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Comment by Tier3r | Hacker News Reader

There exists a third possibility where the US and China sign an under the table deal for China to invade, the US to saber rattle and China to allow the flow of chips to continue. The present direction seems to be the US is "de-risking" from Taiwan by moving chip production to the US, so if China does invade they aren't caught in a bind.

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> The present direction seems to be the US is "de-risking" from Taiwan by moving chip production to the US, so if China does invade they aren't caught in a bind.

This idea that the US is protecting Taiwan for its semiconductor prowess (aka the "silicon shield") is a very confusing idea to me as it ignores the period from the 40's to the 90's when Taiwan had no semiconductor manufacturing that wasn't being done as well or better elsewhere, yet the US was a ardent supporter, to the point of almost entirely shunning the People's Republic of China over it.

It's a smart sounding idea (especially if you don't know your 20th century Chinese history) but the facts just don't back it up.

China was a commie state like the USSR countries back then. I don't see how the west could have treated one as the idiologocal archenemy and nemesis and not extent the same animosity to the other.

Back when? China, despite being a "commie state" (still is btw) split up with USSR by 1969 then struck a deal with Nixon to partner up with the US to become a manufacturing hub for the States.

The politics of the US are very different from the 40's to 90's. Good luck explaining to the American public why a bunch of their kids need to go die defending the Taiwanese in 2024 unless you can base it in some cold hard economic reality.

The reason we supported them back in the 20th century is because the Red Scare was the big boogeyman of the time and we needed military bases and friendlies in that part of the world.

I am reasonably familiar with it, you're missing mentioning why the US defended Taiwan initially. The US stopped any formal defense of Taiwan in 1980, not to the 1990s. During the period it did have a defense treaty it was within the context of creating an anti communist bulwark, and such defence treaties (even with highly suspect partners) was the bread and butter of geopolitics in the Cold War. It was not because of some deep love of Taiwan or democracy, in fact Taiwan would only become a democracy after the defense treaty was terminated. And "ardent supporter" is a very tricky term, the US signed a declaration for the One China policy, which is completely against the idea of Taiwan as a separate nation(although at the time the KMT and people largely did not view Taiwan as an separate nation).

The silicon shield is undoubtedly a significant part of the calculus around Taiwan, especially wrt direct military intervention. Successive administrations have clearly shown their emphasis on maintaining access to key strategic resources (the Middle East and oil).

What One China policy did the US sign? China has a One China Principal which some countries uphold, but the US is not one of them. Our _policy_ is to acknowledge China’s position but does not endorse or challenge it. Chinese diplomats are eternally trying to conflate the two, saying even the US admits there is but one China, and thus supports China’s position on the Taiwan question, but that is not true.

As for the silicon shield, yes it’s probably a major factor, but not close to the only factor. If PRC realizes its claims over Taiwan and the South China Sea, the entire region, including many US allies, will be under Chinese hegemony. It would spell the end of the current economic order. Japan, Philippines, basically all of East and Southeast Asia would then be trading within China’s new backyard.

If one gets into the weeds of the whole messy thing, the Shanghai Communique acknowledges the position of both sides (Taiwan and China) that there is one China, the 1982 Joint Communique acknowledged the Chinese position and said the US had no intention of pursuing a "two Chinas" or "one China and Taiwan" policy. And of course there's a non stop stream of such political speak, which is a red herring for the whole issue. Beyond minor changes to wordings, the main things the US did that screwed over Taiwan:

1) Revoking the mutual defense treaty which legally bound the US to defend Taiwan, replacing it with a more vague law where military intervention was not clear. 2) Recognizing the PRC as the legitimate representative of China.

To align your claims slightly, Taiwan also claims the same section of the SCS (actually it claims a slightly larger part), so strictly speaking it is what happens if the "Chinese claims" are realised (Taiwan and China work jointly to support their claims, ironically enough). In real terms the economic effects of China with respect to the SCS are greatly exaggerated for a number of reasons. First being that shipping can be routed through Indonesia. It is not a chokepoint, it just happens to be the shortest route. Second, blockades have little to do with recognising swaths of ocean as territory. These are enforced by navies, and most blockades in history have not happened within the blockaders' own waters (for obvious reasons). It is no easier for China to blockade trade in the region if it claims the SCS. And third, of all the major economic powers, China has historically been the least likely to enact economic warfare like blockades or sanctions. There is also a fourth aspect where in the current political environment, the globalised, trade based economic order is the least popular in the US and assorted European states, not China (who in fact desperately needs trade).

China didn't have ICBM capability until like 1980. There was much less risk declaring Taiwan support until then, and after that China feigned liberalization just enough to not be seen as a threat.

Pretty sure TSMC has plans to destroy or disable their fabs in this event. They (or the Taiwanese) would be stupid not to.

There is believed to be a software remote disable in the ASML provided machinery but it doesn't have to be effective - an invasion would cut off the machines from the maintenance they require https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/21/asml_kill_switch/

It's completely speculative for us, but I'd point out only the US has incentive to do that, not Taiwan. The only reason Taiwan would do it is if they adopted a scorched earth policy like Saddam and the burning Kuwaiti oil fields. But even with a psychopathic dictator like Saddam, he never burned his own oil fields.

The incentive for Taiwan is to discourage the CCP from invading.

Pretty sure the TSMC elite will prefer to work with the new CCP overlord if they were to give them a good enough deal.

Not even necessary. The equipment will cease to function if it is cut off from ASML servers in the Netherlands. But yes, a destruction protocol exists for most strategic resources located near adversaries that are considered critical to national security.

Weapons systems and strategic production capabilities are the one area where I think that DRM actually makes sense. Not printer cartridges and coffee. FFS.

But taiwan has nukes now in all but name? As the us becomes a non-reliable ally everyone with money and a shopping list bordering a totalitarian country heads for Pakistan ?

Since when has Taiwan had nukes? There was a nuclear program in the 80s and the US pressured them to abandon it. Even civilian nuclear engineering is not very popular in Taiwan. I’d be kind of surprised if Taiwan had any kind of nuclear weapons program and it wasn’t an international crisis, given how thoroughly each side of the straight spy on the other.

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