hz2e.png

Island a series of plains with no depth fragmented by rivers from rain + high mountains. Essentially a series of sequential turkey shooting galleries from air. PRC will be the ones blowing up bridges and infra to cut island into piece meal bastions to further restrict operation space of TW. The mountains themselves are incredibly tall, which is a nightmare for defenders limited to light arms against attackers who'll be droning them with relative impunity. The foliage helps, but SAR / sensors tech filling that gap fast. Before/if PLA even bother with landing, they're going to shape conditions to be as uncontested as possible. Which likely means embarassing one sided bloodbath as PLA drone operators in air conditioned mainland offices glassing 100,000s of relatively soft ROCA defenders in plains with no rear except rough mountains rougher than what Vietcon / Taliban operated from. Meanwhile, rest of island - the home front - will have critical infra distrupted, after calories and clean water runs out, they'll be inviting PLA to resupply island vias sea and air. Capabilities of attacker determine whether geography is blessing or curse to defenders. For TW, it's increasingly curse.

> b) we also have to be a bit realistic about the facts on the ground.

Realistic facts on the ground for you:

The prime majority of rural Taiwanese who don't speak English are even bigger sinophobes, and have even less relation with the mainland.

Most Sinophilic area in TW is Taipei, where the highest concentration of migrants from China live, and from where the lion share of immigrants to US comes from.

What "facts on the ground" you expected to see?

And the mainland is full of Russians pretending to be Chinese like you used to say? You yourself have a massive personal chip on your shoulder against both Taiwan and the mainland. Your anecdote means very little.

I wonder how people would vote, if forced to choose between acting like Ukrainians or being treated like Uighurs.

Be a slave or fight for freedom?

That would certainly be a difficult vote, but I think the second alternative would be more like being treated like Hong Kong. Certainly not nice and probably a bit worse than Hong Kong, but a very long shot from the Uighur situation.

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