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Comment by lmm | Hacker News Reader

China is reaching the point where they could invade Taiwan and be confident of getting away with it, but they're not quite there yet. We're currently in a narrow window where the US could and should unilaterally recognise Taiwanese statehood and commit to a firm security guarantee.

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China is constrained by its reliance on western markets. Full stop. It would hurt to pull the plug, but if they cross a line it will happen and they know it.

The US is completely dependent on China for manufacturing. China is completely dependent on the US for funding development. It would be bad news for either frenemy to start anything major.

Their posture is potentially lessening that dependency somewhat though - a company I work with, for example, now tries to find suppliers in Malaysia, Thailand, etc. for metalwork, PCB manufacture, assembly and things like that, which all would have just gone straight to China five years ago. This is a pretty small manufacturer with a fairly niche product, but I imagine others are thinking the same way.

Now it is. But their population alone is larger than all the western markets combined, so it probably won’t remain so indefinitely.

Before Hong Kong I would probably have agreed with you, but You're assuming a purely rational reasoning. For China, and Xi in particular, there is a big element of national and personal pride at stake. It's for the same reason they have risked strangling Hong Kong in order to bring it more in line with the rest of China.

Xi (more so than his predecessors) is quite happy to take a short term loss for (what he sees) as a long term gain. In addition, he would love to be remembered in history as the man he reunified China.

Furthermore, Hong Kong and Crimea show that western powers aren't spoiling for a fight - especially if you can present them with a fait accompli.

Agreed. This is what an obsessive focus on "facts and logic" at the expense of a similar focus on emotion, instinct, and subjectivity gets you. People have values that often contradict rationality, and in too many cases they're ready to kill and die for them.

But the western markets rely on china.

Basically, if we "built the wall", they'd still have all the stuff, and we'd have increasingly more worthless numbers in our bank accounts.

Relying on one country for most of our production needs is stupid.

That's far from a settled position in Taiwan itself, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Secession_Law

By your definition that would be committing to an untenable position.

The political dynamics are very different if China invades after US recognition of Taiwan rather than before. (Especially if they station a tripwire force there like in Estonia).

As of right now, TSMC is the same as a tripwire force, and IMO the Chinese leadership knows that. But hopefully that will stop being true as this Arizona facility comes online and we regain top-tier capabilities.

If it stops being a critical national security issue for us? I don't really care. Like, I'm for self-determination and all that but I don't care more about Taiwan than I do about Yemen, and I and the rest of America definitely do not care about Yemen.

> As of right now, TSMC is the same as a tripwire force

No it isn't. China can occupy Taiwan without killing thousands of US soldiers. That matters, politically.

> If it stops being a critical national security issue for us? I don't really care. Like, I'm for self-determination and all that but I don't care more about Taiwan than I do about Yemen

It's not about Taiwan, it's about China. If they successfully annex Taiwan they'll eat the rest of the world too, one bite at a time, and drawing the line in the sand will get harder and harder.

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