5 ms·

Isn't this comparing, umm, apples and oranges? China doesn't want to lose Apple's business. China can't lose all business relationship with America (or maybe

Isn't this comparing, umm, apples and oranges? China doesn't want to lose Apple's business. China can't lose all business relationship with America (or maybe it can, but it will be extremely painful), which is what will likely happen if China invades Taiwan.

friedman23 4y ago
> China can't lose all business relationship with America And America can't afford to lose business with China. So China will make the calculation that it can get away with an invasion of Taiwan.
- varispeed 4y ago
  Probably Russia has made the same calculation about Germany. The biggest economy in Europe entirely dependent on Russian energy. If their "special operation" actually lasted a couple of weeks as they promised (it's hard to believe Germany didn't know about this way in advance), it is unlikely Europe, under German leadership, would have done anything apart from token sanctions. The contributing factor was of course the US and NATO projecting weakness after debacle in Afghanistan. Putin high on his own delusions, surrounded by yes-men, thought that was the once in a lifetime opportunity to pounce. If European economies weren't so dependent on Russian energy supplies, this war could probably have ended much quicker and thousands wouldn't have died needlessly.
  - herbst 4y ago
    > unlikely Europe, under German leadership Wait what?
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      Germany's the richest EU country and doesn't hesitate to throw its weight around to get things done their way which is why many refer to the EU as having a German leadership and it's why many other EU countries are unhappy as some German policies are highly unpopular at EU level (supporting illegal mass migration, anti-nuclear "green" stance while burning gas and coal, long term pro-Russian stance, etc.), as are their politicians at EU level like Ursula who have a track record of incompetence and corruption yet are still in power.
      - herbst 4y ago
        That doesn't make Germany the leader of the EU and even less Europe. They play an way to important role but EU, gladly, doesn't allow defacto leaders
        ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        It still has way more influence than any other EU member and can push its internal agenda more easily. And since it's also the biggest market in the EU, whatever quirky internal rules and regulations Germany has, get pretty much automatically carried out at EU level by any and all companies looking to do business in the EU.
  - caskstrength 4y ago
    > it's hard to believe Germany didn't know about this way in advance Considering that their spy chief was caught "pants down" in Kyiv when invasion started [0] and had to be evacuated by special forces it is highly likely they had no clue. Unless of course they intentionally orchestrated the whole debacle to look like they didn't know, but that sounds more like a conspiracy theory... [0]: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/special-forces-evacuated-german-spy-chief-ukraine-focus-magazine-2022-02-25/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/special-forces-evacuate...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- qwytw 4y ago
  Will they also include the fact that it's extremely hard to execute a naval invasion without absolute air and sea superiority in that calculation? They would probably do worse than Russia did in Ukraine even without direct American involvement. China could only feasibly annex Taiwan peacefully (at least in the foreseable future)
  - jamiek88 4y ago
    The window for China to successfully execute an amphibious assault on Taiwan is closed. It would be a cluserfuck of the highest order. It would also be telegraphed years in advance just by the sheer number of troops and landing craft needed and they would not have air or naval superiority in any realistic scenario. Taiwan is heavily defended. Taiwan can be destroyed (nukes) but cannot be annexed by force in any realistic assessment of capability.
    - ijidak 4y ago
      What about a siege? The more I look at it, the more the ancient siege seems more likely than an invasion. China doesn't want to destroy Taiwan. Plus, destroying non-Taiwanese vessels and planes trying to break the siege seems like it would be more palatable to Chinese leaders' domestic audience. China seemed to do a dress rehearsal for this strategy a month or two ago.
      - CamperBob2 4y ago
        The US would recreate the Berlin Airlift in that case. If China wants to shoot down US military cargo aircraft, well... they might as well have launched a full-scale invasion. It will cost them just as much.
        sudosysgen 4y ago
        The Chinese would just bomb the airfields in Taiwan.
        refurb 4y ago
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  If you look at the iPhone, China's contribution is basically only final assembly. The parts that are being assembled actually come from US/Japan/Korea/Taiwan - so it's not quite as straightforward as it seems.
  - dirtyid 4y ago
    PRC went from capturing $8 in final assembly fees on iphone3s to ~$100 / ~25% of BOM cost of iPhone X. More highend PRC components are making their way as well (hence YMTC about to get boot). PRC is also like 1/3 of semi market (400B), that's a lot of western semi R&D that industrial policy like 52B CHIPs act spread over multiple years isn't close to replacing.
varispeed 4y ago
You are trying to look at it from a rational person point of view with your own biases, but the other side may think entirely differently. For instance, they may come to a conclusion that they have enough know how to go their own way. Feed some nationalist delusions, discouragement of critical thinking growing over the years and the nation may believe this is actually achievable. Then they may think the attack on Taiwan is just the right thing to do and if "imperialist America" does not like it, they can eat their Apple themselves. Etc. If anything, such intertwining of economies may actually prevent countries willing to help the attacked side from doing anything apart from token gestures out of fear their supply chains get destroyed. After all why should they care about some island thousands miles away, whereas if they weren't in any way dependent they could have rushed to help.
- xwolfi 4y ago
  Well I m in China myself so unlike the person you re replying to, it's not just a bias but my entire life depending on not invading Taiwan. Nobody here or in other cities I know wants to invade Taiwan: people think it's already Chinese anyway, and it's just a political disagreement (ofc in TW they think otherwise and I agree with them to an extent: they re a country but they built all their identity on being "the true China"). Our dependency on the US, but also Japan, India, the EU and to some extent the rest of the world is bound to force us to keep a slow grind rather than blatant violence. At least outside of China. I know Russia disproved the theory: they were dependent on the EU and fuck it all up anyway but... Russia then proceeded to prove the disaster it is for the country, the people and even the war: you cant win territory easily by murdering blindly left and right your commercial partners and your cultural cousins and unlike what some may believe, even some past expansion had to be based on mutual interest to last.
  - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
    > they re a country but they built all their identity on being "the true China" Huh? I think it's the CCP that did that, not Taiwan...
    - 4y ago
floor2 4y ago
That seems optimistic. We won't stop eating beef 3x a day even though we know it's literally destroying the world, we still buy diamonds mined by child slaves and clothes sewn by people making pennies per hour and even the sanctions against Russia carved out exceptions for everything the West really wanted/needed. We didn't stop doing business with China for a genocide in Tibet, an ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the brutality in Hong Kong or the human rights violations in current lockdowns. If China invades Taiwan, we'll buy iPhones from them anyway and tweet that we don't like what they're doing. Maybe we'll send a few billion dollars to Lockheed and Raytheon to make some weapons for Taiwain, but we won't do anything that actually requires an American to give up the slightest bit of comfort.
- mattnewton 4y ago
  An invasion of Taiwan would be a major disruption to global semiconductor industry even if we kept buying from China in the meantime because it would grind TSMC to a halt. There is no way we could switch manufacturing over to Samsung, or spin up fabs elsewhere for that volume of chips.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

friedman23 4y ago

> China can't lose all business relationship with America And America can't afford to lose business with China. So China will make the calculation that it can get away with an invasion of Taiwan.

varispeed 4y ago
Probably Russia has made the same calculation about Germany. The biggest economy in Europe entirely dependent on Russian energy. If their "special operation" actually lasted a couple of weeks as they promised (it's hard to believe Germany didn't know about this way in advance), it is unlikely Europe, under German leadership, would have done anything apart from token sanctions. The contributing factor was of course the US and NATO projecting weakness after debacle in Afghanistan. Putin high on his own delusions, surrounded by yes-men, thought that was the once in a lifetime opportunity to pounce. If European economies weren't so dependent on Russian energy supplies, this war could probably have ended much quicker and thousands wouldn't have died needlessly.
- herbst 4y ago
  > unlikely Europe, under German leadership Wait what?
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Germany's the richest EU country and doesn't hesitate to throw its weight around to get things done their way which is why many refer to the EU as having a German leadership and it's why many other EU countries are unhappy as some German policies are highly unpopular at EU level (supporting illegal mass migration, anti-nuclear "green" stance while burning gas and coal, long term pro-Russian stance, etc.), as are their politicians at EU level like Ursula who have a track record of incompetence and corruption yet are still in power.
    - herbst 4y ago
      That doesn't make Germany the leader of the EU and even less Europe. They play an way to important role but EU, gladly, doesn't allow defacto leaders
      - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        It still has way more influence than any other EU member and can push its internal agenda more easily. And since it's also the biggest market in the EU, whatever quirky internal rules and regulations Germany has, get pretty much automatically carried out at EU level by any and all companies looking to do business in the EU.
- caskstrength 4y ago
  > it's hard to believe Germany didn't know about this way in advance Considering that their spy chief was caught "pants down" in Kyiv when invasion started [0] and had to be evacuated by special forces it is highly likely they had no clue. Unless of course they intentionally orchestrated the whole debacle to look like they didn't know, but that sounds more like a conspiracy theory... [0]: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/special-forces-evacuated-german-spy-chief-ukraine-focus-magazine-2022-02-25/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/special-forces-evacuate...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
qwytw 4y ago
Will they also include the fact that it's extremely hard to execute a naval invasion without absolute air and sea superiority in that calculation? They would probably do worse than Russia did in Ukraine even without direct American involvement. China could only feasibly annex Taiwan peacefully (at least in the foreseable future)
- jamiek88 4y ago
  The window for China to successfully execute an amphibious assault on Taiwan is closed. It would be a cluserfuck of the highest order. It would also be telegraphed years in advance just by the sheer number of troops and landing craft needed and they would not have air or naval superiority in any realistic scenario. Taiwan is heavily defended. Taiwan can be destroyed (nukes) but cannot be annexed by force in any realistic assessment of capability.
  - ijidak 4y ago
    What about a siege? The more I look at it, the more the ancient siege seems more likely than an invasion. China doesn't want to destroy Taiwan. Plus, destroying non-Taiwanese vessels and planes trying to break the siege seems like it would be more palatable to Chinese leaders' domestic audience. China seemed to do a dress rehearsal for this strategy a month or two ago.
    - CamperBob2 4y ago
      The US would recreate the Berlin Airlift in that case. If China wants to shoot down US military cargo aircraft, well... they might as well have launched a full-scale invasion. It will cost them just as much.
      - sudosysgen 4y ago
        The Chinese would just bomb the airfields in Taiwan.
      - refurb 4y ago
NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
If you look at the iPhone, China's contribution is basically only final assembly. The parts that are being assembled actually come from US/Japan/Korea/Taiwan - so it's not quite as straightforward as it seems.
- dirtyid 4y ago
  PRC went from capturing $8 in final assembly fees on iphone3s to ~$100 / ~25% of BOM cost of iPhone X. More highend PRC components are making their way as well (hence YMTC about to get boot). PRC is also like 1/3 of semi market (400B), that's a lot of western semi R&D that industrial policy like 52B CHIPs act spread over multiple years isn't close to replacing.

varispeed 4y ago

You are trying to look at it from a rational person point of view with your own biases, but the other side may think entirely differently. For instance, they may come to a conclusion that they have enough know how to go their own way. Feed some nationalist delusions, discouragement of critical thinking growing over the years and the nation may believe this is actually achievable. Then they may think the attack on Taiwan is just the right thing to do and if "imperialist America" does not like it, they can eat their Apple themselves. Etc. If anything, such intertwining of economies may actually prevent countries willing to help the attacked side from doing anything apart from token gestures out of fear their supply chains get destroyed. After all why should they care about some island thousands miles away, whereas if they weren't in any way dependent they could have rushed to help.

xwolfi 4y ago
Well I m in China myself so unlike the person you re replying to, it's not just a bias but my entire life depending on not invading Taiwan. Nobody here or in other cities I know wants to invade Taiwan: people think it's already Chinese anyway, and it's just a political disagreement (ofc in TW they think otherwise and I agree with them to an extent: they re a country but they built all their identity on being "the true China"). Our dependency on the US, but also Japan, India, the EU and to some extent the rest of the world is bound to force us to keep a slow grind rather than blatant violence. At least outside of China. I know Russia disproved the theory: they were dependent on the EU and fuck it all up anyway but... Russia then proceeded to prove the disaster it is for the country, the people and even the war: you cant win territory easily by murdering blindly left and right your commercial partners and your cultural cousins and unlike what some may believe, even some past expansion had to be based on mutual interest to last.
- Wowfunhappy 4y ago
  > they re a country but they built all their identity on being "the true China" Huh? I think it's the CCP that did that, not Taiwan...
  - 4y ago

floor2 4y ago

That seems optimistic. We won't stop eating beef 3x a day even though we know it's literally destroying the world, we still buy diamonds mined by child slaves and clothes sewn by people making pennies per hour and even the sanctions against Russia carved out exceptions for everything the West really wanted/needed. We didn't stop doing business with China for a genocide in Tibet, an ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the brutality in Hong Kong or the human rights violations in current lockdowns. If China invades Taiwan, we'll buy iPhones from them anyway and tweet that we don't like what they're doing. Maybe we'll send a few billion dollars to Lockheed and Raytheon to make some weapons for Taiwain, but we won't do anything that actually requires an American to give up the slightest bit of comfort.

mattnewton 4y ago
An invasion of Taiwan would be a major disruption to global semiconductor industry even if we kept buying from China in the meantime because it would grind TSMC to a halt. There is no way we could switch manufacturing over to Samsung, or spin up fabs elsewhere for that volume of chips.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]