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Comment by msabalau | Hacker News Reader

There is nothing "inevitable" about Taiwan falling. China would have to take an inexperienced military and accomplish one of the hardest things imaginable, an amphibious invasion that can only happen in narrow time windows at handful of spots on an island that consists mostly of mountains, jungle and dense urban areas.

It's so hard a task that in World War II the Allied forces (with a ton more experience, and a far more favorable balance of power, chose to invade Okinawa instead, where the US "only" suffered forty eight thousand battlefield casualties. This was still a lot less than the projected causalities of attacking a ridiculously underdefended Taiwan.

The reason for TSMC to diversify is that Xi might be foolish enough to try this, and erratic and isolationist politicians in the US might fail to deter him. Taiwan doesn't have to fall for TSMC to gravely harm TSMC and the global economy, they merely have to start a war.

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I don't think these campaigns are very comparable. During WW2 we were island hopping, which created an urgency to all actions. With Taiwan, China has a single isolated target. They also have major geographic advantages. Taiwan is 80 miles from China, and nearly all of their important infrastructure is not only coastal but also on the Chinese facing side of the island - most of Taiwan being uninhabited mountainous regions.

They are also a very non self-sufficient island in many forms of production, including food. If China wanted to attack Taiwan, they'd likely just carry out a naval blockade, and it'd probably be unstoppable. In WW2 this was not [regularly] possible, because blockades can take months to years to achieve victory. But when they can be done, they're relatively cheap and extremely effective.

But I doubt China wants a military solution, even if they are 100% certain they would be victorious - because that would not solve the underlying problem, and could even exasperate it. War will probably only happen if Taiwan declares its independence or starts pursuing nukes or relationships that would grant them defacto access to nukes, like e.g. joining NATO. And neither of those seems likely.

Would you say that a blockade "inevitably" leads to "victory"? Because it was really the "inevitability" notion of the OP that I was pushing back on.

A blockade is one potential option that the PRC has, and it comes with risks and uncertainties. If your "probably" is genuinely modifying the "unstoppable" then we are only disagreeing about the odds, rather than about "inevitability"

But generally, I agree with your assessment that pursuing a military solution is not in China's interests.

But autocrats surrounded by yes men sometimes can mistake their interests, just as voters in democracies sometimes want really stupid things with bad consequences. The (hopefully) remote risk of war happening seems reasonable for TSMC and its customers to want to hedge against.

Nothing is ever inevitable. But if anything were inevitable, I would say that China's victory would be. They're the greatest manufacturing power in the world by a wide margin, have one of the largest populations in the world by a wide margin, and they'd be engaged in a war that's right on their own border. They could have the entire strait heavily mined and patrolled by subs, surface based defenses, and more in a matter of days. Actually, I just looked up the numbers and was somewhat unsurprised to see that both Russia and China both have more subs than the US, with the rest of the world being a rounding error. [1] And Russia will 100% back up China. And the nature of this combat would also mean China would basically be in a defensive war. And in war, but especially modern warfare, defense is just infinitely easier than offense.

A tangent here, but I also think the distinction between autocracy and democracy, in this regard, is farcical. Voters don't decide to go to war, politicians do - and then they convince the average masses that they supported the war through endless propaganda, lies, and misrepresentations. When the endless propaganda ends, and people can see what they did, many will outright deny they ever supported the war. Polls in Iraq are the best example of such. Just at the start of the war, when the propaganda was at its peak, 72% of people supported the war - and more than 90% thought it likely we'd find WMD. Only 13% of people opposed the war. [2] Now modern polls shows a small minority claim to have ever supported the war - they are lying to themselves. There's enough naive individuals that we could turn Canada into the next great threat to the world, at least in the eyes of a US plurality, if we really wanted to.

[1] - https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/submarine...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_S...

Imagine if China starts with blowing up TSMC with long-range weapons. How will the West react if Taiwan no longer has that leverage? Before Russia actually invaded Ukraine I was more optimistic about this.

>There is nothing "inevitable" about Taiwan falling.

Obviously I dont own a crystal ball and cannot predict the future but I stand by the prediction.

> China would have to take an inexperienced military and accomplish one of the hardest things imaginable, an amphibious invasion that can only happen in narrow time windows at handful of spots on an island that consists mostly of mountains, jungle and dense urban areas.

Oh for sure you're correct about the technical skill levels of the military, the losses will mount to insane levels. But they kind of need to drastically reduce their incel population.

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2020/february/chi...

Their amphibious invasion fleet is literally being built right now. Confirmed via satellite imagery. They arent building these during an economic depression just for laughs.

>It's so hard a task that in World War II the Allied forces (with a ton more experience, and a far more favorable balance of power, chose to invade Okinawa instead, where the US "only" suffered forty eight thousand battlefield casualties. This was still a lot less than the projected causalities of attacking a ridiculously underdefended Taiwan.

Technology has greatly improved in the last 75 years. Lets not forget airborne as well.

Remember, Taiwan has no military alliances. Taiwan's total population is around 25 million.

China's PLA strength is probably in the 10 million or so area and I would never assert they are inexperienced. If we're talking inexperience, the incels they wish to shed, we're probably talking 100 million strength. Taiwan has literally no chance of defending against this.

>The reason for TSMC to diversify is that Xi might be foolish enough to try this, and erratic and isolationist politicians in the US might fail to deter him. Taiwan doesn't have to fall for TSMC to gravely harm TSMC and the global economy, they merely have to start a war.

The USA has withdrawn. TSMC makes up about 50% of the reasons, but realistically this isn't really about their economic strengths. This is about a unified china and Xi making the history books for a long time.

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