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Comment by ksec | Hacker News Reader

>“Complete nonsense,” retorts Pierre Ferragu of New Street Research, a financial firm. tsmc has almost simultaneously launched a new fab in Taiwan, with four times the wafer capacity—and more advanced technology—than the two proposed Arizona foundries. Its bet on America is more of a long-term insurance policy than an immediate game-changer. It enables tsmc to start the tough job of recruiting a workforce and amassing suppliers in America, providing a baseline for expansion “if the Chinese are crazy enough to bomb Taiwan”. For the foreseeable future, though, most r&d is likely to remain in Taiwan. So will at least four-fifths of tmsc’s capacity.

It is unfortunate the truth and decent analysts dont get enough press coverage because they dont fit the narrative of current trend.

- The only way to understand the Press is to remember that they pander to their readers' prejudices.

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It is in China's interests that Taiwan not be the centre of global chip manufacturing. And the US's interest. Europe's too. The situation is delicate, but I suspect in time Taiwan will become less strategically important. Too many powerful players would benefit from that industry going somewhere else. An economic competitive advantage is not enough to make the US take strategic risks, or to hold China off.

It makes sense that there would be literal conspiracies a work in this situation. If I were in Taiwan, I would assume that the US plant represents some sort of threat to the geopolitical status quo. Regardless of what some analyst thinks.

I suspect the PRC won't outright bomb much of Taiwan but instead go straight for the presidential palace in Taipei and try to force an ROC capitulation early.

I think they're counting on the ruling class / landowners / capitalists to pressure the government to capitulate at fear of property destruction, which I also expect to be in line with reality. Doing capitalism in a country like taiwan is better than in the PRC, but doing it in the PRC is better than not being able to do it at all because all your assets were obliterated.

What I think none of these people are counting on is that there are rabidly anti CPC people here in Taiwan, leftist or otherwise, and some of these people engage in post-military service training and drilling. I suspect that if the above comes to pass and the CPC is successful in forcing an ROC surrender, the factories are burning one way or the other, due to "self-sabotage" by workers or guerillas.

Then the PLA gets to have fun for a decade chasing guerillas around the choking thick jungle and mountains that make up the majority of the landmass in Taiwan. Many of these will be indigenous who have lived in the mountains for generations and per capita by demographic make up more of the (non conscripted) military than any other demographic.

I don't think any of this will come to pass though because I, like most people in Taiwan (including the usa consulate staff), believe the possibility of invasion is slim.

> I suspect the PRC won't outright bomb much of Taiwan but instead go straight for the presidential palace in Taipei and try to force an ROC capitulation early.

Goes along with the mock presidential palace. https://thediplomat.com/2015/08/satellite-imagery-from-china...

> I suspect the PRC won't outright bomb much of Taiwan but instead go straight for the presidential palace in Taipei and try to force an ROC capitulation early.

Taiwan is not Somalia. It's a fairly advanced country with a fairly good military (comparing to its size).

> I think they're counting on the ruling class / landowners / capitalists to pressure the government to capitulate at fear of property destruction, which I also expect to be in line with reality. Doing capitalism in a country like taiwan is better than in the PRC, but doing it in the PRC is better than not being able to do it at all because all your assets were obliterated.

China will do worse than Russia. People in Ukraine had reasons to join Russia, ie: their country is very corrupt and poor. I highly doubt the rich and educated Taiwanese will want to join the CPC.

> I don't think any of this will come to pass though because I, like most people in Taiwan (including the usa consulate staff), believe the possibility of invasion is slim.

The possibility is very slim at the moment. Of course, timing matter. In the future, it could go both ways. That will depend on the status of the US, China and Taiwan itself.

> Taiwan is not Somalia. It's a fairly advanced country with a fairly good military (comparing to its size).

Yes, I live here, all of my friends have served in the military. They believe a likely strategy is gun boats coming up the river for the presidential palace.

BTW, the military is quite effective, but numbers about size usually include the conscripted, who are basically useless as soldiers as they get to shoot a gun maybe once during conscription and spend most of their time sweeping rocks because boomer officers stuck at conscript boot camp have outdated and ageist ideas about discipline and take out their resentment on the conscripts.

From my time in the PRC the same is true for pla conscripts.

> instead go straight for the presidential palace in Taipei

Will that work if the politicians work from home?

On the recent Brazilian uprising, when the election losers stormed the capital they found out that it is a holiday and there’s no some special object in the government buildings which makes you the new leader once you physically obtain it.

All they ended up doing was vandalism.

China is Taiwan's largest trading partner. 42% of Taiwan exports go to China and Hong Kong. 22% of Taiwan imports are from China. Around 200,000 to 400,000 Taiwanese work in China. China doesn't need to militarily invade Taiwan. Like Hong Kong, it can just wait until the economic reality is that Taiwan is already a vassal state dependent on China. At that point, it can move military troops into Taiwan if needed. There won't be a fight, because at that point, the USA will already be far more darkly insular.

Sure the US is turning insular, the only thing all politicians are on is that bribery is good and China is the main enemy. Which still means that Taiwan will be defended.

China is the largest trade partner of many other countries, why only Taiwan worry about being turned into a vassal state?

The majority of population in Taiwan is Han Chinese, using almost the same language as mainland China. It's not surprising that many of them will like to work on the other side of strait if there are good opportunities. People from mainland China too, especially for people in Fujian and Guangdong.

And eventually, hypothetically, people in Taiwan prefer and choose to unite with mainland China, maybe after PRC evolved into something more ideologically acceptable, I see more good than issues.

This is an outdated viewpoint that doesn't take into account the newer generations of Taiwanese who are developing a distinctly anti Chinese identity and rejecting what older people call "Han" (華人）. The younger generations are leaning into and exploring the diverse heritage of the island itself, including by going out of their way to learn indigenous languages and incorporate aspects of indigenous culture.

Taiwanese are also inventing their culture from whole cloth, forming cultural alliances named cute things like "the bubble tea alliance" in a direct oppositional effort against CPC cultural imperialism that centers around han supremacy.

Every year that goes by the presumptive and han supremacist viewpoint that "Chinese is Chinese" evaporates further in Taiwan. Every day 台灣中文 diverges further from 普通話; they are now classified by linguists as separate forms of Mandarin entirely (not just because of the character set. Obviously the languages are mutually intelligible though).

It's worth pointing out that "use the same language" is kinda silly to say in either case. Though of course most PRC speak Mandarin, and most Taiwanese speak Taiwanese Mandarin, both nations are filled with bi and trilingual people speaking all sorts of dialects.

I agree to some extent, especially with the newer generation. I still hold the probably old school view point, that believe the separation of China and Taiwan is mostly a political problem caused by ideological differences. (And personally hoping that PRC can get democracy and then China and Taiwan can reunite in some form).

But I'd like to point out PRC also have more than Han Chinese. Even myself doesn't fit in the narrow sense Han (汉). There are all sorts of dialects and indigenous local culture. The difference of language and culture within PRC can be even bigger than the difference across the strait (for example, I almost cannot understand 粤语 but have zero problem talking to Taiwanese colleagues in our most native language).

I routinely visit Taiwan based websites, reading 繁体/正体中文 and post in 简体中文, and apparently have almost no difficulty getting myself and Taiwanese understood.

By the way, you mentioned bubble tea... There are so many bubble tea shops in mainland China, some invested by Taiwanese, and I really miss them after moving to Europe.

On the other hand if China bombs the fabs, 1) it cripples the west's economy (and potentially its military supply chain also), 2) it ceases to make Taiwan a strategic asset to the West since there are no more fab to defend. To me it's a no brainer, particularly if they think Taiwan won't let them capture the fabs anyway (will destroy them before China controls the territory).

The us has poored too much of it's legitimacy into defending Taiwan to just say 'fabs gone, you are on your own'. Deterrence requires a response if lines are crossed otherwise future deterrence is much less effective.

When the fabs are still on the board, the US might be a bit more vigorous, but I doubt anyone assumes fab capacity survives a Taiwan invasion.

Probably worth remembering the "red line" episode with Obama in Syria, or Biden's initial reaction to the invasion of Ukraine, which was to impose symbolic sanctions and see how it deterred Russia in a month.

The US is perfectly capable of some symbolic protest if it doesn't want to be involved in a particular conflict.

> The US is perfectly capable of some symbolic protest if it doesn't want to be involved in a particular conflict.

Indeed. A long history of declining open conflict with the Soviet Union in several theaters supports this.

If London is the capital of Airstrip One, then Taipei and Tokyo are the capitals of Airstrips Two and Three; it's not just the fabs.

> ceases to make Taiwan a strategic asset to the West since there are no more fab to defend

PRC control of Taiwan enables blockading Japan. It’s better strategy to turn Taiwan into China’s Afghanistan than abandon it because the fabs were blown. (One can also Werner von Braun Taiwan’s technical knowledge to the American homeland, thereby turning the entire endeavour into a Pyrrhic victory for Beijing.)

The old ‘capture the leadership and the country will surrender in a few days’ strategy. Works every time. The thing is I’m sure the PRC Intelligence service have done analyses of what would happen if Russia invaded Ukraine, and what would happen if China invaded Taiwan. I wonder what the first one said? If the credibility of the Taiwan scenario is tied in Xi’s mind to the credibility of the first, that would give us a rough idea of the likelihood he might go for it.

The other problem is that China is way more dependent on outside trade than Russia. They rely on food and energy imports too much, while Russia is self sufficient in both. The same sanctions as on Russia would bring China to its knees in months. In case anyone say “but everyone was saying the sanctions on Russia would cripple them too”, no, not everyone was saying that. The same magazine, The Economist, was explaining why that wasn’t going to happen right from the start.

Well, you can always try. You lose nothing by trying to force the opposing force to capitulate first.

Of course it helps if you don’t seriously bungle the thing.

You lose a ton of credibility and weaken your position domestically. No leader relished the prospect of a humiliating defeat in a war of aggression. In an authoritarian system it can be severely career and life limiting.

Why do people still compare Taiwan with Ukraine, can people not read maps? This isn't 1996 anymore. Contrary to the US China has hypersonic missiles that the US military admitted they work.

The area Russia has captured in Ukraine is 3 or 4 times the size of Taiwan. Ukraine borders a couple of NATO countries with huge borders, has pipelines going through its country that Russia didn't touch the entire conflict. Taiwan on the other hand is 150 miles away from China and thousands of miles away from its big backers. Most of eastern Ukraine was Soviet infrastructure heavily fortified over 8 years. Taiwan on the other hand is mostly uninhabitable mountains that barely have roads going through them with very densely populated cities on the west.

Taiwan gets its oil and gas from Indonesia and most of its resources from China. Last time they did missile drills they had to stop them because the launchers failed.

China just embargoed the island for a couple of days and nothing could move in an out. China doesn't really need to do anything to win. There isn't really any scenario where this plays out in Taiwans favour. The US can't even keep up with Russia's ammunition production[1], how would it match China's manufacturing?

While the US moves their warship through the area every now and then as a show of power everyone agrees that there is no protection from hypersonic or even most supersonic missiles and that much of the US Navy are sitting ducks if there were ever a real conflict.

Biden was born in 1942 and believes the world is stuck in the 90s. It's extremely dangerous to think and act like that.

[1] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/01/11/navy-might-ha...

What is the range on hypersonic missles? Perhaps the defense is avoiding detection and keeping a standoff distance until you want to strike?

“Launch in August of nuclear-capable rocket that circled the globe took US intelligence by surprise”

Not sure where your stand-off distance would be.

https://www.ft.com/content/ba0a3cde-719b-4040-93cb-a486e1f84...

Chinese and Russian hypersonic capabilities are a money bell for American defence contractors. For cross-strait warfare, they’re irrelevant. (Conventional artillery dominates at that range.)

Hard for American carrier based air assets and AEGIS cruisers to help defend Taiwan if they all got killed by hypersonic missiles.

That carriers would be sunk pretty much instantly is a given, and has been for a while now. The USN invests heavily in subs, and you don't hear much about them for a reason...

You’re getting downvoted for stating extremely uncomfortable truths. It’s not what westerners want to hear. Ignoring these objective facts is foolish and dangerous.

The reality is, with hypersonics (currently deployed), Russia or China could disable entire surface battle groups and there’s not much the US could do about it (conventionally).

I encourage everyone to break from their myopia and get a better understanding of the significant geoeconomic and power realignments going on right now.

It’s no longer 1992. We’re either headed towards global nuclear holocaust or back to a multi-polar world. May calmer heads prevail.

Two books on these topics:

- https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/40658433

- https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52962238-principles-for-...

Glad to see a book by Andrei Martyanov being recommended here. I have read all three of his books. There is no reason to trust or agree with everything he writes, but unfortunately the current trend is to try and suppress any kind of discussion rather than try and understand someone's viewpoint.

I also don’t agree with everything he writes or says (his YouTube channel is wildly entertaining). But I trust him more than others as he’s a pro western US citizen who has a solid background in the Soviet navy (anti shipping missile expert, I believe). He even gets into military mathematics and field manuals from time to time.

https://www.youtube.com/user/smoothieX12

Yes I watch all his videos. My favourite is “Some very needed comparisons”. I started doing.(just for fun) a complete under-graduate and graduate course in Mathematics in my spare time after watching this video.

Are you doing an online course? Funny enough, I was thinking of the same thing (or at least some mathematics basics before an online CS curriculum). I'd love recommendations if you have any. Cheers.

No, just via books. I have a degree in mathematics which I completed 20 years ago so part of it is just recalling what I had learned. But otherwise I just bought books covering the entire curriculum - some based on Susan Rigetti’s blog post on mathematics (should be easy to search).

It's neither uncomfortable nor a truth. If it were that easy Taiwan would have been conquered years ago. It isn't Ukraine - China can't just invade by rolling tanks and artillery across a field.

Its invading force will have to cross a 150 mile sea where it will be decimated before landing on one of about 4 viable landing sites where the invading force will again be decimated. Setting up supply lines would essentially be impossible. Keeping morale up when 6 out of 10 invading soldiers snuff it before reaching the island will be impossible.

US carrier groups would be useless in this war, but they're useless against anything resembling a peer competitor. US nuclear subs would tear up the invading fleet though, while Taiwanese missiles would turn the PRC economic heartland to ash.

We're not in disagreement.

US subs can't operate permissively in strait and increasingly within 1IC where PRC has built comprehensive seabed monitoring infra. Or that current TLAMs from SSGNs aren't performant againt even shit tier Iraqi/Russian hardware (~50% failure/interception rates), of which US has only 4 with 612 shots. Nor does TW remotely have or can stockpile enough fires to dent PRC heartland with aggressive defense budget. For reference currently US doesn't either hence rush to build up stockpiles for potentially 100,000s aimpoints most of which will be delivered by b21s 10+ years from now and that's just for some current PLA targets. Realistically PRC would destroy most of TW C4ISR in openning strikes and prevent TW from threatening invasion fleet which would make 150 mile sea transit relatively uncontested. Under such conditions - open waters where modern sensors has less noise to sort - establishing maritime logistics would be easier to protect than the land/air logisitics wagon US had to sustain for AFG. Current US vision for TW porcupine doctorine rests on TW fighting to the last man on TW soil because it's forgone PRC can land massive amounts of troops and hardware. The hope is US can disrupt this as TW buys time, not TW itself. Ultimately, PRC simply wouldn't attempt landing without securing theatre air superiority first, by the time they commit to maritime invasion, thousands of UAVs and would be droning a TW resistence reverted to Taliban tier capabilites. The other fundemental uncomfortable truth is PRC can mine TW shores and destroy airfields long term to siege island, and historically sustained sieges that prevent resupply generally end in capitulation.

All this plus PRC can blockade TW and completely sink their economy (while also straining all the economies that depend on their chips, including their own). In fact, they could even do that without physically invading the island after the C4ISR hit and just wait for TW to cry Uncle and capitulate. PRC has escalation dominance in this arena and without going nuclear, I don’t see the US winning. The solution here is political compromise (as it should have been in Ukraine). Either that or nuclear holocaust.

They’re not the same, I even pointed out some specific ways they are different. My point is though that if (just a guess) the PRC analysis said Russia would take Ukraine easily, the fact they got that one wrong points out flaws in their approach to strategic analysis. If their strategic analysts is flawed, then that damages the credibility of any of their analyses.

> I, like most people in Taiwan (including the usa consulate staff), believe the possibility of invasion is slim.

There’s a paradox here. The more everyone believes this, the worse the preparations are and the more likely invasion becomes.

For instance, the RoC Army doesn’t have enough soldiers or the right equipment and pretty much everyone is ok with this because hey, possibility of invasion is slim. They prioritise buying vanity hardware like fighter planes instead of weapons that fit a porcupine strategy like Javelin missiles. (Porcupines don’t attack but defend really well).

You correctly point out that guerrillas can fight the PLA thanks to terrain. But that would be more realistic if they had a large supply of Javelins.

I, born on the another side of the strait, also believe the possiblity of attacking is very slim. PRC's economy is still pretty dependant on exports to western countries. If a war with ROC start, CPC will have to pay a great cost to compensate the loss in exports.

However, for some reason I don't understand, a significant portion of people from PRC are expecting a war to happen, and ridiculously believing such a war can be good to them. Maybe CPC is playing the old game again, posturing the "pro-democracy" entities as hostile in the propaganda to gain support politically.

The only reasons could make PRC take over Taiwan is: 1) Taiwan declare official independence; 2) US blocks China from semiconductors so bad, it has to take over Taiwan to gain access to technologies.

CPC knows taking over Taiwan is costly to them, and it is not a good deal. It is not like we are so much better at analyzing the situation better than professionals.

I mean, they’re expanding to Japan too. I can totally see how having at least one fab in your country would make you much less worried about choosing TSMC as your supplier, even if most of their actual capacity isn’t there.

The only reason why TSMC is expanding outside Taiwan is because protectionism is back. Americans don't want to admit it though.

Hilariously it will make Taiwan more vulnerable because it makes defending the island less necessary. During the cold war the enduring question was: is America willing to commit mass suicide to protect Western Europe if the USSR invades? Thankfully we never got a definitive answer on that.

Supply chain security != protectionism. Losing access to chips would be an existential threat for most nations.

It's also more of a backup for the US defense industry. Many of the chips that will be made in the US fabs can go directly toward military weapons.

I suspect their investments in the US are also simply because the US asked them to and they (including the Taiwanese government) are not in a position to refuse.

Of course it is. But for some interesting reason the Economist does not write about that.

Yep the Dutch prime minister was recently in Washington to discuss this too. Biden wants ASML to stop selling machines to China.

"You are either with us or you are with the terrorists"

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