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I still don't understand why China would possibly want to try and invade Taiwan? The chip foundry's would immediately be scuttled, and whatever would be left wo

I still don't understand why China would possibly want to try and invade Taiwan? The chip foundry's would immediately be scuttled, and whatever would be left would be a nice, but simple island. In exchange for taking that land mass, their entire international trade business which mainland china is extremely reliant on, would be in jeopardy. It would almost be political suicide to invade as far as I see it. But I'm no expert.

IlliOnato 3y ago
I still don't understand how Russia (the country where I was born) would possibly want and invade Ukraine... But it did.
- SXX 3y ago
  No idea why you being downvoted. I as owner of Russian passport even been to Kiev in December 2021 and talked with a lot of friends and just normal people there on gamedev conference. There been a lot of tension for 8 years since 2014 and even more during 2021. Yet no matter political views no one in either Russia or Ukraine seriously considered full scale war possible. Conclusion: there no way to know what is inside a head of aging autocrat.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    > no matter political views no one in either Russia or Ukraine seriously considered full scale war possible. Plenty of experts have been calling it for a decade now... EU/US influence has been slowly creeping east for 30 years. Russia had no other options really - as soon as a pro-west leader was elected to Ukraine, war was inevitable. And the same will happen in Belarus when the leadership changes there too.
    - murkt 3y ago
      What is this “no other options” bullshit? They could just not attack Ukraine and that’s it. Nobody would attack Russia.
      - londons_explore 3y ago
        Have you visited any countries bordering Russia - Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan? If you do, you see quite odd things... You see children's playgrounds that have a big sign saying 'Proudly sponsored by the USA development fund", or "This bus route is made possible by the EU funding.". Why would the USA be using US taxpayer money to build children's playgrounds in Azerbaijan? It's all about a long term battle for hearts and minds... Be the 'good guys' to a 5 year old child now, and in 30 years that child is a voter and you can have influence over the whole country. Pretty smart moves... But I can see how Russia isn't happy about it.
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        "We invaded with tanks because the other guy funded a playground" is a hell of a take.
        willcipriano 3y ago
        [flagged]
        ericmay 3y ago
        I agree. Once Putin had Trump there in power he sensed that the country was weak and decided to take action thinking that the Americans were too preoccupied with trying to be some semblance of government and international relations back to order once Biden won the election. Problem was that the Biden admin actually has experience and capabilities, and the Ukrainians decided to fight for their country and now Russia is finding out that they made a pretty poor move based on faulty assumptions. > We have no leg to stand on 1) At some point we get our legs to stand on back - supporting Ukraine actually has gone a long way in the eyes of Europe and allies in the Pacific. 2) Not having a leg to stand on doesn't matter because we can do wrong things and then also criticize others when they do wrong things. 3) EU member states and other nations have legs to stand on and they also support the American position on Ukraine.
    - hkpack 3y ago
      It was not inevitable, it was a decision, a choice made by specific people. They do everything in their power to make you believe that is was inevitable to divert the blame. Same with Taiwan. It is a choice for China to make - to invade or not.
    - stickyricky 3y ago
      ?? Has the West moved east or did Eastern Europe run to the West out of fear of their neighbor? But yes. US influence snuck up on Russia and tricked those countries into being scared of it. Its all so clear now...
- Flatcircle 3y ago
  That’s the thing, taking Ukraine gives Russia several advantages, Ukraine produces a lot of the agriculture in that region, so taking that gives them another large bargaining chip in their sphere. Not to mention, it’s a large landmass that offers a huge buffer between the NATO countries and Russia. And it’s got another 40 or 50 million people for Russia, which has a population problem. And it’s got iron & Steel exports… Taiwan has TSMC. And I suspect the US has a bunch of fueled up C-17’s ready to take all the important infrastructure to the US and plans in place to effectively destroy the rest at a moments notice.
  - coffeebeqn 3y ago
    Why are you looking at China though such different lense? Taiwan is exactly like Crimea or Cuba strategically speaking. Please don’t invade any countries even if they’re smaller and inconvenient to your stories.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    > And it’s got another 40 or 50 million people for Russia, which has a population problem. Taking 40M people with the same demographic problems gives you a bigger problem - not a solution...
    - SXX 3y ago
      Nice source: https://www.populationpyramid.net/russian-federation/2020/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/russian-federation/2020/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/ukraine/2020/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/ukraine/2020/ In 10 years demographic in both countries will be as bad as in Japan.
    - Flatcircle 3y ago
      I agree I don't think it'd help Putin or anything, I'm just saying that if they took Ukraine, he'd add another 42 million people to the 133 million he already rules over. That's about a third more people to rule over, and he's not concerned about the later years of a peasant Russian. I assume he's concerned with more able bodied young men, which, ironically is a cohort he lacks while he tries to capture the country he's trying to obtain to help with that problem.
- tinus_hn 3y ago
  A number of reasons including * because they could (or so they thought) * because there’s a lot of important resources in the ground * because they want to lay down the border between NATO and Russia and preferably not at the border of Russia but on someone else’s turf
- jasmer 3y ago
  It's really odd to fathom who someone would not understand why Xi wants to take Taiwan, and 'chips' has nothing to do with it. People need to take a much, much broader mindset. China views Taiwan as part of China, and that's that. I personally don't, and the Taiwanese population ought to chose what they want without material interference, and 'we' should respect that by recognizing their sovereignty and statehood if that's what they want, much like at this point we ought to be recognizing Palestine as a state, if that's what they want. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is pure classical Imperialism, Ukraine is a 'sub Russian vassal' and Russian Imperialism is part of the Russian identity - it was 'secularized' during the time of USSR, now it's just old school. If you look at geopolitics from the 19th century it's all very clear. That said, it is odd Apple would do this in Taiwan, and, it's a much bigger jump than people think. This is a bold move and will reshape what Apple is, and maybe what a true international megacorp of the future looks like. It could also make them more fragile and if they start to falter, it could really fall apart. You need a lot to work well for this to be pulled off.
jmartrican 3y ago
How do you deduce that the foundry's will be scuttled? I'm not saying they won't be. But I can foresee a world where too many people who care about these foundry's regardless of which political party is in charge, would prevent them from being scuttled. And also, China might have insiders in Taiwan that might prevent the scuttling and make sure they are preserved.
- dTal 3y ago
  It wouldn't take many disgruntled employees to scuttle it themselves. It's much easier to ruin delicate expensive equipment than to preserve it in working order.
  - jmartrican 3y ago
    These workers have opinions and their opinions might not be the same as yours. They might not be as pro-western as you may believe. They also have imagination and can imagine a world where they are better off under China with this equipment working then under China without this equipment working. Either way, the point is that its not a sure thing that this equipment would be scuttled.
    - londons_explore 3y ago
      > better off under China with this equipment working then under China without this equipment working. This. If an enemy is invading your country and looks likely to succeed, then the important thing for you as a citizen isn't defending your homeland - it is making sure you have a future in the new country under new governance. That might well involve being the guy with all the knowledge to get the chip fab going again. The US hasn't lost many wars in their homeland, so most citizens haven't really thought of their options...
      - astrange 3y ago
        There aren't any such guys. Running TSMC is a stack of many different levels of sole suppliers from different companies (US, Netherlands, Japan, even sort of Ukraine for neon.)
bitwize 3y ago
The fact that Taiwan exists disrupts the official narrative that there is only one China and its ideology is Maoist communism. Reunifying China is thus kind of a priority.
ttul 3y ago
Assuming the Chinese manage to occupy Taiwan, they would no doubt want to take over TSMC’s facilities and hold them as a bargaining chip to normalize relations with the West. They’d swiftly run out of essential components such as silicon wafers (from Japan), but the CCPC might just try their luck.
toast0 3y ago
> In exchange for taking that land mass, their entire international trade business which mainland china is extremely reliant on, would be in jeopardy. The thing is most of the world is also pretty reliant on international trade business with mainland China. The question is really about how willing the world is to disrupt their own economies in order to disrupt China's. Trade barriers against North Korea and Cuba are basically free for the other country, restricting access to energy imports from Iran or Russia imposes a real cost on the country raising the barriers, but even after decades of grumbling it's hard to find a supply chain for manufactured products that doesn't have a significant dependency on China. That makes it hard to fight a war with China, trade or otherwise.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  > hard to find a supply chain for manufactured products that doesn't have a significant dependency on China. That makes it hard to fight a war with China, trade or otherwise. You don't ban those products, you put big tariffs on them. That way, anyone who has the option to source stuff elsewhere does so. And you deliberately act erratically with tariffs - adding and removing them at short notice - so that lots of companies think it is just too risky to trade with China, and move manufacturing elsewhere as insurance. This playbook has been done before...
  - etempleton 3y ago
    And it is already happening. You see Apple, TSMC, and others moving rapidly to setup new manufacturing in India, Europe, North America and elsewhere.
mullingitover 3y ago
There's small matter of the gigantic trove of treasure. The Kuomintang took huge amounts of priceless Chinese artifacts when they fled to Taiwan, which are now in the National Palace Museum[1]. There's a case to be made that the CCP was on an iconoclastic spree and there was good reason to take the artifacts to Taiwan for safekeeping, but the fact remains that vast amounts of priceless Chinese relics are now in Taiwan. China would like them back and is willing to do more than ask politely. Taiwan can blow up the fabs, sure, but they're probably not going to blow up the relics. Chinese leadership would gain a historic amount of face by bringing them home. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Palace_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Palace_Museum
- snapcaster 3y ago
  You think these relics would be motivation for invasion?
  - mullingitover 3y ago
    I'd say a reason, not necessarily the reason. Taiwan rubbed China's face in it for decades, it seems like a long-held grudge: > During the 1960s and 1970s, the National Palace Museum was used by the Kuomintang to support its claim that the Republic of China was the sole legitimate government of all China, in that it was the sole preserver of traditional Chinese culture amid social change and the Cultural Revolution in mainland China, and tended to emphasize Chinese nationalism. Even though, if you read further down in the article, there's not as much acrimony about it in recent years. Still, China has had dreams to invade Taiwan for decades, mostly for nationalist reasons, and this is likely one of the reasons that's higher in the list.
philwelch 3y ago
There's a lot of people who ask questions about history or geopolitics that amount to, "why would <country> pursue <goal>?" when <goal> is a central ideologically motivating factor for <faction-that-controls-country>. The classic example being Germany's 1941 invasion of Russia--often derided as a strategic blunder in hindsight, except the rulers of Germany in 1941 had the conquest of Russia as their primary geopolitical goal in the first place. Likewise, the existence of Taiwan outside of CCP control is contrary to the goal of unifying all of China under CCP control.
droopyEyelids 3y ago
Taiwan relies on external materials as much or more than Manhattan. They have at best under a month's worth of food on the island, and other raw materials supply is measured in days. One thing people miss with the china/taiwan discussion is that China doesn't need to make a single violent move towards Taiwan to subdue it. A naval blockade would force Taiwan's capitulation in almost no time at all. Even a forceful blockade wouldn't be totally necessary, if China just passed any sort of sanction stopping the export of materials or food to Taiwan, prices would immediately become unsustainable on the island and it would also have to capitulate.
dehrmann 3y ago
> I still don't understand why China would possibly want to try and invade Taiwan? China has no access to the open ocean. The US has bases and strong allies (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Singapore) surrounding it.
- jandrese 3y ago
  If China managed to have their oceangoing trade sanctioned by the US and their allies, who are they trading with? Russia? The Middle East? Both of which the country shares enormous land borders with. Not to mention that this would involve the US crushing its own economy in order to create the sanctions. About the only thing that could trigger a response like that would be an invasion of an allied country... As far as a casus belli it is a stretch at best. The kind of thing you have to put forward because the population at large wouldn't accept your real reason.
FredPret 3y ago
Never discount the possibility that someone / thing important might be an idiot
George83728 3y ago
It's not about the chips. It was never about the chips.
elzbardico 3y ago
For the same reason Russia invaded Ukraine: American interference.
etempleton 3y ago
Why did Russia invade Ukraine? Same reason. It has nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with ideology and projecting power.
layer8 3y ago
Taiwan is of major geostrategic importance for economic (trade routes) and military control in the region. See here for example for further reading: https://thediplomat.com/2016/03/how-chinese-analysts-understand-taiwans-geostrategic-significance/ https://thediplomat.com/2016/03/how-chinese-analysts-underst...

IlliOnato 3y ago

I still don't understand how Russia (the country where I was born) would possibly want and invade Ukraine... But it did.

SXX 3y ago
No idea why you being downvoted. I as owner of Russian passport even been to Kiev in December 2021 and talked with a lot of friends and just normal people there on gamedev conference. There been a lot of tension for 8 years since 2014 and even more during 2021. Yet no matter political views no one in either Russia or Ukraine seriously considered full scale war possible. Conclusion: there no way to know what is inside a head of aging autocrat.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  > no matter political views no one in either Russia or Ukraine seriously considered full scale war possible. Plenty of experts have been calling it for a decade now... EU/US influence has been slowly creeping east for 30 years. Russia had no other options really - as soon as a pro-west leader was elected to Ukraine, war was inevitable. And the same will happen in Belarus when the leadership changes there too.
  - murkt 3y ago
    What is this “no other options” bullshit? They could just not attack Ukraine and that’s it. Nobody would attack Russia.
    - londons_explore 3y ago
      Have you visited any countries bordering Russia - Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan? If you do, you see quite odd things... You see children's playgrounds that have a big sign saying 'Proudly sponsored by the USA development fund", or "This bus route is made possible by the EU funding.". Why would the USA be using US taxpayer money to build children's playgrounds in Azerbaijan? It's all about a long term battle for hearts and minds... Be the 'good guys' to a 5 year old child now, and in 30 years that child is a voter and you can have influence over the whole country. Pretty smart moves... But I can see how Russia isn't happy about it.
      - ceejayoz 3y ago
        "We invaded with tanks because the other guy funded a playground" is a hell of a take.
        willcipriano 3y ago
        [flagged]
        ericmay 3y ago
        I agree. Once Putin had Trump there in power he sensed that the country was weak and decided to take action thinking that the Americans were too preoccupied with trying to be some semblance of government and international relations back to order once Biden won the election. Problem was that the Biden admin actually has experience and capabilities, and the Ukrainians decided to fight for their country and now Russia is finding out that they made a pretty poor move based on faulty assumptions. > We have no leg to stand on 1) At some point we get our legs to stand on back - supporting Ukraine actually has gone a long way in the eyes of Europe and allies in the Pacific. 2) Not having a leg to stand on doesn't matter because we can do wrong things and then also criticize others when they do wrong things. 3) EU member states and other nations have legs to stand on and they also support the American position on Ukraine.
  - hkpack 3y ago
    It was not inevitable, it was a decision, a choice made by specific people. They do everything in their power to make you believe that is was inevitable to divert the blame. Same with Taiwan. It is a choice for China to make - to invade or not.
  - stickyricky 3y ago
    ?? Has the West moved east or did Eastern Europe run to the West out of fear of their neighbor? But yes. US influence snuck up on Russia and tricked those countries into being scared of it. Its all so clear now...
Flatcircle 3y ago
That’s the thing, taking Ukraine gives Russia several advantages, Ukraine produces a lot of the agriculture in that region, so taking that gives them another large bargaining chip in their sphere. Not to mention, it’s a large landmass that offers a huge buffer between the NATO countries and Russia. And it’s got another 40 or 50 million people for Russia, which has a population problem. And it’s got iron & Steel exports… Taiwan has TSMC. And I suspect the US has a bunch of fueled up C-17’s ready to take all the important infrastructure to the US and plans in place to effectively destroy the rest at a moments notice.
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  Why are you looking at China though such different lense? Taiwan is exactly like Crimea or Cuba strategically speaking. Please don’t invade any countries even if they’re smaller and inconvenient to your stories.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  > And it’s got another 40 or 50 million people for Russia, which has a population problem. Taking 40M people with the same demographic problems gives you a bigger problem - not a solution...
  - SXX 3y ago
    Nice source: https://www.populationpyramid.net/russian-federation/2020/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/russian-federation/2020/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/ukraine/2020/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/ukraine/2020/ In 10 years demographic in both countries will be as bad as in Japan.
  - Flatcircle 3y ago
    I agree I don't think it'd help Putin or anything, I'm just saying that if they took Ukraine, he'd add another 42 million people to the 133 million he already rules over. That's about a third more people to rule over, and he's not concerned about the later years of a peasant Russian. I assume he's concerned with more able bodied young men, which, ironically is a cohort he lacks while he tries to capture the country he's trying to obtain to help with that problem.
tinus_hn 3y ago
A number of reasons including * because they could (or so they thought) * because there’s a lot of important resources in the ground * because they want to lay down the border between NATO and Russia and preferably not at the border of Russia but on someone else’s turf
jasmer 3y ago
It's really odd to fathom who someone would not understand why Xi wants to take Taiwan, and 'chips' has nothing to do with it. People need to take a much, much broader mindset. China views Taiwan as part of China, and that's that. I personally don't, and the Taiwanese population ought to chose what they want without material interference, and 'we' should respect that by recognizing their sovereignty and statehood if that's what they want, much like at this point we ought to be recognizing Palestine as a state, if that's what they want. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is pure classical Imperialism, Ukraine is a 'sub Russian vassal' and Russian Imperialism is part of the Russian identity - it was 'secularized' during the time of USSR, now it's just old school. If you look at geopolitics from the 19th century it's all very clear. That said, it is odd Apple would do this in Taiwan, and, it's a much bigger jump than people think. This is a bold move and will reshape what Apple is, and maybe what a true international megacorp of the future looks like. It could also make them more fragile and if they start to falter, it could really fall apart. You need a lot to work well for this to be pulled off.

jmartrican 3y ago

How do you deduce that the foundry's will be scuttled? I'm not saying they won't be. But I can foresee a world where too many people who care about these foundry's regardless of which political party is in charge, would prevent them from being scuttled. And also, China might have insiders in Taiwan that might prevent the scuttling and make sure they are preserved.

dTal 3y ago
It wouldn't take many disgruntled employees to scuttle it themselves. It's much easier to ruin delicate expensive equipment than to preserve it in working order.
- jmartrican 3y ago
  These workers have opinions and their opinions might not be the same as yours. They might not be as pro-western as you may believe. They also have imagination and can imagine a world where they are better off under China with this equipment working then under China without this equipment working. Either way, the point is that its not a sure thing that this equipment would be scuttled.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    > better off under China with this equipment working then under China without this equipment working. This. If an enemy is invading your country and looks likely to succeed, then the important thing for you as a citizen isn't defending your homeland - it is making sure you have a future in the new country under new governance. That might well involve being the guy with all the knowledge to get the chip fab going again. The US hasn't lost many wars in their homeland, so most citizens haven't really thought of their options...
    - astrange 3y ago
      There aren't any such guys. Running TSMC is a stack of many different levels of sole suppliers from different companies (US, Netherlands, Japan, even sort of Ukraine for neon.)

bitwize 3y ago

The fact that Taiwan exists disrupts the official narrative that there is only one China and its ideology is Maoist communism. Reunifying China is thus kind of a priority.

ttul 3y ago

Assuming the Chinese manage to occupy Taiwan, they would no doubt want to take over TSMC’s facilities and hold them as a bargaining chip to normalize relations with the West. They’d swiftly run out of essential components such as silicon wafers (from Japan), but the CCPC might just try their luck.

toast0 3y ago

> In exchange for taking that land mass, their entire international trade business which mainland china is extremely reliant on, would be in jeopardy. The thing is most of the world is also pretty reliant on international trade business with mainland China. The question is really about how willing the world is to disrupt their own economies in order to disrupt China's. Trade barriers against North Korea and Cuba are basically free for the other country, restricting access to energy imports from Iran or Russia imposes a real cost on the country raising the barriers, but even after decades of grumbling it's hard to find a supply chain for manufactured products that doesn't have a significant dependency on China. That makes it hard to fight a war with China, trade or otherwise.

londons_explore 3y ago
> hard to find a supply chain for manufactured products that doesn't have a significant dependency on China. That makes it hard to fight a war with China, trade or otherwise. You don't ban those products, you put big tariffs on them. That way, anyone who has the option to source stuff elsewhere does so. And you deliberately act erratically with tariffs - adding and removing them at short notice - so that lots of companies think it is just too risky to trade with China, and move manufacturing elsewhere as insurance. This playbook has been done before...
- etempleton 3y ago
  And it is already happening. You see Apple, TSMC, and others moving rapidly to setup new manufacturing in India, Europe, North America and elsewhere.

mullingitover 3y ago

There's small matter of the gigantic trove of treasure. The Kuomintang took huge amounts of priceless Chinese artifacts when they fled to Taiwan, which are now in the National Palace Museum[1]. There's a case to be made that the CCP was on an iconoclastic spree and there was good reason to take the artifacts to Taiwan for safekeeping, but the fact remains that vast amounts of priceless Chinese relics are now in Taiwan. China would like them back and is willing to do more than ask politely. Taiwan can blow up the fabs, sure, but they're probably not going to blow up the relics. Chinese leadership would gain a historic amount of face by bringing them home. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Palace_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Palace_Museum

snapcaster 3y ago
You think these relics would be motivation for invasion?
- mullingitover 3y ago
  I'd say a reason, not necessarily the reason. Taiwan rubbed China's face in it for decades, it seems like a long-held grudge: > During the 1960s and 1970s, the National Palace Museum was used by the Kuomintang to support its claim that the Republic of China was the sole legitimate government of all China, in that it was the sole preserver of traditional Chinese culture amid social change and the Cultural Revolution in mainland China, and tended to emphasize Chinese nationalism. Even though, if you read further down in the article, there's not as much acrimony about it in recent years. Still, China has had dreams to invade Taiwan for decades, mostly for nationalist reasons, and this is likely one of the reasons that's higher in the list.

philwelch 3y ago

There's a lot of people who ask questions about history or geopolitics that amount to, "why would <country> pursue <goal>?" when <goal> is a central ideologically motivating factor for <faction-that-controls-country>. The classic example being Germany's 1941 invasion of Russia--often derided as a strategic blunder in hindsight, except the rulers of Germany in 1941 had the conquest of Russia as their primary geopolitical goal in the first place. Likewise, the existence of Taiwan outside of CCP control is contrary to the goal of unifying all of China under CCP control.

droopyEyelids 3y ago

Taiwan relies on external materials as much or more than Manhattan. They have at best under a month's worth of food on the island, and other raw materials supply is measured in days. One thing people miss with the china/taiwan discussion is that China doesn't need to make a single violent move towards Taiwan to subdue it. A naval blockade would force Taiwan's capitulation in almost no time at all. Even a forceful blockade wouldn't be totally necessary, if China just passed any sort of sanction stopping the export of materials or food to Taiwan, prices would immediately become unsustainable on the island and it would also have to capitulate.

dehrmann 3y ago

> I still don't understand why China would possibly want to try and invade Taiwan? China has no access to the open ocean. The US has bases and strong allies (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Singapore) surrounding it.

jandrese 3y ago
If China managed to have their oceangoing trade sanctioned by the US and their allies, who are they trading with? Russia? The Middle East? Both of which the country shares enormous land borders with. Not to mention that this would involve the US crushing its own economy in order to create the sanctions. About the only thing that could trigger a response like that would be an invasion of an allied country... As far as a casus belli it is a stretch at best. The kind of thing you have to put forward because the population at large wouldn't accept your real reason.

FredPret 3y ago

Never discount the possibility that someone / thing important might be an idiot

George83728 3y ago

It's not about the chips. It was never about the chips.

elzbardico 3y ago

For the same reason Russia invaded Ukraine: American interference.

etempleton 3y ago

Why did Russia invade Ukraine? Same reason. It has nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with ideology and projecting power.

layer8 3y ago

Taiwan is of major geostrategic importance for economic (trade routes) and military control in the region. See here for example for further reading: https://thediplomat.com/2016/03/how-chinese-analysts-understand-taiwans-geostrategic-significance/ https://thediplomat.com/2016/03/how-chinese-analysts-underst...