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Comment by nicoburns | Hacker News Reader

> presumably China would still want to keep selling those products and would have an interest in avoiding destroying those factories

There are rumours from seemingly credible sources that Taiwan has the TSMC factories (at least the ones located in Taiwan) rigged with explosives that they intend to trigger in case of invasion by China (as a disincentive against China invading). So China may well not have any say in the matter.

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Why would Taiwan destroying its own assets disincentivize annexation goals that have existed long before computer chips were produced there?

That question comes up every time this fact is posted, and it could be for the very simple reason to disincentivize annexation to a later date.

Presumably at least in part because China's just as dependent on TSMC as everyone else (at least for the time being). So it's a form of Mutally Assured Destruction, kind of like nuclear weapons. If they actually have to be used, then everyone's in for a bad time, but seeing as nobody wants that, it acts as a disincentive.

This makes no sense. China doesn't want Taiwan because of TSMC, it wanted Taiwan long before TSMC was a major player. The only effect of destroying factories would be to make Taiwan poorer, while China would still get what it wanted.

You're right that this isn't why China want's Taiwan. But the point is that it would also make China poorer. In fact, it would be highly likely to cause a global recession of a magnitude that could threaten the Chinese government due to pressure from it's own citizens.

It actually wouldn't. It would hit many US companies that rely on TSMC's latest nodes like Nvidia and Apple. And TSMC also has its Nanjing fab in China. What this would do is strengthen Samsung and make China even more determined to accelerate SMIC or Huawei's efforts to build a TSMC equivalent. Apple would be more impacted than Huawei, because Huawei isn't using TSMC at all. So in practice, this would hurt the US the most, since it relies on Taiwan based fabs for leading edge nodes.

Not invading Taiwan:

+ China gets to profit from selling phones, computers, etc. to the west

- China doesn't get to own a piece of land

Invading Taiwan:

+ China owns a piece of land

- China can't manufacture anything the west is interested in.

You're arguing about whether it makes sense for China to invade Taiwan. I agree it doesn't right now, but that's not the topic here. The topic is the claim that Taiwan has explosives around TSMC factories, which is ridiculous. So what exactly is your point?

PS. Rozwiń? Nie o tym jest dyskusja "czy Chiny to zrobią", tylko o tym czy Taiwan zrobił to co powtarzane tutaj bezsensowne plotki mówią. To są dwie zupełnie różne sprawy, mimo że mogą się wydawać tożsame.

If Taiwan is being invaded, the annexation is happening. There's no longer any reason to disincentivize annexation. Destroying the fabs is about denying China a major prize.

Destroying the fabs would hurt the West a lot more than China, which is rapidly playing catch up (while US and EU are not).

The other glaring flaw in this pop-geopolitics narrative is that China already has enormous economic leverage over the West, even without the chip supply chain.

> Destroying the fabs would hurt the West a lot more than China, which is rapidly playing catch up (while US and EU are not)

Is that true? My understanding is that Intel while somewhat behind TSMC, is (along with Samsung) still broadly keeping pace. Whereas SMIC while rapidly improving is still playing catch-up.

I doubt it’s something we could know without it happening.

US has intel and some other options, but it would be a colossal issue and adjustment.

China has its well funded, fast progressing Chinese chiplets, but it would be a colossal issue and adjustment.

All we can tea leaf is this: which party has a better history of making large fast industrial adjustments, and which economy is more reliant on cutting edge chips? I think china wins on both personally, so I would give them the edge, gun to head. But it’s an extremely messy process for either.

Did Hong Kong destroy its financial sector to deny China a "major prize"? If someone were going to invade and occupy your country, would you destroy your huge source of revenue so they couldn't claim it as a "major prize"? And then what? Stay poor? I feel like people who repeat this view (something they read somewhere) haven't really analyzed it in a social, economic, historical, and geopolitical context. Because if you do, there's zero logic to it, given the consequences for the 23 million people who would still be living on the island afterward.

Committing to threats/promises "illogically" gives you a better negotiating position.

Acting "illogically" to spite bad behavior leads to less bad behavior.

No one believes it, so it won't strengthen your negotiating position. It's an unconfirmed rumour of unknown origin, and nobody is taking it seriously. And you're missing the historical context, which makes TSMC irrelevant to China's claims.

Those are much better reasons. (Though I don't think the historical context cancels out a risk of losing TSMC. It just means the motivation wouldn't drop as much.)

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