Comment by smallerfish
Comment by smallerfish 4 days ago
The point is redundancy in case China follows through on their threats to invade.
Comment by smallerfish 4 days ago
The point is redundancy in case China follows through on their threats to invade.
Selling the secret sauce to US definitely make Taiwan disposable. But I also bet TSMC doesn't have a choice as whoever in power in US can also impose sanction/tariff or whatever they can to make TSMC to compile.
TSMC is a publicly traded company and like all publicly traded companies it has no allegiance to any country (other than historical legacy and emotions) and will always relocate to where it's most safe and profitable for providing returns to its shareholders, just like how many profitable companies moved to UK, US and Switzerland during WW2 and how many EU companies are doing the same thing today.
If the US will provide TSMC with better deals on all fronts than what the Taiwanese government can, then there's nothing that can stop them from slowly abandoning Taiwan and moving the HQ and vital operations to the US over time, especially that the Taiwanese government is not a major shareholder in TSMC.
In the game betwen China and the US, the legal status and 'allegiance' of TSMC is not relevant. What is relevant is who controls the fabs, i.e. where the fabs are physically located.
It is also naive to think that governments (US and especially ROC/Taiwan) do not have influence over TSMC. This sort of thing is not necessarily measured by level of shareholding.
Short of nuclear weapons, I'm not sure what would allow Ukraine to "win". Even given all the hardware, Ukraine doesn't have the staff or experience to field a full NATO air wing and integrate it to fight according to NATO combined arms doctrine -- if that even WOULD produce a "win" (there is an untested assumption that a NATO-standard military could trounce Russia)
Ukraine needs to hold the line, keep Russia sanctioned and let it burn itself out economically...or wait for Putin to die.
The Russian economy is grinding to dust right now, and the Soviet vehicle inheritance evaporating.
At some point, they stop being able to pay workers and troops, and while martial law can keep things moving, it's all getting much more expensive after that.
Putin has been very careful to try and keep the war awaybfrom his Moscow powerbase...so it's clear he recognises his authority and position is far from unlimited.
I agree with all that, but none of that translates to a traditional battlefield triumph. Maybe providing more long-range weapons would enable symbolic strikes near Moscow or on oligarchs' dachas, but that's the only case I can think of where materiel might help with that strategy.
Ukraine needs more soldiers, hard without full conscription, with the pool of heroic volunteers already committed, and it needs more artillery shells, that NATO can't readily supply because NATO never imagined playing quartermaster this kind of warfare in the 21st century.
Ukraine can't even properly equip the soldiers it already has. Supporting countries could dig a lot deeper in their supplies, they will have ample time to rearm.
TSMC being 2-4 years ahead of Samsung/Intel has nothing to do whether US would be willing to go on a nuclear war and move the entire world decades if not millenias back. No one can go on a direct war with a country with nukes unless they are ready for mutually assured destruction.
Russia thought the same when it thought it could hide behind its nukes. Alas.
And it did. US could do very very significant harm to Russia's military if nuclear retaliation wasn't a threat. And probably that would be cheaper than the weapons/training that they are giving to Ukraine.
Well I commend you that would rather live in a post nuclear hellscape dystopia rather than be the citizen of a vassal state of a Nuclear Power.
the current regime will make choices based on what's profitable for the companies involved. It's unlikely that losing TSMC will improve profits for American companies, so having this redundancy is for short term applications.
The business interests _are_ the political landscape today.
> they’ll be willing to let China have the islands now too
The islands are Chinese. The US back Taiwan as an anti-communist and anti-China (divide and conquer) tactic, including because its location. If the communists had lost the civil war, the mainland and Taiwan would all have remained under ROC control and it would have been interesting to see what the US would have come up with, instead (academic and thought experiment but interesting to imagine nonetheless).
In Ukraine the US don't want to be dragged in a war against Russia and things have played well for them so far (really the US are the only winners so far).
> The islands are Chinese.
"In June 2008, a TVBS poll found that 68% of the respondents identify themselves as "Taiwanese" while 18% would call themselves "Chinese".[33] In 2015, a poll conducted by the Taiwan Braintrust showed that about 90 percent of the population would identify themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese.[34]" [1]
That is quite irrelevant in addition to being misleading.
"invade" = western propaganda
The proper word is "reunite", as it was agreed with the US
It sure gonna hurt the US Military industrial complex, no war = no money
"1982 U.S.-PRC Joint Communiqué/Six Assurances
As they negotiated establishment of diplomatic relations, the U.S. and PRC governments agreed to set aside the contentious issue of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. They took up that issue in the 1982 August 17 Communiqué, in which the PRC states “a fundamental policy of striving for peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, and the U.S. government states it “understands and appreciates” that policy. The U.S. government states in the 1982 communiqué that with those statements “in mind,” “it does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan,” and “intends gradually to reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan, leading, over a period of time, to a final resolution.” The U.S. government also declares “no intention” of “pursuing a policy of ‘two Chinas,’” meaning the PRC and the ROC, “or ‘one China, one Taiwan.’”"
> "invade" = western propaganda
> The proper word is "reunite", as it was agreed with the US
So the US and the PRC had some milquetoast diplomatic correspondence which did not include Taiwan. If the PRC now occupies Taiwan against the will of its people and population, presumably under fire from the Taiwanese army, it' just a "reunification"?
Taiwanese are pro-reunification, Tsai wich is pro-US and pro-indepandance had quit due to her party loosing local elections
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Taiwan-elections/Taiwan-s-T...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/2024_Leg...
An election result is not a single-issue poll and the current government supports the status quo anyway (just being fundamentally more open to dialogue). A clear majority of the opulation supports de-facto independence (the current status) or even formal independence [0].
[0] https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/09/02/...
Very misleading to link to the legislative election results, when the KMT party only won 33% of the Presidential vote. And on top of that the KMT's actions when in power are to preserve the status quo (effectively independent, make money, avoid war), even if their long term vision is peaceful unification with a democratic China.
This redundancy makes me worried that the US will view Taiwanese sovereignty as disposable. While the US has given much for the defence of Ukraine, it’s always been careful to make sure it’s not enough for Ukraine to win but only enough to make it expensive for Russia hopping they’ll reconsider. Russia has won there and I suspect they’ll joe be willing to let China have the islands now too.