7 ms·

This is said by "Rep. Seth Moulton (Mass.) — one of the Democratic Party’s leading voices on defense": Speaking at a Milken Institute panel in Los Angeles, Mou

This is said by "Rep. Seth Moulton (Mass.) — one of the Democratic Party’s leading voices on defense": Speaking at a Milken Institute panel in Los Angeles, Moulton said: “One of the interesting ideas that’s been floated out there for deterrence is just making it very clear to the Chinese that if you invade Taiwan, we’re going to blow up TSMC.” He continued: “I just throw that out not because that’s necessarily the best strategy, but because it’s an example of the debate that’s out there. And of course, the Taiwanese really don’t like this idea.” [1] [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/12/microchips-us-taiwan-strategy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/12/microchip...

SanjayMehta 3y ago
That’s a bizarre idea. China wants Taiwan because they consider it a renegade province. I doubt they care about one fab.
- WiSaGaN 3y ago
  It's dangerous strategically for the US to believe that China's motivation is about TSMC. "Taiwan" might not even be just a "CCP" goal. In fact, the "CCP" wouldn't likely survive without making unification a priority.
  - 3seashells 3y ago
    Hate for the outsiders, the traditional authoritarian pressure valve.
- blackoil 3y ago
  Yeah. China has its stance consistently since 1940s, it is not that they woke up about Taiwan in 2010. It is more of a scorched earth plan. There isn't much of interest to US beyond TSMC. As long as it doesn't fall in hand of China, rest it will be OK to loose.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    It would only have been since 1949, and they gave up their best chance to retake Taiwan (while the Americans weren’t interested) to meddle in Korea instead. The Americans don’t really care that much about TSMC. Its fabs are highly dependent on parts, material, etc from more secured countries, which is by design, or they would have never allowed semiconductor industries to be setup in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. They have much of the process locked up and a chip only gets made via free trade from multiple countries (with a lot of fate keeping by key allies, like the Dutch).
    - aragonite 3y ago
      > ... they gave up their best chance to retake Taiwan (while the Americans weren’t interested) to meddle in Korea instead. My understanding of the timeline/causation in 1950 is the other way around. Initially China was only going to offer largely moral support to North Korea. On June 27 the U.S. Seventh Fleet was sent to the Taiwan Strait to prevent PRC from taking Taiwan. This was a factor in China's decision to enter the Korean War in October. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/taiwan-strait-crises https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/taiwan-strait... > U.S. policy toward East Asia in the early Cold War contributed to the tensions in the Taiwan Strait. In late 1949 and early 1950, American officials were prepared to let PRC forces cross the Strait and defeat Chiang, but after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, the United States sent its Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent the Korean conflict from spreading south. The appearance of the Seventh Fleet angered the Chinese Communists, who transferred their troops poised for an invasion of Taiwan to the Korean front. This served to delay military conflict in the Strait until the United States withdrew its fleet after the Korean War. http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1069/explaining-chinas-intervention-in-the-korean-war-in-1950 http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1069/explaining-chi... > In fact, at the initial stage, China took a passive response to the situation in North Korea. Besides moral support for Kim, the only material support provided by Beijing at the time was to send approximately 14,000 Korean Chinese who were then serving in the PLA back to Korea.8 However, three subsequent events dramatically changed Beijing’s attitudes. > The first is that on June 27, the U.S. Seventh Fleet was sent to the Taiwan Strait to ‘neutralise’ the situation. ...
- dralley 3y ago
  I agree that it goes much much deeper than TSMC, but it's a bit dismissive to call TSMC "one fab". It's the leading edge fab and deeply ingrained in a very large number and wide variety of supply chains in a way that Intel and Samsung are not at the moment.
- duxup 3y ago
  Yeah I always assumed Taiwan was an ideological / historical kinda thing. It could be all but a barren rock, same feelings and motivations would apply.
- rjzzleep 3y ago
  It goes beyond that, the more "renegade" Taiwan is in its rhetoric and the more the US increases the MIC investments in Taiwan the more militant China is about "repatriating" Taiwan and the faster they want it achieved. Nobody really cares that much about renegade provinces until they seem like a threat. The US famously called Taiwan the unsinkable aircraft carrier in the pacific[1]. It doesn't really matter that Taiwanese people themselves don't want to fight China. If the Europeans and the US were serious about Taiwan's independence they would have built up Taiwan's defense industry and supported it's independence in the UN, when they were at the height of their power, but they specifically did not, they actually voted against any attempt of Taiwan to be admitted to the UN(to be fair the Republic of China in its constitution still considers itself the sole China). At the time Taiwan was an economic powerhouse and they had some of the biggest shipyards in the world. Right now the US cannot at all compare with China in terms of military industrial output, here's what the US Navy secretary general had to say about the topic[2]. Basically AUKUS is subsidizing US shipbuilding. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_aircraft_carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_aircraft_carrier [2] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/22/asia/us-navy-chief-china-pla-advantages-intl-hnk-ml/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/22/asia/us-navy-chief-china-...
- 3seashells 3y ago
  Everyone can dig out ancient maps and declare something renegade. Defacto Taiwan is a independent nation, with a very different (not purged aka original) Chinese culture. Russia claims Ukraine, Poland and GDr to be renegade provinces. Should we just accept that.
  - xtian 3y ago
    The governing authority in Taiwan also considers it part of historical China. The goal was to eventually retake the mainland with foreign assistance, and the independent nation idea only emerged after that became obviously impossible.
  - SanjayMehta 3y ago
    Old maps are the reason for the continuing border disputes between India and China. Every few years they pull out their maps and we pull out our maps.
  - foverzar 3y ago
    > Russia claims Ukraine, Poland and GDr to be renegade provinces False. There might be some discussion around Ukraine and its historic role as an integral part of Russia's culture and history - and thus, where would an actual border between two peoples (including a cultural one) will be carved when shit gets fucked. But mixing up Poland or even GDR into this is nonsense narrative that does not exist. Also, the historic reason behind PRC issues with Republic of China (Taiwan) is the fact that both state being the "One True China" as the core of their national myth. The practical issues are of course deterring a potential military threat. Everything else is just pointless rhetorics.
georgeplusplus 3y ago
[flagged]
- throwaway1492 3y ago
  Who thought the crypto currency killer app would be payouts to corrupt politicians and influencers?
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
None of Taiwan’s fans can run for very long without parts and replacement machinery from the USA or Europe. The tech is pretty locked down, even if production is currently distributed. China doesn’t have much choice but it re-invent the engineering done in the west to catch up (on economical perf, not just perf or economical). I don’t think the economists get this, but definitely people in the Chinese government are aware that taking Taiwan doesn’t really get them the tech.
- baybal2 3y ago
  [dead]
- taskforcegemini 3y ago
  how big is the issue for china compared to for the west if tsmc blows up?
snehk 3y ago
> And of course, the Taiwanese really don’t like this idea. Reminds me of when Biden was standing next to the German chancellor and said he'd make sure Nord Stream would be stopped if Russia ever invaded Ukraine and then when Russia invaded Ukraine and Nord Stream was blown up, everyone just ignored it.
- peteradio 3y ago
  No point in admitting to something that can only be used against you.
- calyth2018 3y ago
  Don't worry, there are plenty of doublethink practitioners who believes that Russia blew up Nord Stream, pipelines that supplies Russian gas to Germany that Russia already turned off the tap at the source. Look at the incentives and consequences of blowing up TSMC if China uses the military. China would not have access to the high end chips; Taiwan loses a bargaining chip of its own, and would suffer a huge economic cost (a lot of electricity is used up by TSMC alone); and US is the one who gets to point at the big bad PRC throwing weapons at ROC, and know that PRC gets a road block on the semiconductor front.
- Paradigma11 3y ago
  We pretty much know that it was Ukraine but there are more important things going on so it is on the backburner till the crisis is over. The main impetus behind NS was not to create new additional supply lines but to become independent from the Ukraine pipelines. In the end this is a matter between Ukraine and Germany and nobody cares what Russia thinks.

SanjayMehta 3y ago

That’s a bizarre idea. China wants Taiwan because they consider it a renegade province. I doubt they care about one fab.

WiSaGaN 3y ago
It's dangerous strategically for the US to believe that China's motivation is about TSMC. "Taiwan" might not even be just a "CCP" goal. In fact, the "CCP" wouldn't likely survive without making unification a priority.
- 3seashells 3y ago
  Hate for the outsiders, the traditional authoritarian pressure valve.
blackoil 3y ago
Yeah. China has its stance consistently since 1940s, it is not that they woke up about Taiwan in 2010. It is more of a scorched earth plan. There isn't much of interest to US beyond TSMC. As long as it doesn't fall in hand of China, rest it will be OK to loose.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  It would only have been since 1949, and they gave up their best chance to retake Taiwan (while the Americans weren’t interested) to meddle in Korea instead. The Americans don’t really care that much about TSMC. Its fabs are highly dependent on parts, material, etc from more secured countries, which is by design, or they would have never allowed semiconductor industries to be setup in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. They have much of the process locked up and a chip only gets made via free trade from multiple countries (with a lot of fate keeping by key allies, like the Dutch).
  - aragonite 3y ago
    > ... they gave up their best chance to retake Taiwan (while the Americans weren’t interested) to meddle in Korea instead. My understanding of the timeline/causation in 1950 is the other way around. Initially China was only going to offer largely moral support to North Korea. On June 27 the U.S. Seventh Fleet was sent to the Taiwan Strait to prevent PRC from taking Taiwan. This was a factor in China's decision to enter the Korean War in October. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/taiwan-strait-crises https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/taiwan-strait... > U.S. policy toward East Asia in the early Cold War contributed to the tensions in the Taiwan Strait. In late 1949 and early 1950, American officials were prepared to let PRC forces cross the Strait and defeat Chiang, but after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, the United States sent its Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent the Korean conflict from spreading south. The appearance of the Seventh Fleet angered the Chinese Communists, who transferred their troops poised for an invasion of Taiwan to the Korean front. This served to delay military conflict in the Strait until the United States withdrew its fleet after the Korean War. http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1069/explaining-chinas-intervention-in-the-korean-war-in-1950 http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1069/explaining-chi... > In fact, at the initial stage, China took a passive response to the situation in North Korea. Besides moral support for Kim, the only material support provided by Beijing at the time was to send approximately 14,000 Korean Chinese who were then serving in the PLA back to Korea.8 However, three subsequent events dramatically changed Beijing’s attitudes. > The first is that on June 27, the U.S. Seventh Fleet was sent to the Taiwan Strait to ‘neutralise’ the situation. ...
dralley 3y ago
I agree that it goes much much deeper than TSMC, but it's a bit dismissive to call TSMC "one fab". It's the leading edge fab and deeply ingrained in a very large number and wide variety of supply chains in a way that Intel and Samsung are not at the moment.
duxup 3y ago
Yeah I always assumed Taiwan was an ideological / historical kinda thing. It could be all but a barren rock, same feelings and motivations would apply.
rjzzleep 3y ago
It goes beyond that, the more "renegade" Taiwan is in its rhetoric and the more the US increases the MIC investments in Taiwan the more militant China is about "repatriating" Taiwan and the faster they want it achieved. Nobody really cares that much about renegade provinces until they seem like a threat. The US famously called Taiwan the unsinkable aircraft carrier in the pacific[1]. It doesn't really matter that Taiwanese people themselves don't want to fight China. If the Europeans and the US were serious about Taiwan's independence they would have built up Taiwan's defense industry and supported it's independence in the UN, when they were at the height of their power, but they specifically did not, they actually voted against any attempt of Taiwan to be admitted to the UN(to be fair the Republic of China in its constitution still considers itself the sole China). At the time Taiwan was an economic powerhouse and they had some of the biggest shipyards in the world. Right now the US cannot at all compare with China in terms of military industrial output, here's what the US Navy secretary general had to say about the topic[2]. Basically AUKUS is subsidizing US shipbuilding. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_aircraft_carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_aircraft_carrier [2] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/22/asia/us-navy-chief-china-pla-advantages-intl-hnk-ml/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/22/asia/us-navy-chief-china-...
3seashells 3y ago
Everyone can dig out ancient maps and declare something renegade. Defacto Taiwan is a independent nation, with a very different (not purged aka original) Chinese culture. Russia claims Ukraine, Poland and GDr to be renegade provinces. Should we just accept that.
- xtian 3y ago
  The governing authority in Taiwan also considers it part of historical China. The goal was to eventually retake the mainland with foreign assistance, and the independent nation idea only emerged after that became obviously impossible.
- SanjayMehta 3y ago
  Old maps are the reason for the continuing border disputes between India and China. Every few years they pull out their maps and we pull out our maps.
- foverzar 3y ago
  > Russia claims Ukraine, Poland and GDr to be renegade provinces False. There might be some discussion around Ukraine and its historic role as an integral part of Russia's culture and history - and thus, where would an actual border between two peoples (including a cultural one) will be carved when shit gets fucked. But mixing up Poland or even GDR into this is nonsense narrative that does not exist. Also, the historic reason behind PRC issues with Republic of China (Taiwan) is the fact that both state being the "One True China" as the core of their national myth. The practical issues are of course deterring a potential military threat. Everything else is just pointless rhetorics.

georgeplusplus 3y ago

[flagged]

throwaway1492 3y ago
Who thought the crypto currency killer app would be payouts to corrupt politicians and influencers?

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

None of Taiwan’s fans can run for very long without parts and replacement machinery from the USA or Europe. The tech is pretty locked down, even if production is currently distributed. China doesn’t have much choice but it re-invent the engineering done in the west to catch up (on economical perf, not just perf or economical). I don’t think the economists get this, but definitely people in the Chinese government are aware that taking Taiwan doesn’t really get them the tech.

baybal2 3y ago
[dead]
taskforcegemini 3y ago
how big is the issue for china compared to for the west if tsmc blows up?

snehk 3y ago

> And of course, the Taiwanese really don’t like this idea. Reminds me of when Biden was standing next to the German chancellor and said he'd make sure Nord Stream would be stopped if Russia ever invaded Ukraine and then when Russia invaded Ukraine and Nord Stream was blown up, everyone just ignored it.

peteradio 3y ago
No point in admitting to something that can only be used against you.
calyth2018 3y ago
Don't worry, there are plenty of doublethink practitioners who believes that Russia blew up Nord Stream, pipelines that supplies Russian gas to Germany that Russia already turned off the tap at the source. Look at the incentives and consequences of blowing up TSMC if China uses the military. China would not have access to the high end chips; Taiwan loses a bargaining chip of its own, and would suffer a huge economic cost (a lot of electricity is used up by TSMC alone); and US is the one who gets to point at the big bad PRC throwing weapons at ROC, and know that PRC gets a road block on the semiconductor front.
Paradigma11 3y ago
We pretty much know that it was Ukraine but there are more important things going on so it is on the backburner till the crisis is over. The main impetus behind NS was not to create new additional supply lines but to become independent from the Ukraine pipelines. In the end this is a matter between Ukraine and Germany and nobody cares what Russia thinks.