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Honestly, Taiwan should just start selling export controlled chips to China. Trump kicked UA to the side, he’ll do the same to TW, might as well make a buck whi

Honestly, Taiwan should just start selling export controlled chips to China. Trump kicked UA to the side, he’ll do the same to TW, might as well make a buck while at it, China is gonna catch up sooner or later anyways

colechristensen 2y ago
I really can't think of an upper bound for US response to an action like that.
- budududuroiu 2y ago
  The TW legislative is controlled by a slim majority that would support a rehash of the CSSTA [1], with the runner up for the presidential race calling for it on the campaign trail. The US is already far behind on weapons deliveries and owes TW more than $20bn in delayed weapons shipments. I don’t see the lower bound to what the US response might be [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-Strait_Service_Trade_Agreement https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-Strait_Service_Trade_A...
- FpUser 2y ago
  Taiwan can be friends with the US and keep selling them chips while keeping knowhow to themselves. Or they can be friends with others with the same results. Sanctions are not gonna help in this case. Of course the US can bomb Taiwan but I think it will lead straight to WWIII with all the cherries on top.
- snailmailstare 2y ago
  I think the US is going to be inundated with thousands of actions going on between other countries to replace it and it will be able to respond to dozens of them. They can of course choose long preexisting legislation as a hill to die on, but there are going to be a lot of hills and they could also pretend it never mattered to them.
Aaronstotle 2y ago
Taiwan can offer Russian advanced chips in exchange for nuclear weapons
- AtlasBarfed 2y ago
  Yes, the article doesn't really seem to address the underlying security threat that underpins these ultimatums. Even if the US "guarantees" Taiwan security, the current administrations "guarantees" are not worth the even hot air they are made of. I'm not sure if you were joking, but it would be 100% justified, especially if the "negotiation" with Russia over Ukraine are correctly reported.
- mandevil 2y ago
  Taiwan is almost certainly only a few months from completely indigenous nuclear weapons: they have their own nuclear power reactor at Maanshan, and all the way back in the 1980's the US estimated that they were less than two years from a nuclear weapon. Given (waves hand generally at the world around him) all of this, they have almost certainly undertaken quite a bit of effort to shorten that timeline over the past forty years. South Korea and Japan are in basically identical places, FWIW. The only reason we haven't seen a north-east Asia nuclear arms race, so far, is that several countries relied on their presence inside the US Nuclear arms umbrella. With that looking more questionable, I think the next four years are likely to see widespread nuclear weapons proliferation. Certainly the example of Iran, where the US negotiated an excellent treaty and then unilaterally pulled out of it and started violating the treaty whole-sale under Trump's last time as president, and the fate of Ukraine, who were invaded by a much larger, nuclear armed neighbor, should encourage all three of those countries to make nuclear weapons faster. The only reason any of them might not is domestic political response, which loom biggest for Japan, but I doubt that would stop any of those countries.
  - jiggawatts 2y ago
    The roadblock most countries have to nuclear weapons is a lack of a domestic high-tech industrial base… which Taiwan has in spades. I’m surprised they haven’t built a bomb already! If I were them, I would try the Israel approach of very carefully refusing to admit whether they do or do not actually have 127 bombs that can reach Beijing. Oh.. why 127? No specific reason… don’t worry about it…

colechristensen 2y ago

I really can't think of an upper bound for US response to an action like that.

budududuroiu 2y ago
The TW legislative is controlled by a slim majority that would support a rehash of the CSSTA [1], with the runner up for the presidential race calling for it on the campaign trail. The US is already far behind on weapons deliveries and owes TW more than $20bn in delayed weapons shipments. I don’t see the lower bound to what the US response might be [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-Strait_Service_Trade_Agreement https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-Strait_Service_Trade_A...
FpUser 2y ago
Taiwan can be friends with the US and keep selling them chips while keeping knowhow to themselves. Or they can be friends with others with the same results. Sanctions are not gonna help in this case. Of course the US can bomb Taiwan but I think it will lead straight to WWIII with all the cherries on top.
snailmailstare 2y ago
I think the US is going to be inundated with thousands of actions going on between other countries to replace it and it will be able to respond to dozens of them. They can of course choose long preexisting legislation as a hill to die on, but there are going to be a lot of hills and they could also pretend it never mattered to them.

Aaronstotle 2y ago

Taiwan can offer Russian advanced chips in exchange for nuclear weapons

AtlasBarfed 2y ago
Yes, the article doesn't really seem to address the underlying security threat that underpins these ultimatums. Even if the US "guarantees" Taiwan security, the current administrations "guarantees" are not worth the even hot air they are made of. I'm not sure if you were joking, but it would be 100% justified, especially if the "negotiation" with Russia over Ukraine are correctly reported.
mandevil 2y ago
Taiwan is almost certainly only a few months from completely indigenous nuclear weapons: they have their own nuclear power reactor at Maanshan, and all the way back in the 1980's the US estimated that they were less than two years from a nuclear weapon. Given (waves hand generally at the world around him) all of this, they have almost certainly undertaken quite a bit of effort to shorten that timeline over the past forty years. South Korea and Japan are in basically identical places, FWIW. The only reason we haven't seen a north-east Asia nuclear arms race, so far, is that several countries relied on their presence inside the US Nuclear arms umbrella. With that looking more questionable, I think the next four years are likely to see widespread nuclear weapons proliferation. Certainly the example of Iran, where the US negotiated an excellent treaty and then unilaterally pulled out of it and started violating the treaty whole-sale under Trump's last time as president, and the fate of Ukraine, who were invaded by a much larger, nuclear armed neighbor, should encourage all three of those countries to make nuclear weapons faster. The only reason any of them might not is domestic political response, which loom biggest for Japan, but I doubt that would stop any of those countries.
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  The roadblock most countries have to nuclear weapons is a lack of a domestic high-tech industrial base… which Taiwan has in spades. I’m surprised they haven’t built a bomb already! If I were them, I would try the Israel approach of very carefully refusing to admit whether they do or do not actually have 127 bombs that can reach Beijing. Oh.. why 127? No specific reason… don’t worry about it…