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Comment by ttul | Hacker News Reader

Given that there may be a 25% chance that China invades Taiwan by 2030, having the ability to package SOTA chips in the US by 2027 seems "soon enough".

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Would be interesting if China uses drones with technology from Taiwan to invade Taiwan.

where did you get that number from

There's a window where China will have it max capability to invade for the next few years. After that their population is going to start shrinking and every year will be harder than the next to invade.

The population of 18-30 year old males is generally what matters for an invasion and China has been shrinking that for a long time. The rest of the population can plan the invasion, but they rarely actually do it. (a few countries also invite young females to an invasion, but that is not normal)

But they don’t have energy independence or food security yet, which is kind of a hard requirement for an invasion.

There’s not enough rail lines and gas pipelines from Russia to feed them with significant quantities of fossil fuels.

Imagine how bad Russias invasion of Ukraine would’ve been without energy independence and food security. The invasion of Taiwan is an order of magnitude more difficult, and Taiwan now has the recipe for how to knock out the entire naval fleet of a more powerful nation (see how Ukraine has essentially incapacitated Russia in the Black Sea).

I would expect an invasion to prompt the US navy to put up a blockade, disrupting China's oil supplies and generally making it very hard to keep their economy going. Admittedly, Trump is a wild card; he's random enough that it is hard to be sure what would happen.

I do not think China could survive a blockade.

Huh? China will get all the energy it needs from Russia. Plus China is the leader in renewables production.

Not a chance. Russia has no way to deliver oil in large quantities to China. New pipelines, if they could even build them, would take many, many years.

If renewables was adequate they would not be importing vast amounts of oil.

Except TW TFR even worse than PRC TFR, and ultimately scale effect takes over - PRC with crippled TFR still generates about as much male new borns per year than TW has men 18-40 total. PRC still on trend to generate 3-4x more MEN than US projected to add population per year, incidentally around the same as active duty military... having enough bodies is not going to be an issue for decades. Having enough nukes is.

I'm not arguing against that at all. Just that if the PRC wants it's best chance, the clock is ticking. It becomes more costly the longer they wait.

I disagree, bodies is not limitting factor for PRC, it also becomes cheaper to wait for TW specifically because TW male 18-40 is set to decline = less kill bots / occupation force needed. Attacker:defender ratio (i.e. commonly 3:1) = every defender TW loses due to demographics, PRC with same TFR will come out significantly ahead, will need less enforcement:civilian ratio for occupation.

But ultimately, it's about hardware+industry - current trend = regional force balance shifting in PRC favour vs US+co every year with no end in sight. PRC better off accumulating capabilities at scale, not just regional, but global (i.e. prompt global strike) and increase autarky (less net population + more electrifcation = more calorie + energy security). All trend incentivizes waiting and building.

TLDR waiting and building becomes less costly (or rather less risky) to pursue PRC's ultimate strategic goals associated with TW scenario... displacing US posture out of east Asia and perhaps hitting CONUS infra at scale as response to US intervention. The latter part is key, there are important stretch goals to TW scenario that secures PRC geopolitical interests for 50-100+ years. It's much more important to be able to tackle those "costly" scenarios "cheaper", where cheaper is also relative to making intervention much more expensive for adversaries, i.e. PRC "winning" hand in TW scenario is to show US posture in east asia not sustainable, and CONUS (including TSMC Arizona) not defendable.

You know where

I'm not sure where GP's 25% comes from. But there have been various assessments that China intends to "reunify" with Taiwan by 2030. [1] Xi Xinping has also instructed the PLA to be prepared to invade by 2027. [2]

If you then ask yourself whether China would rather invade during the Trump administration (with its tendencies towards isolationism and "deal making") or roll the dice on a subsequent U.S. administration, you might find yourself thinking that the odds actually seem considerably higher than 25% that this could happen in the next four years.

To the extent that this narrative comes via the U.S. intelligence/defense community, one has to assume that it may biased towards exaggerating the threat. I for one hope that is the case, since I do not want to see a U.S.-China conflict any time soon. At the same time, I unfortunately don't think it's likely to be completely baseless.

[1] https://media.defense.gov/2023/Apr/24/2003205865/-1/-1/1/07-...

[2] See, e.g., https://cimsec.org/the-maritime-convoys-of-2027-supporting-t...; https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4547637-china-potential-t...

Metaculus - this is the median prediction.

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