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> If China invades Taiwan they'll be able to hold the rest of the world hostage because of TSMC. It's still a lose-lose situation. No, this is not true. China

> If China invades Taiwan they'll be able to hold the rest of the world hostage because of TSMC. It's still a lose-lose situation. No, this is not true. China depends on foreign technology much, much more than anyone depends on TSMC. Just look at the Huawei and ZTE sanctions. Not to mention if China had that much leverage in the game they could easily sanction Taiwan and cut off probably a majority of its business dealings before resorting to invasion by force. Did you know that Taiwan and China (pre-covid) could freely travel between the countries more or less, and even setup business like Foxconn that profit off Chinese labor? There's literally more cooperation between Taiwan and China than US and Cuba.

whakim 5y ago
>> Did you know that Taiwan and China (pre-covid) could freely travel between the countries more or less, and even setup business like Foxconn that profit off Chinese labor? There's literally more cooperation between Taiwan and China than US and Cuba. This is because China had been attempting a policy of economic (and cultural) engagement with Taiwan for the best part of 20 years, up until the election of Tsai Ing-Wen in 2016. China had pursued this policy while the KMT were in power in Taiwan; the KMT are generally considered to favor closer ties between China and Taiwan. Things have changed a bit since the DPP (the more "anti-China" of Taiwan's two major political parties) won the 2016 and 2020 elections. I certainly don't know what the future holds, but I think China has now concluded that reunification through cultural/economic links is unlikely to succeed, not least because the idea of "one country, two systems" looks even less attractive after the events in Hong Kong.
rndgermandude 5y ago
>No, this is not true. China depends on foreign technology much, much more than anyone depends on TSMC.Just look at the Huawei and ZTE sanctions. Maybe this is still true for now, but that too is changing. China was already wary of that dependency and put efforts underway to rid itself of this dependency. The Huawei and ZTE sanctions only had the effect of putting these efforts into hyperdrive. [1] gives an overview of historic and current efforts. tl;dr China is not yet close to self-sufficient but they are spending like crazy and making major progress. Give it another 10, 15 years and the picture might look quite different, if it even takes them that long. And China is playing the long game anyway. [1] https://semiengineering.com/china-speeds-up-advanced-chip-development/ https://semiengineering.com/china-speeds-up-advanced-chip-de...

whakim 5y ago

>> Did you know that Taiwan and China (pre-covid) could freely travel between the countries more or less, and even setup business like Foxconn that profit off Chinese labor? There's literally more cooperation between Taiwan and China than US and Cuba. This is because China had been attempting a policy of economic (and cultural) engagement with Taiwan for the best part of 20 years, up until the election of Tsai Ing-Wen in 2016. China had pursued this policy while the KMT were in power in Taiwan; the KMT are generally considered to favor closer ties between China and Taiwan. Things have changed a bit since the DPP (the more "anti-China" of Taiwan's two major political parties) won the 2016 and 2020 elections. I certainly don't know what the future holds, but I think China has now concluded that reunification through cultural/economic links is unlikely to succeed, not least because the idea of "one country, two systems" looks even less attractive after the events in Hong Kong.

rndgermandude 5y ago

>No, this is not true. China depends on foreign technology much, much more than anyone depends on TSMC.Just look at the Huawei and ZTE sanctions. Maybe this is still true for now, but that too is changing. China was already wary of that dependency and put efforts underway to rid itself of this dependency. The Huawei and ZTE sanctions only had the effect of putting these efforts into hyperdrive. [1] gives an overview of historic and current efforts. tl;dr China is not yet close to self-sufficient but they are spending like crazy and making major progress. Give it another 10, 15 years and the picture might look quite different, if it even takes them that long. And China is playing the long game anyway. [1] https://semiengineering.com/china-speeds-up-advanced-chip-development/ https://semiengineering.com/china-speeds-up-advanced-chip-de...