Hacker News Reader

Comment by CoastalCoder | Hacker News Reader

> Yes, their loss would have a huge effect, but many are having to cope with that situation today.

I suspect they'd be in much worse shape if Taiwan were invaded.

First, they'd find themselves competing with current TSMC customers for the non-TSMC foundries.

And second, an invasion of Taiwan could lead to a full out war with China, which might mean the non-Taiwanese fabs have their production priorities overridden by the warring governments.

View on HN

Not to mention, the other fabs would be high priority missile targets.

Exactly, flatten those in the first five minutes and that “shield” is gone.

>an invasion of Taiwan could lead to a full out war with China,

What would be the casus belli?

Quite literally no country of even remote significance on the world stage (aside from the Holy See) officially recognizes Taiwan.[1] By what pretext would a country declare war against China as concerns Taiwan?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Taiwan#Ty...

So, China aggressively threatens everyone who recognizes Taiwan for decades, and the resultant lack of recognition for Taiwan is used to delegitimize attempts to defend them?

The US has a security relationship with Taiwan that may or may not be a defensive alliance guarantee. Regardless of how ironclad that guarantee is, there is substantial likelihood of significant military supply to Taiwan in the event of a China-Taiwan conflict.

Should China decide to strike that supply chain--whether by accident or on purpose--the result would be US military casualties, and that would have a strong likelihood of precipitating outright war.

You may be right that such a war is somewhat or entirely unlikely.

I'm not remotely qualified to predict that. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it.

Please. Casus belli doesn’t matter these days. You just do enough propaganda with a number of justifications and control the news coming from the other side until the poll numbers look right.

Casus Belli is now translated into "America could win". There is no clear Casus Belli with China. Last time the US faced China in combat was Chosin Reservoir...maybe the worst ass-kicking the US has ever received. No way voters are going to support a President who oversees delivery of 50k dead US soldiers just to save a fab.

You're suffering from Xi Jinping Derangement Syndrome.

What would be the casus belli?

Multiple US companies with trillion-dollar market caps that are completely or near-completely dependent on TSMC.

Remember that Japan attacked the US in WWII largely because we cut off their oil supply. Now, let's watch China cut off the US's supply of advanced semiconductors, and see how that goes for them. You bring the popcorn, I'll bring the beer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com