6 ms·

And who do you think the US of A is reliant on?

by ulfw 6y ago

mytailorisrich 6y ago
The US are also reliant on TSMC but since Taiwan is reliant on the US that's fine. As we can see the US can impose their will on them.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  And will “will” is the US imposing on Taiwan? Keeping it from being annexed by China?
  - FooBarWidget 6y ago
    Well for one, giving TSMC the ultimatum that either they stop doing business with Huawei, or stop doing business with the entirety of the US. This happened just a few months ago. And here I thought US would like to recognize Taiwan as an independent country. But then it goes ahead and tells a Taiwanese company that they can't make their own decisions on who to do business with?
- simonblack 6y ago
  As we can see the US can impose their will on them. You can have all the will in the world, but that is not necessarily going to win out every time. "Oops, looks like there's a bad fire in that Taiwanese fab. Pity about that. They'll be out of production for years." By then of course, that fab would have been so obsolete that it's really not worth fixing.
- paulsutter 6y ago
  This is super naive. China has a huge military, is much closer to RoC, and has absolute popular support that RoC is already a province of China. Whereas the US can barely muster popular support for wearing masks. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/06/china-deploys-amphibious-weapons-eastern-coast-tensions-taiwan/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/06/china-deploys-am...
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    I'm not sure how what I wrote is 'super naive'... It is obvious that the US would have a problem if the mainland took over Taiwan. But short of that happening they don't because Taiwan is reliant on them.
  - katbyte 6y ago
    What support that Taiwan is part of China outside China? Everyone I’ve ever talked to about it considers Taiwan independence and under threat from China.
  - FooBarWidget 6y ago
    US military presence is sort of a paradox for Taiwan. It both protects Taiwan, as well threatens it, in the sense that China feels threatened by the US military and thus is incentivized to militarize out of self-defense. Taiwan's geography makes it a natural fortress, and even Taiwan's own military can defend the island pretty well entirely on its own. A mainland invasion will be very, very expensive, so it won't happen that easily. Economically, Taiwan is in decline. China basically doesn't need Taiwan for economic reasons. So the only reason to invade Taiwan, would be to appeal to the nationalist sentiment of reunification. But the chances of that happening is less than what many think, both because of the military cost, and because the CCP are actually moderates; there are many Chinese people who are far more radical, and if it's up to them then they would have launched an invasion a decade ago. This probably sounds unbelievable, or even propagandistic, to many people here on HN. You don't have to take my word for it. See Kishore Mahbubani, ex-Singapore diplomat & ex-head of UN Security Council, who wrote a book on China.
    - vxNsr 6y ago
      This is obviously false on its face. China would have invaded Taiwan from the get for if not for the US. And blaming china’s self defense fears on their building up the military is just communist apologist nonsense
      - FooBarWidget 6y ago

And who do you think the US of A is reliant on?

by ulfw 6y ago

And who do you think the US of A is reliant on?

The US are also reliant on TSMC but since Taiwan is reliant on the US that's fine. As we can see the US can impose their will on them.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago
And will “will” is the US imposing on Taiwan? Keeping it from being annexed by China?
- FooBarWidget 6y ago
  Well for one, giving TSMC the ultimatum that either they stop doing business with Huawei, or stop doing business with the entirety of the US. This happened just a few months ago. And here I thought US would like to recognize Taiwan as an independent country. But then it goes ahead and tells a Taiwanese company that they can't make their own decisions on who to do business with?
simonblack 6y ago
As we can see the US can impose their will on them. You can have all the will in the world, but that is not necessarily going to win out every time. "Oops, looks like there's a bad fire in that Taiwanese fab. Pity about that. They'll be out of production for years." By then of course, that fab would have been so obsolete that it's really not worth fixing.
paulsutter 6y ago
This is super naive. China has a huge military, is much closer to RoC, and has absolute popular support that RoC is already a province of China. Whereas the US can barely muster popular support for wearing masks. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/06/china-deploys-amphibious-weapons-eastern-coast-tensions-taiwan/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/06/china-deploys-am...
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  I'm not sure how what I wrote is 'super naive'... It is obvious that the US would have a problem if the mainland took over Taiwan. But short of that happening they don't because Taiwan is reliant on them.
- katbyte 6y ago
  What support that Taiwan is part of China outside China? Everyone I’ve ever talked to about it considers Taiwan independence and under threat from China.
- FooBarWidget 6y ago
  US military presence is sort of a paradox for Taiwan. It both protects Taiwan, as well threatens it, in the sense that China feels threatened by the US military and thus is incentivized to militarize out of self-defense. Taiwan's geography makes it a natural fortress, and even Taiwan's own military can defend the island pretty well entirely on its own. A mainland invasion will be very, very expensive, so it won't happen that easily. Economically, Taiwan is in decline. China basically doesn't need Taiwan for economic reasons. So the only reason to invade Taiwan, would be to appeal to the nationalist sentiment of reunification. But the chances of that happening is less than what many think, both because of the military cost, and because the CCP are actually moderates; there are many Chinese people who are far more radical, and if it's up to them then they would have launched an invasion a decade ago. This probably sounds unbelievable, or even propagandistic, to many people here on HN. You don't have to take my word for it. See Kishore Mahbubani, ex-Singapore diplomat & ex-head of UN Security Council, who wrote a book on China.
  - vxNsr 6y ago
    This is obviously false on its face. China would have invaded Taiwan from the get for if not for the US. And blaming china’s self defense fears on their building up the military is just communist apologist nonsense
    - FooBarWidget 6y ago