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TSMC, as a business, has nothing to fear from a mainland takeover beyond the risk of losing some overseas customers. It would be in the mainland's interest to k

TSMC, as a business, has nothing to fear from a mainland takeover beyond the risk of losing some overseas customers. It would be in the mainland's interest to keep TSMC running as smoothly as possible, like they did in HK. Diversifying outside of Taiwan is for the benefit of the US and allies. As you mention, for Taiwan this is a bad strategic move but they have no choice but to comply. > What matters a great deal more is India, Australia, Japan, and SK China has no military interest in any of those. Taiwan is Chinese territory. At most China might be interested in the part of historical Tibet that is now in India (and which it still claims) but realistically a war is no longer viable or realistic.

dev1ycan 3y ago
China won't do anything drastic to Taiwan/TSMC in fact they will prob keep their elections going just like with HK. The thing however is TSMC will suffer because once the US recognizes it as Chinese controlled territory, TSMC will be unable to buy EUV machines so their production will basically freeze at its current spot
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  Yes, the US would want to do that. But as things stand currently this would have to be balanced with the existence of alternatives to TSMC. This why the US want TSMC to build fabs in the West and affiliates.
- SR2Z 3y ago
  HK "elections" are a farce these days - only pro-China folk are allowed on the ballot. TSMC fabs in Taiwan would NOT belong to TSMC after an invasion, except maybe in name only.
  - dev1ycan 3y ago
    Democratic elections are a farce in general, only the $$ power behind allow candidates to run, right now it's always pro democracy candidates because the money behind them want them to, once the money comes from mainland China it becomes pro integration candidates. Anyone who believes otherwise is blind to reality.
    - hnfong 3y ago
      You've been out of date regarding Hong Kong politics for ~3 years mate. Probably should check out the latest developments before lecturing others about reality.
    - blackhawkC17 3y ago
      > Democratic elections are a farce in general, only the $$ power behind allow candidates to run, right now it's always pro democracy candidates because the money behind them want them to, once the money comes from mainland China it becomes pro integration candidates. This is frankly silly. Democracy has many issues, but that doesn't mean there's a cabal pulling strings behind choosing the candidates. The above is the typical excuse of autocrats and dictators that want to discredit democracy, even though it's by far the best governance model compared to the nonsense they want.
- Muromec 3y ago
  With the precision needed for lithography machine to run, I wander how they even managed to survive so far in such a seismically active place. Any military farting too loud in the vicinity of those machines and they don’t even freeze
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
zenapollo 3y ago
> nothing to fear Except any executive or employee not willing to bend the knee and gargle will be fired or perhaps a re-education retreat.
bell-cot 3y ago
> It would be in the mainland's interest to keep TSMC running... It would also be in the mainland's interests to not be engaging in a massive military build-up. Similar for quite a few major policies and behaviors which they've been indulging in for years now. Perhaps the CCP is not a rational actor, at least as we might prefer to account such things?
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  If China built its military in the same way the US did it would still have to grow by orders of magnitude... are the US the crazy ones, then? Or are there rational aims there?
Detrytus 3y ago
> Taiwan is Chinese territory. Historically, it would be more accurate to say that China is Taiwanese territory ;) > It would be in the mainland's interest to keep TSMC running as smoothly as possible, like they did in HK. Well, maybe, but they surely would redirect the output to China instead of selling it worldwide. Which is why the US would rather nuke the TSMC factories themselves than let them fall into Chinese hands. So, no matter who wins a military conflict for Taiwan TSMC most likely gets nuked by the losing side.
rhelz 3y ago
If there ever were a war between China and Taiwan, I think how cheap our chips are would be one of the least of our worries. If the U.S. got dragged into it, nobody would be worried about chip prices for the next ten thousand years. Diversifying the fab locations has no profit or business motivation. Seems to me the only reason we are doing it is to make it "less risky" to start a trade war. The problem is a trade war will never be "less risky" for any country than the kind of nice, harmonious, trade we've had with China for the past 25 years. Its kept U.S. inflation low, enabled massive technological and manufacturing advances, and has lifted hundreds of millions of people into the middle class. Its one of the best things that's ever happened in history. Why are we so eager to throw all that away? Frankly, instead of making it easier for everybody to pick a fight with each other, it would be better if we just remember the fact that we actually are friends. I love being able to design a circuit board, hit a button and have it manufactured in China and delivered to my front door in 5 days for $25. Let's just all go back to making money hand over fist, what say?
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  The US would never go to war against China. It is simply unrealistic. It'd be calibrated support like we're seeing in Ukraine but no direct engagement.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    So was World War I unrealistic. I mean, look, I'm not in favor of a shooting war between the US and China. But I'm not as sanguine as you are that it can't happen.
    - rhelz 3y ago
      > World War I unrealistic. We're not talking about the first world war, we're talking about what would be the final world war. We can't be sanguine about it not happening, sure--we need to ensure it doesn't happen.
  - hmmmcurious1 3y ago
adrian_b 3y ago
> Taiwan is Chinese territory. Taiwan can be a Chinese territory only according to the law "might is right". For millenia, Taiwan has not been a Chinese territory. Only during the last few centuries there has been a massive migration of Fujian Chinese into Taiwan that has altered its population. Then after WWII Taiwan has been invaded by the Kuomintang, which has altered again the population of the island, so that now the non-Chinese native inhabitants have remained just a small minority. Taiwan has been officially a territory belonging to mainland China only between 1683 and 1895, which is a rather weak basis for claiming that Taiwan is a Chinese territory, not much better than claiming that Alaska is a Russian territory.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  How long does a territory has to be part of a country for you to recognise it? If I look at a world map from "millenia" ago, or even just 1683 then by your logic most of the world's countries are built on a "weak basis", often even weaker than that... We all now the tricky political situation of Taiwan but sometimes some people seem to lose all sense of basic reality and facts about it.
  - adrian_b 3y ago
    You have missed my point. This is not the case of a territory that a country controls now, even if it has occupied it only recently (e.g. like Tibet), when nobody can contest that they are not the owners of the territory, unless they would be willing to attack them, to change the current ownership of the territory by force. This is the case of a territory that is not controlled by the country that desires to be its owner, and it has not been controlled by it since 1895. Despite that, they want to change the de facto ownership of the territory, which can be done only by force. The fact that some corrupt politicians from many countries have decided that de jure Taiwan should belong to China, without any grounds for this, so that they have given to China what was not theirs to give, is something as valid as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, where Hitler, despite not being the owner of Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Romania, has nonetheless given them to Russia, or the Churchill-Roosevelt-Stalin accords, where Churchill and Roosevelt, despite not being the owners of Eastern Europe, have given it to Stalin. There are other such cases where a country desires to become the owner of some territory, but they at least can justify their claims by the fact that the desired territory has actually belonged to them for a long time and it had been taken from them by force, so that it would be right for the territory to have its ownership reverted. In this case such historical claims have little value, because Taiwan has become Chinese only recently and only by force, first during the Qing dynasty and then due to the Kuomintang invasion.

dev1ycan 3y ago

China won't do anything drastic to Taiwan/TSMC in fact they will prob keep their elections going just like with HK. The thing however is TSMC will suffer because once the US recognizes it as Chinese controlled territory, TSMC will be unable to buy EUV machines so their production will basically freeze at its current spot

mytailorisrich 3y ago
Yes, the US would want to do that. But as things stand currently this would have to be balanced with the existence of alternatives to TSMC. This why the US want TSMC to build fabs in the West and affiliates.
SR2Z 3y ago
HK "elections" are a farce these days - only pro-China folk are allowed on the ballot. TSMC fabs in Taiwan would NOT belong to TSMC after an invasion, except maybe in name only.
- dev1ycan 3y ago
  Democratic elections are a farce in general, only the $$ power behind allow candidates to run, right now it's always pro democracy candidates because the money behind them want them to, once the money comes from mainland China it becomes pro integration candidates. Anyone who believes otherwise is blind to reality.
  - hnfong 3y ago
    You've been out of date regarding Hong Kong politics for ~3 years mate. Probably should check out the latest developments before lecturing others about reality.
  - blackhawkC17 3y ago
    > Democratic elections are a farce in general, only the $$ power behind allow candidates to run, right now it's always pro democracy candidates because the money behind them want them to, once the money comes from mainland China it becomes pro integration candidates. This is frankly silly. Democracy has many issues, but that doesn't mean there's a cabal pulling strings behind choosing the candidates. The above is the typical excuse of autocrats and dictators that want to discredit democracy, even though it's by far the best governance model compared to the nonsense they want.
Muromec 3y ago
With the precision needed for lithography machine to run, I wander how they even managed to survive so far in such a seismically active place. Any military farting too loud in the vicinity of those machines and they don’t even freeze

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

zenapollo 3y ago

> nothing to fear Except any executive or employee not willing to bend the knee and gargle will be fired or perhaps a re-education retreat.

bell-cot 3y ago

> It would be in the mainland's interest to keep TSMC running... It would also be in the mainland's interests to not be engaging in a massive military build-up. Similar for quite a few major policies and behaviors which they've been indulging in for years now. Perhaps the CCP is not a rational actor, at least as we might prefer to account such things?

mytailorisrich 3y ago
If China built its military in the same way the US did it would still have to grow by orders of magnitude... are the US the crazy ones, then? Or are there rational aims there?

Detrytus 3y ago

> Taiwan is Chinese territory. Historically, it would be more accurate to say that China is Taiwanese territory ;) > It would be in the mainland's interest to keep TSMC running as smoothly as possible, like they did in HK. Well, maybe, but they surely would redirect the output to China instead of selling it worldwide. Which is why the US would rather nuke the TSMC factories themselves than let them fall into Chinese hands. So, no matter who wins a military conflict for Taiwan TSMC most likely gets nuked by the losing side.

rhelz 3y ago

If there ever were a war between China and Taiwan, I think how cheap our chips are would be one of the least of our worries. If the U.S. got dragged into it, nobody would be worried about chip prices for the next ten thousand years. Diversifying the fab locations has no profit or business motivation. Seems to me the only reason we are doing it is to make it "less risky" to start a trade war. The problem is a trade war will never be "less risky" for any country than the kind of nice, harmonious, trade we've had with China for the past 25 years. Its kept U.S. inflation low, enabled massive technological and manufacturing advances, and has lifted hundreds of millions of people into the middle class. Its one of the best things that's ever happened in history. Why are we so eager to throw all that away? Frankly, instead of making it easier for everybody to pick a fight with each other, it would be better if we just remember the fact that we actually are friends. I love being able to design a circuit board, hit a button and have it manufactured in China and delivered to my front door in 5 days for $25. Let's just all go back to making money hand over fist, what say?

mytailorisrich 3y ago
The US would never go to war against China. It is simply unrealistic. It'd be calibrated support like we're seeing in Ukraine but no direct engagement.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  So was World War I unrealistic. I mean, look, I'm not in favor of a shooting war between the US and China. But I'm not as sanguine as you are that it can't happen.
  - rhelz 3y ago
    > World War I unrealistic. We're not talking about the first world war, we're talking about what would be the final world war. We can't be sanguine about it not happening, sure--we need to ensure it doesn't happen.
- hmmmcurious1 3y ago

adrian_b 3y ago

> Taiwan is Chinese territory. Taiwan can be a Chinese territory only according to the law "might is right". For millenia, Taiwan has not been a Chinese territory. Only during the last few centuries there has been a massive migration of Fujian Chinese into Taiwan that has altered its population. Then after WWII Taiwan has been invaded by the Kuomintang, which has altered again the population of the island, so that now the non-Chinese native inhabitants have remained just a small minority. Taiwan has been officially a territory belonging to mainland China only between 1683 and 1895, which is a rather weak basis for claiming that Taiwan is a Chinese territory, not much better than claiming that Alaska is a Russian territory.

mytailorisrich 3y ago
How long does a territory has to be part of a country for you to recognise it? If I look at a world map from "millenia" ago, or even just 1683 then by your logic most of the world's countries are built on a "weak basis", often even weaker than that... We all now the tricky political situation of Taiwan but sometimes some people seem to lose all sense of basic reality and facts about it.
- adrian_b 3y ago
  You have missed my point. This is not the case of a territory that a country controls now, even if it has occupied it only recently (e.g. like Tibet), when nobody can contest that they are not the owners of the territory, unless they would be willing to attack them, to change the current ownership of the territory by force. This is the case of a territory that is not controlled by the country that desires to be its owner, and it has not been controlled by it since 1895. Despite that, they want to change the de facto ownership of the territory, which can be done only by force. The fact that some corrupt politicians from many countries have decided that de jure Taiwan should belong to China, without any grounds for this, so that they have given to China what was not theirs to give, is something as valid as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, where Hitler, despite not being the owner of Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Romania, has nonetheless given them to Russia, or the Churchill-Roosevelt-Stalin accords, where Churchill and Roosevelt, despite not being the owners of Eastern Europe, have given it to Stalin. There are other such cases where a country desires to become the owner of some territory, but they at least can justify their claims by the fact that the desired territory has actually belonged to them for a long time and it had been taken from them by force, so that it would be right for the territory to have its ownership reverted. In this case such historical claims have little value, because Taiwan has become Chinese only recently and only by force, first during the Qing dynasty and then due to the Kuomintang invasion.