They only need to make this appear real for 4, maybe 2 years, and can then reevaluate.
I'd guess they looked at their options and decided this was the best hedge.
I'd guess they looked at their options and decided this was the best hedge.
Taipei needs nukes. There simply isn’t another guarantor of sovereign security anymore.
This essay explains very lucidly why it's not as straightforward as you think: https://taipology.substack.com/p/no-nukes-are-not-going-to-s...
This is correct and why any such project would need to be intensely covert and/or externally facilitated.
> doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) rests on both parties being left in guaranteed ruins
You don’t need MAD. Tehran isn’t aiming for MAD with America, and neither is Pyongyang. The threat of even a tactical retaliation has, to date, been sufficient to keep great powers at bay.
Oung is speaking the language of deterrence and non-proliferation; we are past that, unfortunately [1].
Good neighbours, strong fences. You don’t need to hate your neighbour to appreciate sovereignty. If anything, returning to mutual respect between Taipei and Beijing, a stance which was being moved towards until Xi, should further cross-strait ties.
Regardless there’s very probably multiple USA nuclear subs surrounding the place.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cmCKJi3CKGE&t=226s
There's a huge reason for Taiwan to announce that: their primary opponent already has nuclear weapons!
The reason Israel is heavily encouraged to maintain nuclear strategic ambiguity is an attempt to dissuade the entire Middle East from developing nuclear weapons in response.
If I were China, I would give them relative economic independence if they limit advanced process silicon to other countries and let Huawei and others monopolize the advanced nodes. The US at present does not appear to be a dependable partner.
I wonder if China actually benefits from this drama and rather not claim Taiwan (despite what they say out loud).
It's currently:
- the best place to show military might (the "drills")
- the best place to continue a proxy war with the US / EU
- replaces Hong Kong as the gray area to do business
If China says they want control of Taiwan, the base scenario is they are serious. The only thing holding them back is how expensive it is to execute on that want. Although since the action is off the Chinese coast and China appears to be stronger than the US right now I don't see how this ends well for Taiwan.
Even if China can control the waters around them, they may find them selves boxed in. It doesn't take a lot of sunken cargo ships for operators to refuse to run the boats
explain?
Taiwan has most of its trade with China (like it or not).
There are numerous things that are e.g. illegal in China but "legal" in Taiwan and so Chinese business is conducted there e.g. online gambling sites.
Then there are plenty of Taiwanese companies that end up being a disguise for China 1 way or another e.g. to bypass sanctions (well so is Singapore as per recent news on nvidia gpu smuggling). 1 of the best examples is VIA technologies, that helped China create x86 CPUs back in the days.
A lot of Chinese gangs in Asia used to operate out of Hong Kong. When 1997 happened (i.e. return to China), most of them gave up or moved to other places like Taiwan since China has the death penalty.
Does that make it a place for shady deals?
> There are numerous things that are e.g. illegal in China but "legal" in Taiwan and so Chinese business is conducted there e.g. online gambling sites
Gambling is illegal in Taiwan
> Then there are plenty of Taiwanese companies that end up being a disguise for China 1 way or another e.g. to bypass sanctions (well so is Singapore as per recent news on nvidia gpu smuggling). 1 of the best examples is VIA technologies, that helped China create x86 CPUs back in the days.
Citation needed
Where do you expect them to go then? It's the most logical place.
> Gambling is illegal in Taiwan
They aren't offering gambling services in Taiwan to Taiwanese people. Hence it's definitely a gray area.
> Citation needed
VIA technologies? Too old, link likely wiped, but you can look the history. VIA technologies went into a JV with China in 2013 called Zhaoxin. Before that they literally never touched the x86 for years. There was no way for China to otherwise acquire an x86 license (this was before ARM would be a thing).
For reference you can compare it to how AMD handled a similar JV [0] and see stark differences. AMD went to long lengths to protect their IP and then stopped once they no longer needed to.
If we have to keep going, HTC also eventually suffered a similar but different fate. Funny that both companies have something to do with a certain someone...
[0]: https://wccftech.com/no-amd-did-not-sell-keys-kingdom-how-th...
China does. Xi does not. Trump has been the bailout to Xi that China’s wolf warriors and Putin were to America after the Iraq & Afghanistan wars.
At the end of the day the leadership is who makes the decisions. The notion of a "country" does not.
What Xi has said so far may have been misrepresented by the media, and exaggerated to rally public support for the new Cold War and for more military spending. What Xi actually said is he would not allow formal independence of Taiwan, and that he prefers closer relations/integration with Taiwan for an eventual "reunited" outcome, saying nothing of the status quo or that he would change it by force. For as long as the economic deterrence exists, I highly doubt that a war would happen over Taiwan barring one of 2 scenarios: 1)Taiwan declears formal independence by amending its Constitution, or 2) western troops, bases, or "security guarantees" are established over Taiwan
Being a realist Taiwan joining China willingly under those conditions before they basically technology transfer to America and make themselves worth much less (In China's eye), is their best bet, or I would say if ASML wasn't a thing.
Sadly for Taiwan they are between a sword and a wall, ASML is required for them to continue innovating, if they were to annex themselves to China they would lose access to EUV and High NA EUV and basically lose their ability to produce sub 5nm semiconductors no matter how talented they are, and I don't think that SMEE in China is close to EUV let alone High NA EUV.
I understand this comment will upset some people but I tried to be a realist about what would happen if things were to hit the fan
What authority do you think China has over Taiwan?
Authority, none. Power, plenty.
By this logic China should be returned to the winners of the Opium Wars [1]. No countries for losers! (To say nothing of the CCP’s inaction against Imperial Japan in WWII [2].)
Anyone can come up with reasons for stealing stuff based on decades, centuries or millennia-old gripes. What matters is where the people alive today live and how they identify. For good reason, the Taiwanese have been drifting away from China since Xi.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War
[2] https://thediplomat.com/2014/09/the-ccp-didnt-fight-imperial...
No. Similar to how the Han Chinese don’t have one to Tibet (and other parts of modern-day China).
Practically all land touched by humans has multiple verifiable historical claims to it. The further back we go, the more there are and the more ambiguous they become. The only thing we can say with certainty is who is there today. Every other path means violence and is honestly a bit stupid.
Current administration is fast tracking nuclear prolifiacian. A future president might want to stop such trends.
This is correct. Gone are the days when countries could count on the US to provide some protection against illegal invasions. All nations without nukes have to be considering them seriously now. Sure, they signed the NPT. But agreements no longer mean what they used to. Russia violates most of the agreements it signs. US already trashed the Budapest memorandum that it signed in 1996. We were supposed to provide security to Ukraine in exchange for them giving up nukes.
This is a common misconception. If you read the memorandum (it's rather short) you'll see it isn't true. We only promised to seek UN Security Council action. We went far beyond that.
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/P...
And ended up voting with Russia anyway.
The promise to seek UN Security Council action is only in case Ukraine is attacked with nuclear weapons.
The language does seem really ambiguous though. I'm surprised it wasn't written more clearly.
It’s also a common misconception that NATO article 5th means immediate military action by rest of the alliance. It actually says that an armed attack against one shall be considered an attack against all, but crucially, the assistance provided is “what each of them deems necessary”
With the current administration I’m not convinced the US assistance that it’d “deem necessary” would amount to anything more than a call to Vladimir Putin to see how best to help him.
A treaty where the guarantor is known to give sketchy legal interpretations about why them backstabing you is actually faithful to the treaty they signed is barely more useful than a treaty where the guarantor won't honor their word.
The ripple effect is already there: many NATO country are now wondering whether the alliance is worth the paper it’s written on.
And to gain those allies they will give them control over these key supply lines so that said allies can dictate America's foreign policy?
I would be surprised if he doesn't do this, judging by his long track record of not paying his contractors and business partners after receiving their goods and services.
But it's very worth pointing this out. The Taiwanese announcement is just an announcement. When a chip, any chip, rolls off the line (from this investment) let me know.
The reality is that in 4 years Trump will be gone. Building a plant will take longer than that. This is nothing more than good PR.
Besides, that rests on the assumption that the US is going to have a “free and fair” election in 2 and 4 years. Trump said loud and clear on the campaign trail that you need to come out and vote for him just this one last time. Won’t need to vote afterwards at all, they’ll fix it.
This seems like one of the promises he’d be really inclined to hold, if he can.