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A bag of fine flour tossed into the clean rooms, and using a taser on all the electronics and control boards makes entire fabs more or less worthless. They prob
by observationist 10mo ago
A bag of fine flour tossed into the clean rooms, and using a taser on all the electronics and control boards makes entire fabs more or less worthless. They probably have multiple doomsday options that wipe out any utility the chip plants might have. I'd probably also have a technology and documentation package ready to be shipped to the US by a secret lawyer - if Taiwan gets taken, the fabs get destroyed, and the US gets the technology.
They're not weak or stupid, the level of retaliation and sabotage in store against any attempt by China to take over would go down in history as some of the most ruthless and savage of all time.
Xi is just beating his chest. China is currently simmering - protests, civil unrest, and dissidence in general is up significantly over the last year or so, and they need to make bold public speeches to look powerful and in control. I don't think there's any risk of widespread public revolt, but they play these games and push propaganda because they have to, not because it makes sense.
China's been threatening to "unify" Taiwan for decades, more or less like clockwork. They missed their best opportunity to actually do it during Biden and covid - the US would likely have just let it happen at that point. With new US fabs popping up, we may reach parity with Taiwan chipmaking capabilities within a decade or less, and that makes the utility of Taiwan even less.
Urban resistance fighters and guerilla tactics from a hostile population makes taking over cities and towns like that more or less completely impossible. Any attempt by China to take Taiwan would end up looking like the US trying to "liberate" Iraq, with constant PR hits, human rights violations, way more money than they want to spend, or risking inciting major unrest if they just wipe out the Taiwanese population like monsters.
I don't think there's any real upside to actually taking Taiwan, it's more useful as a perennial jingoistic narrative than anything else at this point.
- bigbadfeline 10mo agoThe obsession with wars plays a cruel joke with its adherents. China will not go to war with Taiwan unless something really stupid is done against China. "> multiple doomsday options..." - doomsday for whom exactly? China doesn't import anything vital from Taiwan but the West does. Both Taiwan and the West are dependent on China too. Moreover, the Chinese have other options: sanctions, blockades, covert military, etc. the precedent has already been established with Venezuela. If China disrupts Taiwan's fragile economy, the fabs will doomsday themselves and the West will go along with them. > I don't think there's any real upside to actually taking Taiwan You're thinking in terms of plunder but that's not how China thinks. China is being pressured economically and threatened militarily - Venezuela supplies oil to China, and the Chinese have investments there - Taiwan is just a pawn in a much bigger, existential game of survival.
- tim-tday 10mo agoI guarantee China will invade Taiwan before the end of 2027. All you have to do is compare rhetoric of leaders who invaded another country with what China has been saying.
- mittensc 10mo ago> I guarantee China will invade Taiwan before the end of 2027. depends on the US. If the US stations troops in Taiwan then this becomes a non starter. If the US continues to be weak and foolish then you're right.
- wolvoleo 10mo agoTrue, everyone was saying that Putin was just posturing about invading Ukraine too.
- bigbadfeline 10mo agoNot a valid argument. Xi isn't Putin and China isn't Russia. Politically they are different like day and night. The real reasons for Putin's invasion of Ukraine bear absolutely no similarity to anything pertaining to China-Taiwan's relations.
- seanmcdirmid 10mo agoChina has been promising to retake Taiwan for the last 25 years. Xi bringing this up in a new years speech is practically ceremonial y at this point. What makes you think China is different this time, Trumo hasn’t messed up things on the otherwise that much has he?
- throw4r5yeet 10mo agoAnd what will you do if they don’t? I know someone who has been predicting this invasion for the past 50 years, ever since Taiwan was kicked out of the UN.