4 ms·

The point is redundancy in case China follows through on their threats to invade.

Pet_Ant 2y ago
This redundancy makes me worried that the US will view Taiwanese sovereignty as disposable. While the US has given much for the defence of Ukraine, it’s always been careful to make sure it’s not enough for Ukraine to win but only enough to make it expensive for Russia hopping they’ll reconsider. Russia has won there and I suspect they’ll joe be willing to let China have the islands now too.
- ekianjo 2y ago
  > Taiwanese sovereignty as disposable Your are describing the statu quo as almost no country officially recognizes Taiwan
- ForHackernews 2y ago
  Short of nuclear weapons, I'm not sure what would allow Ukraine to "win". Even given all the hardware, Ukraine doesn't have the staff or experience to field a full NATO air wing and integrate it to fight according to NATO combined arms doctrine -- if that even WOULD produce a "win" (there is an untested assumption that a NATO-standard military could trounce Russia)
  - XorNot 2y ago
    Ukraine needs to hold the line, keep Russia sanctioned and let it burn itself out economically...or wait for Putin to die. The Russian economy is grinding to dust right now, and the Soviet vehicle inheritance evaporating. At some point, they stop being able to pay workers and troops, and while martial law can keep things moving, it's all getting much more expensive after that. Putin has been very careful to try and keep the war awaybfrom his Moscow powerbase...so it's clear he recognises his authority and position is far from unlimited.
    - ForHackernews 2y ago
      I agree with all that, but none of that translates to a traditional battlefield triumph. Maybe providing more long-range weapons would enable symbolic strikes near Moscow or on oligarchs' dachas, but that's the only case I can think of where materiel might help with that strategy. Ukraine needs more soldiers, hard without full conscription, with the pool of heroic volunteers already committed, and it needs more artillery shells, that NATO can't readily supply because NATO never imagined playing quartermaster this kind of warfare in the 21st century.
      - actionfromafar 2y ago
        Ukraine can't even properly equip the soldiers it already has. Supporting countries could dig a lot deeper in their supplies, they will have ample time to rearm.
  - Pet_Ant 2y ago
    Ukraine needs boots on the ground. Finland and Poland from the West driving on Moscow for a regime change with the rest of NATO behind them. But apparently Ukraine are developing nuclear weapons so we'll see.
- phantomathkg 2y ago
  Selling the secret sauce to US definitely make Taiwan disposable. But I also bet TSMC doesn't have a choice as whoever in power in US can also impose sanction/tariff or whatever they can to make TSMC to compile.
  - Cumpiler69 2y ago
    TSMC is a publicly traded company and like all publicly traded companies it has no allegiance to any country (other than historical legacy and emotions) and will always relocate to where it's most safe and profitable for providing returns to its shareholders, just like how many profitable companies moved to UK, US and Switzerland during WW2 and how many EU companies are doing the same thing today. If the US will provide TSMC with better deals on all fronts than what the Taiwanese government can, then there's nothing that can stop them from slowly abandoning Taiwan and moving the HQ and vital operations to the US over time, especially that the Taiwanese government is not a major shareholder in TSMC.
    - boxed 2y ago
      Companies don't magically not have any humans in them as soon as they are on a stock market.
      - mistercheph 2y ago
        It's about as close as you can get though to capital efficiently allocating itself
      - Cumpiler69 2y ago
        How does this invalidate what I said? Have you heard of Operation Paperclip? The moment China steps in Taiwan, all those vital TSMC engineers will be flown to the US along with the critical IP and given a blank cheque to replicate Taiwan operation on US soil ASAP. TSMC is preemptively building the infrastructure there in preparation for such an event, so it can outlive whatever happens to Taiwan. TSMC has little inventive to tie itself to Taiwan and its people who are not its employees. Every big company thinks and acts like this. Taiwan can't force TSMC to stay there if it doesn't want to.
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  > they’ll be willing to let China have the islands now too The islands are Chinese. The US back Taiwan as an anti-communist and anti-China (divide and conquer) tactic, including because its location. If the communists had lost the civil war, the mainland and Taiwan would all have remained under ROC control and it would have been interesting to see what the US would have come up with, instead (academic and thought experiment but interesting to imagine nonetheless). In Ukraine the US don't want to be dragged in a war against Russia and things have played well for them so far (really the US are the only winners so far).
  - throwaway494932 2y ago
    > The islands are Chinese. "In June 2008, a TVBS poll found that 68% of the respondents identify themselves as "Taiwanese" while 18% would call themselves "Chinese".[33] In 2015, a poll conducted by the Taiwan Braintrust showed that about 90 percent of the population would identify themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese.[34]" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_people
    - mytailorisrich 2y ago
      That is quite irrelevant in addition to being misleading.
      - rob74 2y ago
        The same way as Ukrainians wanting to live in an independent country is irrelevant?
        mytailorisrich 2y ago
        Change of subject? Russia's main aim in Ukraine was/is regime change ('main' because they obviously do want to annex the Donbas), a bit like what happened in Iraq in 2003... I did not expect to be able to seriously discuss geopolitics here, TBH, it never works and it is never possible to dig deeper. Case in point...
- YetAnotherNick 2y ago
  TSMC being 2-4 years ahead of Samsung/Intel has nothing to do whether US would be willing to go on a nuclear war and move the entire world decades if not millenias back. No one can go on a direct war with a country with nukes unless they are ready for mutually assured destruction.
  - questinthrow 2y ago
    Russia thought the same when it thought it could hide behind its nukes. Alas.
    - YetAnotherNick 2y ago
      And it did. US could do very very significant harm to Russia's military if nuclear retaliation wasn't a threat. And probably that would be cheaper than the weapons/training that they are giving to Ukraine.
    - oremolten 2y ago
      >As of September 30, 2024, the U.S. Ukraine response funding totals nearly $183 billion >Russia's official 2022 military budget is expected to be 4.7 trillion rubles ($75bn), or higher, and about $84bn for 2023
  - Pet_Ant 2y ago
    Sorry, but this leads to nuclear proliferation. This means unless you have nukes, you are a nobody. At this point it's better to just have that nuclear war instead of the rest of us being pawn of nuclear states. There is no dignity in this.
    - mainecoder 2y ago
      Well I commend you that would rather live in a post nuclear hellscape dystopia rather than be the citizen of a vassal state of a Nuclear Power.
- cyanydeez 2y ago
  the current regime will make choices based on what's profitable for the companies involved. It's unlikely that losing TSMC will improve profits for American companies, so having this redundancy is for short term applications. The business interests _are_ the political landscape today.
WhereIsTheTruth 2y ago
"invade" = western propaganda The proper word is "reunite", as it was agreed with the US It sure gonna hurt the US Military industrial complex, no war = no money "1982 U.S.-PRC Joint Communiqué/Six Assurances As they negotiated establishment of diplomatic relations, the U.S. and PRC governments agreed to set aside the contentious issue of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. They took up that issue in the 1982 August 17 Communiqué, in which the PRC states “a fundamental policy of striving for peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, and the U.S. government states it “understands and appreciates” that policy. The U.S. government states in the 1982 communiqué that with those statements “in mind,” “it does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan,” and “intends gradually to reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan, leading, over a period of time, to a final resolution.” The U.S. government also declares “no intention” of “pursuing a policy of ‘two Chinas,’” meaning the PRC and the ROC, “or ‘one China, one Taiwan.’”" https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12503/1 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12503/1
- thworp 2y ago
  > "invade" = western propaganda > The proper word is "reunite", as it was agreed with the US So the US and the PRC had some milquetoast diplomatic correspondence which did not include Taiwan. If the PRC now occupies Taiwan against the will of its people and population, presumably under fire from the Taiwanese army, it' just a "reunification"?
  - WhereIsTheTruth 2y ago
    Taiwanese are pro-reunification, Tsai wich is pro-US and pro-indepandance had quit due to her party loosing local elections https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Taiwan-elections/Taiwan-s-Tsai-quits-as-party-leader-after-heavy-local-election-losses https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Taiwan-elections/Taiwan-s-T... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/2024_Legislative_Yuan_election.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/2024_Leg...
    - thworp 2y ago
      An election result is not a single-issue poll and the current government supports the status quo anyway (just being fundamentally more open to dialogue). A clear majority of the opulation supports de-facto independence (the current status) or even formal independence [0]. [0] https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/09/02/2003805648 https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/09/02/...
ekianjo 2y ago
China has no needs to invade when they can do a very effective blockade without firing one shot.

This redundancy makes me worried that the US will view Taiwanese sovereignty as disposable. While the US has given much for the defence of Ukraine, it’s always been careful to make sure it’s not enough for Ukraine to win but only enough to make it expensive for Russia hopping they’ll reconsider. Russia has won there and I suspect they’ll joe be willing to let China have the islands now too.

ekianjo 2y ago
> Taiwanese sovereignty as disposable Your are describing the statu quo as almost no country officially recognizes Taiwan
ForHackernews 2y ago
Short of nuclear weapons, I'm not sure what would allow Ukraine to "win". Even given all the hardware, Ukraine doesn't have the staff or experience to field a full NATO air wing and integrate it to fight according to NATO combined arms doctrine -- if that even WOULD produce a "win" (there is an untested assumption that a NATO-standard military could trounce Russia)
- XorNot 2y ago
  Ukraine needs to hold the line, keep Russia sanctioned and let it burn itself out economically...or wait for Putin to die. The Russian economy is grinding to dust right now, and the Soviet vehicle inheritance evaporating. At some point, they stop being able to pay workers and troops, and while martial law can keep things moving, it's all getting much more expensive after that. Putin has been very careful to try and keep the war awaybfrom his Moscow powerbase...so it's clear he recognises his authority and position is far from unlimited.
  - ForHackernews 2y ago
    I agree with all that, but none of that translates to a traditional battlefield triumph. Maybe providing more long-range weapons would enable symbolic strikes near Moscow or on oligarchs' dachas, but that's the only case I can think of where materiel might help with that strategy. Ukraine needs more soldiers, hard without full conscription, with the pool of heroic volunteers already committed, and it needs more artillery shells, that NATO can't readily supply because NATO never imagined playing quartermaster this kind of warfare in the 21st century.
    - actionfromafar 2y ago
      Ukraine can't even properly equip the soldiers it already has. Supporting countries could dig a lot deeper in their supplies, they will have ample time to rearm.
- Pet_Ant 2y ago
  Ukraine needs boots on the ground. Finland and Poland from the West driving on Moscow for a regime change with the rest of NATO behind them. But apparently Ukraine are developing nuclear weapons so we'll see.
phantomathkg 2y ago
Selling the secret sauce to US definitely make Taiwan disposable. But I also bet TSMC doesn't have a choice as whoever in power in US can also impose sanction/tariff or whatever they can to make TSMC to compile.
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  TSMC is a publicly traded company and like all publicly traded companies it has no allegiance to any country (other than historical legacy and emotions) and will always relocate to where it's most safe and profitable for providing returns to its shareholders, just like how many profitable companies moved to UK, US and Switzerland during WW2 and how many EU companies are doing the same thing today. If the US will provide TSMC with better deals on all fronts than what the Taiwanese government can, then there's nothing that can stop them from slowly abandoning Taiwan and moving the HQ and vital operations to the US over time, especially that the Taiwanese government is not a major shareholder in TSMC.
  - boxed 2y ago
    Companies don't magically not have any humans in them as soon as they are on a stock market.
    - mistercheph 2y ago
      It's about as close as you can get though to capital efficiently allocating itself
    - Cumpiler69 2y ago
      How does this invalidate what I said? Have you heard of Operation Paperclip? The moment China steps in Taiwan, all those vital TSMC engineers will be flown to the US along with the critical IP and given a blank cheque to replicate Taiwan operation on US soil ASAP. TSMC is preemptively building the infrastructure there in preparation for such an event, so it can outlive whatever happens to Taiwan. TSMC has little inventive to tie itself to Taiwan and its people who are not its employees. Every big company thinks and acts like this. Taiwan can't force TSMC to stay there if it doesn't want to.
mytailorisrich 2y ago
> they’ll be willing to let China have the islands now too The islands are Chinese. The US back Taiwan as an anti-communist and anti-China (divide and conquer) tactic, including because its location. If the communists had lost the civil war, the mainland and Taiwan would all have remained under ROC control and it would have been interesting to see what the US would have come up with, instead (academic and thought experiment but interesting to imagine nonetheless). In Ukraine the US don't want to be dragged in a war against Russia and things have played well for them so far (really the US are the only winners so far).
- throwaway494932 2y ago
  > The islands are Chinese. "In June 2008, a TVBS poll found that 68% of the respondents identify themselves as "Taiwanese" while 18% would call themselves "Chinese".[33] In 2015, a poll conducted by the Taiwan Braintrust showed that about 90 percent of the population would identify themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese.[34]" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_people
  - mytailorisrich 2y ago
    That is quite irrelevant in addition to being misleading.
    - rob74 2y ago
      The same way as Ukrainians wanting to live in an independent country is irrelevant?
      - mytailorisrich 2y ago
        Change of subject? Russia's main aim in Ukraine was/is regime change ('main' because they obviously do want to annex the Donbas), a bit like what happened in Iraq in 2003... I did not expect to be able to seriously discuss geopolitics here, TBH, it never works and it is never possible to dig deeper. Case in point...
YetAnotherNick 2y ago
TSMC being 2-4 years ahead of Samsung/Intel has nothing to do whether US would be willing to go on a nuclear war and move the entire world decades if not millenias back. No one can go on a direct war with a country with nukes unless they are ready for mutually assured destruction.
- questinthrow 2y ago
  Russia thought the same when it thought it could hide behind its nukes. Alas.
  - YetAnotherNick 2y ago
    And it did. US could do very very significant harm to Russia's military if nuclear retaliation wasn't a threat. And probably that would be cheaper than the weapons/training that they are giving to Ukraine.
  - oremolten 2y ago
    >As of September 30, 2024, the U.S. Ukraine response funding totals nearly $183 billion >Russia's official 2022 military budget is expected to be 4.7 trillion rubles ($75bn), or higher, and about $84bn for 2023
- Pet_Ant 2y ago
  Sorry, but this leads to nuclear proliferation. This means unless you have nukes, you are a nobody. At this point it's better to just have that nuclear war instead of the rest of us being pawn of nuclear states. There is no dignity in this.
  - mainecoder 2y ago
    Well I commend you that would rather live in a post nuclear hellscape dystopia rather than be the citizen of a vassal state of a Nuclear Power.
cyanydeez 2y ago
the current regime will make choices based on what's profitable for the companies involved. It's unlikely that losing TSMC will improve profits for American companies, so having this redundancy is for short term applications. The business interests _are_ the political landscape today.

WhereIsTheTruth 2y ago

"invade" = western propaganda The proper word is "reunite", as it was agreed with the US It sure gonna hurt the US Military industrial complex, no war = no money "1982 U.S.-PRC Joint Communiqué/Six Assurances As they negotiated establishment of diplomatic relations, the U.S. and PRC governments agreed to set aside the contentious issue of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. They took up that issue in the 1982 August 17 Communiqué, in which the PRC states “a fundamental policy of striving for peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, and the U.S. government states it “understands and appreciates” that policy. The U.S. government states in the 1982 communiqué that with those statements “in mind,” “it does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan,” and “intends gradually to reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan, leading, over a period of time, to a final resolution.” The U.S. government also declares “no intention” of “pursuing a policy of ‘two Chinas,’” meaning the PRC and the ROC, “or ‘one China, one Taiwan.’”" https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12503/1 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12503/1

thworp 2y ago
> "invade" = western propaganda > The proper word is "reunite", as it was agreed with the US So the US and the PRC had some milquetoast diplomatic correspondence which did not include Taiwan. If the PRC now occupies Taiwan against the will of its people and population, presumably under fire from the Taiwanese army, it' just a "reunification"?
- WhereIsTheTruth 2y ago
  Taiwanese are pro-reunification, Tsai wich is pro-US and pro-indepandance had quit due to her party loosing local elections https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Taiwan-elections/Taiwan-s-Tsai-quits-as-party-leader-after-heavy-local-election-losses https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Taiwan-elections/Taiwan-s-T... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/2024_Legislative_Yuan_election.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/2024_Leg...
  - thworp 2y ago
    An election result is not a single-issue poll and the current government supports the status quo anyway (just being fundamentally more open to dialogue). A clear majority of the opulation supports de-facto independence (the current status) or even formal independence [0]. [0] https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/09/02/2003805648 https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/09/02/...

ekianjo 2y ago

China has no needs to invade when they can do a very effective blockade without firing one shot.