I don’t buy the blanket statement that the consumer always pays the tariff. It depends on what alternative companies have. If a company can purchase the same clothing from Chinese, Vietnamese, or Mexican vendors, a tax on China only could make the Chinese vendors lower the price or risk losing the business.
However, a blanket tax on every country, regardless of available alternatives, would leave businesses with fewer options and make it more likely that the cost is passed on to consumers.
For taxes to work in raising money, they have to be paid. So, if the goal is to make revenue from the taxes, then raising costs is expected?
If the goal is to incentivize alternatives, then the tax has to be such that it raises the price above the gap there now. So, even if you do drive people to an alternative source, the new price will be higher than the old. (Unless the thought is that people were choosing to not buy the cheaper source to begin with?)
I suppose you can argue that some suppliers have such a margin that the tax could be an effort to get them to cut into that? I have not seen evidence that that is the case?
> If a company can purchase the same clothing from Chinese, Vietnamese, or Mexican vendors, a tax on China only could make the Chinese vendors lower the price or risk losing the business.
This example implies producers are already in competition with one another, so it's unlikely that any of them can lower the price much. On the other hand, if some producers leave the market due to the tariffs, then there's less competition overall and the other producers can charge more.
The objective reality of the situation is that there is a transaction between a buyer and a seller. That transaction is what pays the tariff, VAT, property transfer tax or whatever vampirical suckage by whatevername.
Both transacting counterparties are robbed.
How that is distributed between them is a matter of which has more alternatives. E.g. if the seller has lots of prospective buyers, most of whom are not subject to the tax, then the market price they demand is not sensitive to the rare buyer who does pay the tax.
If a big fraction of the seller's prospective buyers face a tax, then it makes their product or service look more expensive to a good chunk of the market, which exerts downward pressure on the price. The downward pressure on the price means that the seller effectively pays some of the tax, through lost revenue.
So, the transaction pays the tax as such, but how much of it is distributed between buyer and seller depends on the degree of influence of the tax on the price point.
This is true, but the amount of production in China dwarfs everyone else, and definitely what America can bring up anytime soon, so two consequences:
A. Tariff for Chinese goods will be reflected in consumer prices pretty much directly.
B. Domestic suppliers if the same goods have very limited capacity, giving them the pricing power to raise their prices by the tariff amount, and take it as extra profit.
Take for example cars. We will see American cars go up by the same amount as imports as long as they are oversubscribed on capacity.
Why in 4 years they will go away? Is that assuming the new administration will reverse course? It’s my understanding that generally country don’t lower tariffs voluntarily. They are usually bargaining chips.
We have tried this before about 100 years ago. Supply chains and economies were not nearly as interconnected as they are now. Read the history of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act.
Tariffs may not even last 4 months. Trump demanded Powell reduce interest rates, the FRB declined. The might be Trump's way of forcing the Fed to reduce interest rates, by inducing a recession with massive inflation. And then Trump takes the tariffs away once the Fed gives him what he wants.
FRB won't reduce interest rates if there's inflation alone. They'd only reduce interest rates if the economy also slows down into recession territory.
That's the short term view.
In the long term view, they are the biggest tax increase in the history of the country, therefore they are potentially the biggest tax decrease in the history of the country. Political fodder, even for a corpse.
(c) Should any trading partner take significant steps to remedy non-reciprocal trade arrangements and align sufficiently with the United States on economic and national security matters, I may further modify the HTSUS to decrease or limit in scope the duties imposed under this order.
Even the Americans, the State Department has (had?) people whose job is to help with nation building and they'd learned that if you copy-paste the US model you're basically just setting up a dictatorship in advance, the "President" will seize power, whoops.
It's impressive they got to forty odd Presidents with only one civil war so far, but it's just luck and it didn't last.
The idea that the US protects Taiwan from a possible Chinese invasion over chips is one of those things that sounds believable but really isn't going to happen.
From China’s perspective, the cost of war is much higher than the cost of developing these chips themselves. In the worst-case scenario, they would be 2-3 years behind the cutting edge, which is not mission-critical. Most electronics (civilian or military) don’t really need cutting-edge chips, and China has already proven that they don’t need the latest chips to be a significant AI competitor.
From the US’s perspective, if a war with China were to break out now, there are only three possible scenarios:
1. China takes Taiwan quickly. In this case, there would be nothing for US to defend, and the US would have to try to take Taiwan back militarily—unlikely to happen.
2. Stalemate. Taiwanese people fight bravely, and Chinese forces turn out to be weaker than expected. In this case, the US would be in a comfortable position to send aid and weapons to help Taiwan, prolonging the war to weaken China. With some luck, a regime change could happen without firing a shot.
3. Taiwan successfully defends itself, repels the Chinese invasion, and possibly even takes back some territory—an unlikely scenario, but this is the only one where the US would send troops to help defend Taiwan. If the US gets involved at this stage, it secures a sure win, puts a military base on the island, and further cements its role as the protector of taiwan.
If you believe the US will or should only act in its own interest, then its interest is to remain the only superpower. Rushing into a war on foreign turf and losing is the quickest way to cede the Asia-Pacific region to China. So, despite what politicians might have you believe, the US is not going to help defend Taiwan, no matter who is in the White House.
China doesn't want Taiwan for TSMC. They want Taiwan because they see them as a rebellious province. In their mind, the Chinese civil war never ended and that island is the last bastion of the Kuomintang. One way I've heard it described in a way that is easier for Americans to understand is; Imagine at the end of the American Civil War, a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba or Hawaii, they took it over and have been calling themselves the real America ever since.
I'm not saying China is right in wanting to invade Taiwan. But that's closer to their real motivations than anything having to do with economics or technology. And its important to understand your potential adversaries motivations because that will inform their decisions and tactics.
> They want Taiwan because they see them as a rebellious province.
We can argue about what the exact desire is - there's 100M people in the CCP - we'll probably never know an exact answer.
The important thing is - China is willing to spend a LOT more money to take Taiwan than it is economically worth.
So this idea that 1) China wants Taiwan for chips, 2) War would cost more than chips, 3) Therefore, Taiwan is logically safe - is a fallacy.
The war in Ukraine is never going to pay off for Russia. They're not fighting that war to make money. They're fighting that war because a bunch of dick bags got together in a room and decided it was expedient for them for millions of people to lose their lives.
> They're not fighting that war to make money. They're fighting that war because a bunch of dick bags got together in a room and decided it was expedient for them for millions of people to lose their lives.
Please stop saying things like this. It doesn't help anyone.
What's wrong about this idea? Russia is actively sending men from provinces to die to lower the possibility of secession of those provinces. It might have been one of the main goals of the war.
There's one big strategic thing the Ukraine war offers Russia and that's a nice balmy port and (if they'd managed the original 3 days to Kiev) removing a potential invasion front on it's juicy underbelly.
It doesn't freeze which by Russian standards is balmy, an accidental shiboleth that trips up Russians pretending to be American online is they'll mention unprompted "warm water port" as a notable feature.[0]
This invasion is partially an extension of their goal of securing Crimea with a more solid land connection rather than the more easily interrupted bridge connection that was their only connection until they pushed up to their current lines in Eastern Ukraine.
> an accidental shiboleth that trips up Russians pretending to be American online is they'll mention unprompted "warm water port" as a notable feature.
That's just reddit paranoia. "Warm water port" is a term of art which means a port that stays free of ice. It's not about comfortable swimming temperatures.
Reddit just uses this as an excuse to say that anybody discussing reasons Russia might have started this war, other than "they're being evil for the sake of being evil, just like in my manchild Marvel/Harry Potter/Star Wars movies" is secretly a Russian bot, because even if you know such reasons might exist your willingness to discuss them, or unwillingness to go along with a simplistic groupthink narrative, is something which must be suppressed and punished. The cause is more important than your desire to have an honest conversation!
Anyway, this kind of language policing and "shibboleth" crap lame slacktivism. Go enlist. Ooh, that's probably a shibboleth too. Beep boop, Imma robot because I don't walk in lockstep with Reddit!
>"they're being evil for the sake of being evil, just like in my manchild Marvel/Harry Potter/Star Wars movies"
The amount of times I've seen people on reddit reply to (presumably real) Ukrainian redditors with a show of solidarity composed of some slogan from a Hollywood movie or to try to explain/compare their situation in Ukraine / on the world stage to an Avengers movie is honestly baffling. I genuinely can't believe that people live framing their existence and perspective of the world without the context of cheap power fantasy fiction. It's so cringingly out of touch that I'm almost far more willing to believe people talking like that are the Russian bots people are constantly harping on about trying to make Western public support look bad.
It isn't paranoia because for most counties all of their ports are "warm water" and only Russia has an obsession with "warm water ports" and is likely to use this phrase. For most countries it is like saying "car with wheels" it is just redundant.
No it's when it's used in contexts outside Russia, note I've been saying it but I'd be a shitty Russia astroturf account to be calling myself out too..., people can say warm water ports. It's mentioning it like it's a notable feature elsewhere in the world that's the telltale sign because it's pretty much only a notable feature for Russia because their other ports freeze in the winter. It's not a notable feature of Texas that it's ports are warm water ports. Every US port except small ones in Alaska that serve the fishing industry are warm water and the same is true of most of the world where all non land locked countries have at least a few lovely balmy ports to choose from.
> The only reason Russia is against NATO is the article 5
Nah, they are also against Article 4 (regional security), which while not as concrete of a commitment, applies much more broadly, and which leads to things like the current support for Ukraine, not just Article 5 (mutual defense), which only affects hem when they would want to target a NATO member’s territory in and in a couple areas close to Europe or North America.
> "They're fighting that war because a bunch of dick bags got together in a room and decided it was expedient for them for millions of people to lose their lives."
Pretty sure Putin needs to start wars, conflicts, terrorist events to maintain political stability. That is to say, he can't lose power because they'll kill him.
I use China in this context to mean the Chinese state which given their system is interchangeable with the CCP. So you can subv in CCP in my statement or even Xi if you want since he is unequivocally running things.
In the case of Ukraine, Russia's (read: the russian government which is synonymous with Putin who dictator in all but name) motivation is somewhat similar. But they don't see Ukraine as a rebellious province. They see it as a vassal state as they do all of the other former SSRs and members of the Warsaw pact. Putin and his nationalist group have a very old world view of things and a very specific concept of what their rightful sphere of influence is and what exactly it means to control it. This isn't even unique to them. After securing power, the Bolsheviks quickly attempted to bring former Russian imperial possessions back under their control. That included Ukraine, Poland and Finland. Poland and Finland were able to secure their independence, Ukraine was less fortunate. For all the talk of anti imperialism, they were just as imperial as their predecessors. So this is just russians being russians and an inability for their world view to evolve past the 19th century.
There is no “reason” or justification. The decision to invade has already been made, all these explanations exist for the sole purpose of making it easier to do nothing about it when the invasion happens. Chinese people feel they way they are taught to feel.
China's fundamental argument distilled to its most pure form is "we are strong enough to do this, what are you going to do about it?" A world where the strong do whatever they want because no one can do anything about it is not a world anyone should want to live in.
All of the Chinese expressing these opinions from a position of safety can’t seem to put themselves in the shoes of Taiwanese. The inhumanity of an invasion is being hidden by high level ideas like history.
The American civil war comparison fails. No American sits and thinks about invading the UK to “complete” our revolution and that’s much closer than your scenario.
> A world where the strong do whatever they want because no one can do anything about it is not a world anyone should want to live in.
You're fooling yourself if you don't think we live in, and have always lived in, this world.
Citizens like me, living in a relatively just society, can tell ourselves the world is not like this because of our daily lives, but the reality is if some group of people even stronger doesn't care, the strong get to do what they want.
I thought the whole Russia/Ukraine thing snapped people back into the reality of the world we live in, and I'm quite amazed that there are still people that don't realize this is how the world is, and always will, be.
So we're back to promoting slavery then? Because that is a thing that happens if we just allow the strong to do whatever they want. It seems to me that this kind of cynical "realistic" pessimism is part of what fuels totalitarianism. Russia has succeeded in falling back into this because their citizens believes that might makes right.
But might isn't one thing. Might arises from complex underlying relationships between people and it arises from what people believe in. Might makes right yes. But what people believe is right also makes might. When people stop believing that it's impossible to stand up to totalitarianism - that's when it wins.
I mean reality have aspects of both. We have the capacity to make things how they ought to be, to an extent - especially if we agree on what ought to be. This discussion boils down to how far we think that extent goes.
I think we tend to both under and over estimate how far that goes. We underperform when we lack the means to coordinate. When we align and stay motivated we can push ought to to is pretty damn far.
> You're fooling yourself if you don't think we live in, and have always lived in, this world.
While I agree it is different now because everything is in the spotlight and you can’t get away with things like you used to. So not sure I would go as far as “always will be”.
Also not sure there is a need to say how amazed one is about one other’s opinion, since it belittles it.
Freedom is a function of solidarity -- each man's willingness to sacrifice for his fellow man. If some are willing to make the sacrifice you can be free. If none are willing to make the sacrifice then all will die a slave. Unfortunately this means that some of the architects of a world we want to live in won't get to experience it.
Everything has a reason. Xi didn't make that decision for the lulz. The reason is they see Taiwan as part of China and in active rebellion. Simple as. That doesn't make it right, but that explains why they are doing it. You don't have to accept that but that's what actual chinese and taiwanese nationals have told me and I'm inclined to believe them.
In my opinion it is a populist movement, and we should accept this hard truth. Trump is in office due to "manipulation" to the same extent that any speech is manipulation. He is a salesman and has sold his vision for the country successfully.
The downvotes for your comment are quite telling of the demographic of Hacker News. But even leftwing media are admitting the Democrat party has a problem:
"We cannot solve this problem without an honest assessment of who we are. How we see ourselves as the Democratic Party—the party of the people, the party of the working class and the middle class—no longer matches up with what most voters think."
"For the first time since the mid-20th century, the central fault line of American politics is neither race and ethnicity nor gender but rather class, determined by educational attainment. But in the intervening half century, the parties have switched places. Republicans once commanded a majority among college-educated voters while Democrats were the party of the working class. Now the majority of college educated voters support Democrats"
But I suppose there's too many well-off, well-educated, white collar elites on this site who aren't willing to face the reality that their politics have been ruining blue collar lives for decades, and the political backlash has finally hit a crescendo powerful enough to wash over Washington. So I guess we blame it all on disinformation campaigns?
Almost daily, Michigan’s Arab Americans voters in precincts of heavy concentration are receiving glossy mailings with messages like: “Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff: Unwavering Support for Israel” or “Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff, the ultimate pro-Israel power couple” or “Kamala Harris and Elissa Slotkin [the Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan]: The proven team we can trust to stand up for the Jewish community.” And targeted video messaging on social media sites saying things like “Kamala Harris stands with Israel.”
Meanwhile, in areas of Pennsylvania where there are heavy concentrations of Jewish voters, homes are receiving messages like: “Kamala Harris will embolden anti-Semites” or “Donald Trump always stands up for the Jewish people.” And targeted video messaging on social media platforms saying “Kamala Harris will not be silent about human suffering in Gaza” or “Two-faced Kamala Harris: Standing with Palestine and not our ally, Israel.”
These mailings and social media posts are paid for by a dark money group, Future Coalition PAC. Researchers have identified that one of the major donors to this group is Elon Musk, the principal owner of X and a strong supporter of Donald Trump’s presidential bid.
This to me is the correct answer. A lot of times in war it's not about logic or reason, it's about emotion and feeling. Throughout Chinese history, a leader is only "legitimate" or dare I say, have the Mandate from Heaven, when they have unified the country under one banner. It is a stain on their authority that there is "rouge" state outside the CCP's control. They will do anything to unify their country for national pride.
Jesus, you realize people just mistype things sometimes? It really annoys me when people feel like they have to come in and correct others this way, it's so condescending.
Personally, I'm grateful to be corrected on a casual and anonymous forum if it saves me from making the same mistake on a formal document, condescension notwithstanding. My response to grammar cops is either, "Thank you!" if it was due to my ignorance, or "Oops, damned autocorrect/typo/ brain fart," if a lack of attention was at fault.
Sometimes, we know just the word we want. And we know how to spell it. But we fat-finger it. Or our fingers trip. Or our brains just get the finger-tapping order a bit off.
None of these things requires an education in using the incorrect word. “Irregardless”? Give ‘em what for! Their/there/they’re? A nice reminder. Swapped a couple letters is a plausible explanation? A simple correct spelling followed with a * would suffice.
There have been many periods of Chinese history with multiple competing dynasties, including transition periods. The Later Jin, for example, who became the Qing, took three generations to defeat the Ming dynasty; and they had been around since before the Song dynasty.
THe lands and territories also wax and waned throughout the centuries. A map of the territories controlled by the Qing at its peak is vastly different than that of the Tang or that of the Han dynasty.
This is more like the game of weiqi than it is the game of chess. The endgame isn't necessarily a decisive action with a win condition, but more of an accumulation.
I’m not sure I agree, Xi already proofed that he’s a great political mind by his actions with in the inner politics of his own party.
I think he’ll treat the war with Taiwan rationally as the political tool that it can be.
When the set of constraints and what he has to gain will be in his favor he may do it.
I’m not an expert but I honestly can’t not see him risk what he built for so many years for that amount of potential destabilization.
This is an interesting theory. Under this line of political thinking, it’s just as important that the U.S. project that they would come to help if the aim is political stability or maintaining the status quo.
Yes, communist nations especially need to protect the narrative that their way is the best way. Having the Taiwanese sitting off shore thriving outside of party control is embarrassing.
On a daily basis here on HN, capitalists and libertarians and others with the SV mindset work hard to protect the narrative that their way is the best way.
I'm so happy to live in the US, a country without ceaseless propaganda about how our way of life is the best and our democracy is the best and our freedom is the only way and there is no alternative to unfettered capitalism.
The entire justification for Musk's DOGE & MAGA is that the status quo in the USA is not good and needs to be torn down.
From my observation, the West suffers from the opposite of Chinese or Indian nationalism, in excessive self-flagellation to the point of self-destructiveness. Critical Theory, Identity Politics, Woke, Anti-Woke, Postmodernism (both left & right), etc would be immediately crushed in those nationalist societies, they are very much a unique artifact of the Western order.
It's really a result of the US being so heterogeneous. One side's status quo is the other side's in-progress radical reinvention. The pendulum is always on the move. You have to take the average position on a longer time scale to figure out where the country stands.
I mean on one hand we can do better but on the other, last I checked there's not been a time where citizens were hauled off to prison in the US for disparaging capitalism. Closest we came was the red scare in the 50s and that was tame in comparison to what Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot and Castro and Ho Chi Minh and (do I need to keep going?) put their subjects through.
On the other hand, historically speaking, the various dynasties of China had been able tightly control markets when it was one of the jewels of the Silk Roads.
I prefer a free market myself, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking there isn't a narrative being pushed by people who profit off of free markets or capitalism.
> China doesn't want Taiwan for TSMC. They want Taiwan because they see them as a rebellious province. In their mind, the Chinese civil war never ended and that island is the last bastion of the Kuomintang. One way I've heard it described in a way that is easier for Americans to understand is; Imagine at the end of the American Civil War, a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba or Hawaii, they took it over and have been calling themselves the real America ever since.
We know this version is closer to the truth because Mao tried to take Taiwan
China is basically circled on all sides by US-allied forces and with Taiwan being one it really limits their force projection capabilities in the Pacific. That's the actual pragmatic reason, not some ideology thing, imho
Everyone wants to think there is always a "pragmatic" reason. It helps to think that there is always a rational cause for everything, every decision that is made. And we map cynicism about our own politicians onto everyone else, thinking that surely they don't mean what they say either.
There's not always a rational reason. Ideology and nationalism are real things. World leaders do not always act in "rational" ways, nor are they always playing 4D chess.
It's worse than a rebellious province. It's a more successful rebellious province.
For China, they hold up all of these technical accomplishments and quality of life improvements they have made under their one party system. But now over here is Taiwan that never bought in and is doing even better! It undercuts all of their messaging.
If the communist party could wave a magic wand, they would take Taiwan and not just extract wealth, but also pump out a lot of propaganda that says Taiwan is doing even better under party rule and Western-style democracy was holding it back.
> It's worse than a rebellious province. It's a more successful rebellious province.
That statement just made me LOL. In what dimension other than foreign investment do you see Taiwan as more successful than China? In 2025, it's pretty clear that China has self sovereignty, is the world's factory, leads in BRICS, and isn't subject to the US empire.
Per capita income? Percentage of people with education/clean running water/out of poverty? Things that actually matter to the daily lives of people?
Yes, China has lifted millions of people out of poverty over the last few decades, but the median person in China is still vastly worse off than the median person in Taiwan.
Chinese people know that Taiwan is only what it is because of money pumped by the US into the little island. It has always been the strategy of Western countries to support little states in the vicinity of enemy countries as a way to contain and divide the nation.
I mean, we are also going to brush past the infrastructure development done by the Japanese when they occupied Taiwan during the Meiji period that made it a valuable island to begin with. Or that Taiwan did a better, more equitable and less violent version of land reform than Mao did. And that Taiwan never expelled academics and didn't attempt the Great Leap Forward.
If so, it would sound like the Chinese people are being mislead about the economic history of the island they supposedly claim.
North Korea has self sovereignty, space rockets, nuclear weapons, and sends its troops to a war overseas to project its power!
South Korea is just much more successful at putting bread (and many other foods) on the tables of its citizens. It is also more advanced technologically, and, curiously, has a working democratic government instead of a hereditary single-party rule.
Norway, probably yes. Their population is more educated, and their civil society much better functioning than the UK. Their society is less unequal and (I’m pretty sure) their quality of life figures would be higher.
Monaco is just a tax wheeze and playground.
do you care about quality of life? literacy? about social justice? about women's rights?
or about who has the most richest billionaires or the strongest military?
or who has the best american football teams?
Not every people care about the same things. Some people would rather live in a country that treats others as shit, and take pride in that and absolutely don't see the point why other other countries have some better metrics on some they may consider useless stuff like education.
EDIT: I mean, I know it sounds silly, but failure to understand that there are so many people who literally don't give a shit about why education matters, or why empathy matters is the reason we are in this situation. We took for granted that there are universal values, and organized our societies around goals oriented towards those universal values and in the meantime we got this resentment brewing in part of the population that got exploited by populist forces
> they hold up all of these technical accomplishments and quality of life improvements they have made under their one party system. But now over here is Taiwan that never bought in
Never bought in to one party rule huh? It seems like people forgot about the 38 years of martial law:
Even so, this doesn't change the fact that anything that Maoists could take credit for was done better by the non-ideologue dictator next door.
But the fact that the martial law came to an end largely democratically is good evidence that both democratic reform was easier outside of the CCCP, and that the Taiwanese single party rule was probably not as totalitarian as some people claim.
This isn’t an abstract comparison. CCP mostly overthrew the existing government and Taiwan was a continuation of that existing system. So for that system be quantifiably better is an issue independent of things like elections.
It’s a clear demonstration that failures like the great Chinese famine simply wouldn’t have happened if the communist revolution failed. That’s a significant political issue, because people from that time period are still alive so they can’t simply erase the memory of it.
I mean, it depends on what you mean by "rebellious". There is a lot more nuance than that. From the Kuomingtang's perspective, the CCP are the rebels.
One piece of history is that after Sun Yat-Sen died, his successor Chang Kai Shek purged the Kuomingtang of any socialist, community, and otherwise left-leaning members of their assembly. When some members escaped the purge, this sowed the seeds of the CCP that came to fruit after fighting off the Japanese during WWII.
When the Kuomingtang retreated to Taiwan, it was not run as a republic or a democratic society. Martial law ended in 1987 and a second political party did not appear until it was illegally formed in 1986. The Kuomingtang and its coalition continues to identify with China -- the civilization -- whereas the DDP-lead coalition is done with that and wants their own national identity of Taiwain.
the US made China it's manufacturing arm and now the US wants to take that back? Kind of late. If China invades Taiwan, the US is to blame. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket.
That's completely deranged. The CCP has intended to take Taiwan from day one. Before they even managed to drive the ROC out of mainland China they intended to take all of China, including Taiwan, and their failure to take Taiwan has never been something they were satisfied with.
Manufacturing has nothing to do with it. America only has anything to do with it insofar as they have helped Taiwan resist the CCP so far.
Yeah that weird logic is all too common recently. I'll paraphrase:
The ravenous wild beast is pounding at your door. The only thing standing before you and certain death is your front door that needs urgent repairs. You call your landlord begging for help but they say it's not their problem.
The beast smashes through the door and eats you up.
Some would agree that the landlord is to blame because of inaction. Some would argue instead that the landlord is not responsible for your problem. You should have not provoked the beast. Or fixed the door yourself. Or paid more rent etc.
This framing only works of the wild beast has no agency at all. It's by definition wild and we all know what it will do and it can't help itself but being a man eating wild beast. It has no moral obligation to not be a man eating beast.
But by applying this framing to Russia and CCP you're dehumanizing them. You're assuming that they are so evil they cannot possibly have any moral obligations and so the burden falls on third parties (or worse, you, their victim!) if they attack you!
> the US made China it's (sic) manufacturing arm..
i think it's more accurate to give credit where earned: one thing the CCP did smart was _win_ foreign business (US Apple and Dell etc) by building the rentable factory system with deep dependable supply chains directly adjacent. That was uniquely able , globally, to compete and win business.
The US didn't seemingly even think to do that, perhaps distracted by the Cold War?
The trade war reduces China's dependence on the US, whether through sales or holding US treasuries. This means China can invade Taiwan with less risk of economic sanctions. That said, without TSMC, and especially with the current administration, I doubt the US would step in.
> Imagine at the end of the American Civil War, a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba or Hawaii, they took it over and have been calling themselves the real America ever since.
It is a great analogy. However, in this case, that small island was taken by China even before the American Civil War. To put it into perspective, it was during the time when Isaac Newton was working on gravity.
And one episode of Open To Debate [1] argued Taiwan is the worst possible place to confront China:
> I used to give battlefield tours at Gettysburg, an extraordinary place. ... a certain cavalry General John Buford ... surveyed the ground and he knew right away he looked at the hills and said, this is good ground, ... The geography favors us. Well, I want to tell you folks, he saved our country that with that appreciation. But this is the opposite. This is bad ground. This is the worst possible place to confront China
> and have been calling themselves the real America ever since
This isn't really the situation with Taiwan though. The main reason Taiwan is still officially called the Republic of China is because changing that will likely trigger the PRC.
> I'm not saying China is right in wanting to invade Taiwan.
I find it very surprising that a lot of otherwise intelligent people have trouble with telling endorsement from explanation. Like when I tell people about some political (or not) figure's opinions and worldviews, I'm somehow defending them. I'm not! I'm doing it exactly to
> understand your potential adversaries' motivations
You are unfortunately not understanding how you are being deceived. Confederate in this store didn't flee. They won and there really is the Real America on Long Island.
> a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba
No, it's the other way around. Imagine that the South is victorious, and the last remnants of the North forces remain in, say, Long Island, calling themselves the original American Republic, claiming their lineage from the revolution of 1776. Technically they would be!
The Taiwanese regime is a remnant of the original Republic of China established in 1914, and Kuomintang is one of the original democratic parties of that republic. The Communist regime are the "rebels" of the Communist revolution of 1949. But, as they say, a rebellion can never succeed, because if it does, it's called another way.
> Imagine at the end of the American Civil War, a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba or Hawaii, they took it over and have been calling themselves the real America ever since.
I mean, for a decade or so, try to re-unify, sure. But 75 years later, with slavery abolished and a completely different governmental system? I'd like to think most Americans would have accepted the New Normal by that point. If anything this tells me how irrational Chinese and Russian attitudes are.
> Imagine at the end of the American Civil War, a confederate army retreated to an island like Cuba or Hawaii, they took it over and have been calling themselves the real America ever since.
In reality while the confederate states were part of the United States, the Republic of China (Taiwan) was never part of the Peoples Republic of China (communist China), its the reverse.
Not really, because it likes to the conflate the negative connotations of the confederates and their slavery to the ROC, when it's more like if the Union Government was in a civil war with the Confederates with the Union controlling most of the land, but then the British/Mexicans/Canadians, etc invaded and the Union broke it's back holding that back, then when the invaders finally retreated the Confederates were able to reorganize and defeat the Union, so then it would be the Union that retreat to Long Island or something.
Instead of doing blind analogies, it would be alot better just to directly describe the events of what occurred, but that's going to be inconvenient for the CCP and their supporters to introduce some nuance into the conversations.
Insider knowledge? Not really, unless you count asking actual chinese and taiwanese nationals what they think about it instead of assuming their world view is the same as my own.
Thanks for clarification. Do you believe nationals of these countries (or any country in the world) know what the CCP actually wants i.e. its true goals?
I think their true goals are pretty transparent, but the specifics of how they plan to achieve them are more secretive.
The CCP primarily wants to gain power. Political, economic, and social. The levels of ambition probably vary by individuals inside the party, but generally involves a uniform level of control across all regions of China (including Taiwan from their point of view), and enough global power to give them a free hand in East Asia.
Chinese nationals may put more emphasis on increasing prosperity. Taiwan nationals may put more emphasis on strict control and global power. Individual reactions largely vary. Out of both groups, limitations on personal liberties cause the harshest criticism of CCP, with the one child policy almost universally seen unfavorably.
It is hard to drill this in the mind of people who grew up under stable governments, but dictators have this terrible habit of sacrificing prosperity to gain control (often sacrificing the former without gaining the later). Being a dictator and surrounded by yes-man, they also tend to act less rationally and less predictably than your average democratic leader.
History is full of kings who started terrible wars and got their countries screwed in the process. You can't apply game theory this kind of people.
He's probably rational, but he's certainly not democratically elected and has ousted all his enemies. What do you define as a dictator? He's accountable to no one.
Even rational actors may make bad decisions if they are badly informed, and given how risky it usually is to bring bad news to the emperor, chances are that Xi is fed with data that is a bit rosier than it should.
It is rational for a dictator to increase their power at the expense of some prosperity of the populace. Communist rulers around the world exhibited this trait, but non-Communist rulers also did the same from times immemorial.
Invading Taiwan will never be an economically rational action. If it happens, it will be because of internal politics, personal/national myth-making etc.
Taiwan is ridiculously favourable terrain for the defenders; if they fight back, there can't be quick victory, and the US will be able to play merry hell with China's naval logistics from day 1 (obviously with escalating levels of firepower available over time as more resources move in-theatre).
China could secure a more reliable victory by expending most of it's ballistic missile inventory to incapacitate the US bases in Guam and Okinawa, but that would inexorably trigger WWIII.
I don't think that's accurate. The population is concentrated on the west coast, all that mountainous terrain is unpopulated. Also it's an island that's very close to China.
I can't comment on their impartiality, but a policy research organisation ran a detailed war gaming simulation of an amphibious invasion by China 24 times in 2023.
> In most scenarios, the United States/Taiwan/Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan. However, this defense came at high cost. The United States and its allies lost dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and tens of thousands of servicemembers. Taiwan saw its economy devastated. Further, the high losses damaged the U.S. global position for many years. China also lost heavily, and failure to occupy Taiwan might destabilize Chinese Communist Party rule.
I see you posting anti-Western comments all over the place but amidst your irrational hate you are forgetting history.
Originally, the US was the protector of almost all Asian countries from Japanese Imperialism, an axis power allied with Nazi Germany. How are people like you forgetting the rape of Nanjing or the mass killings of civilians by the Japanese across the Philippines and many other places? How are you forgetting Japanese imperial occupation of Taiwan and Korea? How and WHY are you forgetting Japanese Unit 731 [1]?
Ironically, the government which fled to Taiwan was ousted by a Communist revolution and chased into exile. How likely do you think is it that this operation, destablilising China, was funded and supported by the communist Soviet Union?
Writing that "US is the intruder" in your other comments completely dismisses history and is a ridiculous show of brainwashed anti-Western propaganda spread by Putin, Xi, Trump and such authoritarian dictators.
Of course a whole lot more happened after 1945 and American war crimes in Vietnam and elsewhere are part of that. As a European, I am aware of American cultural and military hegemony but I much rather argue with raging capitalists about workers rights compared to raging authoriatarian communists who kill everybody not on their ideological side.
Given all that, I am also glad that Europe is now moving to emanciapte from the dependency on American security infrastructure but that doesn't mean NATO should stop or that the US should stop being allies with European nations. Trump gets his goal of spending less for European security but that comes with the loss of hegemonial influence.
Those captured by the US military were secretly given immunity. The United States helped cover up the human experimentations and handed stipends to the perpetrators. The US had co-opted the researchers' bioweapons information and experience for use in their own warfare program
> As a European, I am aware of American cultural and military hegemony but I much rather argue with raging capitalists about workers rights compared to raging authoriatarian communists who kill everybody not on their ideological side.
Isn't this their main point? There's plenty of examples of killing those not on their side outside of "authoriatarian communists" (hint, Iraq, Gaza). You still believe in them and that's fine, but there is a lot of Western projection that they are right and others are not, which is the sense I get from your comment. It's reasonable for people to be against this and "anti-Western". It's also ok to see the strong development brought in from the West and support them. But this is a point for the locals to work through and not pushing a narrative like this one seems to be just as much pro-Western propaganda ignoring anything against it as the other way around.
The point, I guess, is that we had and still have mass organized protests against what happened in Iraq and Gaza. Some leaders paid a political price for that.
Nobody in the US cared until Pearl Harbor. Was US meddling in South America just protecting them from communism, or was it for US imperialism? Trump isn't that different, he has different allies and is more blatant about it.
The US denounced Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and refused to recognize that as new Japanese territory. A military response was not then considered, but to say that nobody in the US cared is false.
Edit: More so, the fact that America's initial response to Japan's imperialism was diplomatic rather than military undermines the narrative that America was just using Japan as a pretext to cover for America's own imperial ambition. America, far from leaping at an opportunity to invade Asia, was committed to diplomatic resolution of the matter until Japan's imperial ambitions drove them to directly attack the American military, forcing America to respond in kind.
No need to go on the island to win. Just encircle it. A blockade. Always works and this has been the modus operandi to conquer fortresses and castles for millenia.
Time wouldn't be on their side though. China would need to effectively complete the invasion before the US navy had time to react. Even if it was considered unlikely the US would react, I doubt China would commit to an invasion they weren't certain they could win.
Not everything is for sale, especially at this ridiculous price. Why would you think the taiwanese people are so poor that they would all betray their country for 100k?
> the taiwanese people are so poor that they would all betray their country for 100k?
You'd be surprised. I'm not saying that all of them (or even most of them) will accept the payment, but there have been multiple cases of espionage committed by Taiwanese military personnel for extremely trifling amounts of monetary reward from the Chinese. Here's just one example: https://www.worldjournal.com/wj/story/121222/8572208
"According to the investigation by the police and prosecutors, Li Huixin's younger associate, surnamed Chen, was involved in lending money to military personnel in the Zhongshan District of Taipei City. In June 2023, Li traveled to Macau under the pretense of religious exchange and as the head of Ruixian Temple in Luzhou District, New Taipei City. From there, she went to mainland China and made contact with national security intelligence personnel. Upon returning to Taiwan, she used money to lure financially struggling military personnel.
Li and her associates required military personnel to submit their military identification cards for verification. Afterward, they were asked to wear uniforms and film surrender videos while holding the Chinese five-star flag, chanting slogans such as "Chinese people do not fight Chinese people, I oppose war." These videos were then transmitted via Telegram with a self-destruct feature. The group also stole official documents and provided information such as flight paths and military exercise schedules. Bribes were paid based on the confidentiality level of the data, and recruiting fellow soldiers could increase rewards.
The case involves active and retired military personnel with the surnames Zhang, Lin, Liu, Wu, Peng, Li, Yao, and two individuals surnamed Chen. The suspects come from various military branches, including the Army, Navy, and Military Police, spanning officers, non-commissioned officers, and enlisted soldiers. The highest-ranking officer involved was a lieutenant. Among them, only Liu received illicit gains amounting to NT$150,000 (approximately USD 4,500), while the others had not yet received any criminal proceeds."
There are two significant points to make about instances like this.
Finding someone who meets Criteria X is a long way from finding either a Majority or even just enough of a minority to make a difference.
When people believe their action will not make a difference, they pay less heed to the consequences of their actions. People will take money to do things if they don't think it will change much.
There are probably plenty of gun runners who sell guns to rebels that would should they succeed in their rebellion it would be detrimental to the gun-running business. Nevertheless they would happily sell them guns to them while they think the rebellion is doomed.
It's not always that simple though. Significant strategic decisions can involve projecting ineffectiveness to obtain the support of those who do not want you to be effective. Because of this, people have committed betrayals that have turned out to be far more significant than they imagined. I suspect this happens more often in fiction than real life, but fiction more frequently focuses on the significant. Real life produces the significant by having millions with the one in a million chance of being significant.
> When people believe their action will not make a difference, they pay less heed to the consequences of their actions. People will take money to do things if they don't think it will change much.
So in a completely hypothetical scenario, if the CCP surreptitiously offers 10,000USD (or pick any other amount you want) to each Taiwanese citizen who votes in favour of reunification, might we not potentially end up in a situation where >50% of Taiwanese voters accept the deal because each of them labours under the erroneous assumption that he or she is in the minority?
In another completely hypothetical scenario, if trump offers 10.000USD to each canadian citizen to vote to become the 51st US state, might we end up in a situation in which >50% canadians vote yes? Food for thought.
Would you subject your family to a Cultural Revolution in exchange for 100k? Add several zeros and assurances of safe passage out of the country and maybe you'd be onto something, but that's not going to happen for numerous reasons.
The PRC already buys the loyalty of who they can in Taiwan, but Taiwan nevertheless remains resolute.
I think the GP meant "a" cultural revolution, not "the" cultural revolution. But yes, the CCP taking over Taiwan would erode and then try to erase the beautiful and diverse culture of Taiwan. Schools will teach obedience to the CCP. History will be rewritten. Free media and foreign media will be censored. The entire set of democratic institutions of Taiwan will be dismantled. And you can go on and on.
I think this strategy could possible work with the US taking Greenland (although I think that plan has been abandoned) but there is no way that Taiwan would accept such a small amount.
A blockade takes time to have an effect and that time gives US Navy SSNs time to start sinking the PLAN (in righteous response to the PLAN attacking merchant ships approaching Taiwan.)
For the PRCs invasion of Taiwan to work with minimal risk of excessive losses, they need to do it very quickly so that it's a fait accompli, minimizing the chance of any American response at all.
Unfortunately energy security is not on Taiwan's side during a blockade. We only have one active nuclear energy plant here, a bit of wind and solar, but mostly imported coal and LNG. I think electricity rationing would happen more or less immediately.
Can we really be sure what the new 2025 version of the US would do in such a scenario? I highly doubt the new US is going to intervene in defence of any of its erstwhile allies.
A smart friend suggested it triggers most rational leaders to be extra-cautious and may have a net-zero or even favourable impact on global politcs. We will see...
Being unpredictable has advantages and also disadvantages, depending on setting.
Though with an AI race going on and Musk practically living in the White House, I can't imagine the US would let China have Taiwan without a fight right now.
Also, forcing TSMC to build a number of modern fabs in the US is sort of a warning to China to stay away AT LEAST until those fabs are done. If China attacks right now,I think we would see the full might of the US forces coming to their defense.
AI right now has the same role as nukes had during the cold war. Nobody really knows how quickly it will develop, and many scenarios would allow those who get it first to take out all enemy nukes without much risk of receiving a retaliatory strike.
For instance, AI may make it possible to build a virtually perfect missile defense against ICBMS, it may may allow perfect tracking of subs and other submarine threats, it may power drone swarms capabable of disabling any integrated air defense network, and even to destroy all enemy missile siles and nuclear subs whil minimizing loss of life.
The US is not going to let China get there first, if they can stop it.
> AI may make it possible to build a virtually perfect missile defense against ICBMS
Massed ICBM defense is a matter of sheer volume - with the current GMD system the US can throw enough exoatmospheric kill vehicles (and THAAD to handle the leftovers) to counter a handful of re-entry vehicles from a smaller nuclear power like North Korea or Iran. Not hundreds (vs China) or thousands (vs Russia) that you would see in a peer-level nuclear exchange where everyone has multi-megaton MIRVs, decoys, and SLBMs with much shorter flight times.
Some fantasy future AI with the right sensors may perfectly track all of that sub-orbital mayhem. Without an enormous fleet of thousands of kill vehicles to actually defend against that threat, and the logistics to keep that fleet operational, it can do nothing about it. Building and supporting that sort of strategic defense is obscenely expensive, and as such it remains a Reagan-era fever dream.
Things have changes since the Raegan era. There are a couple of elements to ICMB defense:
1) If you can strike the the ICBM's before the MIRV's separate, you only need a fraction of the number. To do this, you need to already have the interceptors (or whatever else used to shot them down) in orbit before the ICBM's launch.
Independently of AI, Starship is making it much cheaper to place objects in orbit, and can help with this. (Though it could trigger a first strike if detected, it might be possible to hide interceptors within Starlink satellites, for instance.)
2) Coordination and precision. This is what wasn't in place at all in the 80s. I'm old enough to remember when this was going on, and labelled impossible. I still remember thinking, back then: "This is impossible now, but will not remain impossible forever".
Whether it applies to interceptors already placed in orbit, novel weapons such as lasers, typically also placed in orbit or interceptors intended to stop reentry vehicles one faces a coordination problem with time restrictions that makes it very hard for humans or even traditional computer algorithms to solve properly.
This, more than the volume, was the fundamental showstopper in the 80s (the willingness to pay was pretty significant).
Now, with AI tech, plenty of known options open up, and an unknown number of things we didn't think of yet, could also open up.
Accuracy and coordination is the most fundamental one. Here AI may help distribute the compute load into satellites and even independent interceptor vehicles. (Both by making them more autonomous and by improving algorithms or control systems for the dumber ones.)
But beyond that, AI may (if one side achievs a significant lead) also a path to making manufacturing large numbers much cheaper, meaning one could much more easily scale up enough volume to match whatever volume the enemy can deploy. Also, with more advanced tech (allowed by ASI), interceptors can potentially be made much smaller. Even a pebble sized chunk of metal can stop most rockets, given the velocities in space. The hard part is to make them hit the target.
Basically, what I'm saying is that whoever has ASI first may at minimum get a time window of technological superiority where the opponent's ICBM's may be rendered more or less obsolete.
In fact, I think the development of the Poseidon by Russia was a response to realizing decades ago that ICBM's would eventually be counterable.
However, AI tech will possibly even more suitable for detecting and countering this kind of stealthy threats. Just like it is currently revolutionizing radiology, it will be able to find patterns in data from sonars, radars, satellites etc that humans and traditional algorithms have little chance to detect in time.
He has been predictable in his handling of Ukraine and Israel. He favours the aggressors. He's also predictable in isolationism and wanting manufacturing moved back to America. None of this bodes well for Taiwan.
Hamas is the aggressor in the most recent war. They invaded Israel on Oct 7 2023 and killed 1200 people. If you adjust this for population that would be like Mexico invading the US and killing 41,000 people.
Israel has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
If you adjust for population, that's like Mexico bombing nearly every building in the US and killing 8 million people.
Hamas is the aggressor only in a very immediate sense. Israel holds millions of Palestinians under military occupation, steals more and more of their land over time, and kills Palestinians all the time. From January 1st through October 7th 2023, when there was no war going on, Israel killed 234 Palestinians in the West Bank. That's just business as usual for Israel.
Not quite. He favours isolationism. It's just that Israel is an exception because many Americans (especially religious right wingers) view it akin to a 51st US state.
>What was Putin’s intention in the war? I can tell you what his intention was. It was to force Zelensky to negotiate neutrality. And that happened within seven days of the start of the invasion. You should understand this, not the propaganda that’s written about this.
>Oh, that they failed and he was going to take over Ukraine. Come on, ladies and gentlemen. Understand something basic. The idea was to keep NATO. And what is NATO?
>It’s the United States off of Russia’s border. No more, no less. I should add one very important point. Why are they so interested? First, because if China or Russia decided to have a military base on the Rio Grande or in the Canadian border, not only would the United States freak out, we’d have war within about ten minutes.
>In 2022, Sachs appeared several times on one of the top-rated shows funded by the Russian government, hosted by Vladimir Solovyov, to call for Ukraine to negotiate and step away from its "maximalist demands" of removing Russia from Ukrainian territory.
>Sachs has suggested that the U.S. was responsible for the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline. In February 2023, he was invited by the Russian government to address the United Nations Security Council about the topic.
Putin acts pretty rationally, just with flawed information. "Launching a full-scale invasion on the capital with the intention of negotiating neutrality" is a crazy plan he would never come up with. That's like beating someone up to get them to like you. The initial goal of the invasion was clearly to remove the democratically elected leadership of Ukraine, and then either incorporate it into Russia or (more likely) to install a puppet government that's more favorable of Russia.
On day 7, the three-day military excursion to Kyiv had stalled, the Russian army was scrambling to establish supply routes and figure out logistics for a war that should have been over, and Putin was trying to convert a stalemate into something he could call a success. Nobody at the time would have claimed that his behavior on day 7 was reflective of his plans on day 1, when days 3-7 were clearly not going his way.
I don't know, may be Russia see NATO + US as a much bigger threat than how NATO see Russia as a threat. Or may be NATO have some other ways of dealing with this threat.
> may be Russia see NATO + US as a much bigger threat than how NATO see Russia as a threat
Or maybe Russia see eastern and central Europe as their sphere of influence, which they lost. And now they're using any excuse to try to re-establish that.
What kind of NATO danger did they expect from Georgia?
Russia had zero reason to see de-militarised Europe as a threat.
I don't know, may be Russia see NATO + US as a much bigger threat than how NATO see Russia as a threat.
That's certainly true now, even if it wasn't true before. So why would Putin act in a way that was absolutely guaranteed -- win, lose or draw -- to fortify and entrench NATO's presence on Russia's borders?
His NATO excuse never made any sense. Don't invade anybody, and you have nothing to fear from NATO.
>It was to force Zelensky to negotiate neutrality.
Umm, no. Bullshit. That's my response. It's the 3rd time in a decade Putin pulled this off. Let's not pretend this is anything about NATO obligations. He wants to take back land he feels was always his (aka the most common reason for war)
Liars going to lie, ehh? No, the reason for this milirarny operatia was to exterminate Ukrainian nation, erase it from the history. Destroy and disperse it. There is enough proof for this, starting with the Putin's manifest about non existence of Ukrainians.
The only reason why Russia is so much against NATO is the article 5, because it makes attacking peaceful nations expensive and risky for Russia.
I'm not going to bat for Trump – I don't like the guy – but this seems provably false just based on the fact that Trump has already applied tariffs to Chinese imports. Not only that, he's ratcheting up those tariffs because Beijing has so far refused to come to the table. He seems to be continuing his 2016 policy of economically antagonizing the Chinese.
What unpredictable things has Trump's administration done regarding states that were considered the US's adversaries before his administration took over?
> Taiwan is ridiculously favourable terrain for the defenders; if they fight back, there can't be quick victory
Not true. Just sneakily cut the submarine cables i.e. Internet before the "offical attack".
Most of the comments talk about a blockade, but no need. I doubt a lot of things will function without Internet. There were discussions of Satellite but not confirmed.
I'm unsure of how many internet services Taiwan relies on outside of Taiwan? If the servers are on the island, my understanding is that they'll be fine. Unfortunately they won't be able to access Hacker News, but they should be able to bank, buy groceries, etc.
> If the servers are on the island, my understanding is that they'll be fine.
Taiwan doesn't have a huge data center capacity. A lot of services are in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, etc...
Of the big clouds e.g. AWS is only opening a data center later this year.
It's also not so simple. Even local servers / services might have all sorts of "needs" to phone "home" elsewhere e.g. for analytics. A lot of software might not have been tested and will crash. Even the big clouds might not work in isolation.
Then there's also things like patches, updates, firmwares etc. A lot of things like kubernetes clusters may be set to auto update and crash. If you need a docker image the local CDN didn't cache then it is gone.
You seem to believe that military networks are slapped together with off-the-shelf SaaS apps, or that military software contracts don't specify that all that "e.g. for analytics" crap has to be pulled out of the build, or that they don't test these things regularly.
Have you ever worked on a military contract? Or even just a regular government contract? It's a whole other type of sales, contracting, and fulfillment process.
> Have you ever worked on a military contract? Or even just a regular government contract?
Yes
> You seem to believe that military networks are slapped together with off-the-shelf SaaS apps
You seem to believe I was talking specifically about the military. Taiwan isn't Ukraine. China has infiltrated the every day lives etc over the years. It's not unified.
The chaos just from the everyday citizens, protests, etc might cause enough trouble for the military / government. Those aren't "air-gapped".
The problem with your argument is that in current times it is much more likely that China acts rationally than the US does.
A better argument would be that when China has "good enough" chips then they don't care about chip production in Taiwan. They will only care about sea access. So if Taiwan ends up as completely destroyed rock, then that is ok for China. They will see it as a much better result than other parts of China breaking away and becoming independent.
To follow up, Taiwan literally blocks their ability to see and defend against attacks coming from behind the Taiwanese island. It’s about observability and reducing easy beachheads.
On a more macro issue, it's also existential for the CCP because it shows the Chinese people (I'm talking the entire worldwide diaspora of people who call themselves Chinese) that there are indeed ways forward socially, culturally, technologically, economically, and most importantly, politically that are valuable to society that don't involve the CCP.
Hong Kong was a threat because it showed Chinese people directly that economic growth was possible without the CCP.
China has the biggest Navy in the world and they regularly circumnavigate Taiwan. They're not just sitting there on the mainland with binoculars wishing they could see what's on the other side.
> The problem with your argument is that in current times it is much more likely that China acts rationally than the US does.
Doesn't make his point less valid, in fact it makes it probably more valid. When other people are acting irrationally you might as well do so too since you can't predict what other people will do in response.
> From China’s perspective, the cost of war is much higher than the cost of developing these chips themselves.
For China it’s not about the chips. It’s about getting rid of the humiliation that is having a small island, that was originally part of China, not be a part of China.
A 'small' island with one of the most successful and thriving democracies in the East, that has world class industry. China cannot have a successful democracy on their doorstep, it undermines their perception of absolute Chinese superiority.
This doesn't really make sense, the Chinese standard of living has risen to very comfortable levels over the past couple decades. There aren't throngs of desperately poor Chinese people longing for the capitalist democratic paradise over in Taiwan.
If anything, China's rising wealth and living standard is a threat to the United States' sense of superiority. I don't see the US saying "Screw it, let's try totalitarianism" if it wasn't falling behind.
They don't hate them, but it is an emberassment that a group from the same culture is so successful under a different political system that allows for more freedom. That combined with cultural revanchism about not breaking up the country (and having spent a lot of time there I can tell you it is strong) makes the existence of Taiwan as an independent nation a real sore point.
I don't think the CCP views Taiwan as more successful than mainland China. The CCP position is that Taiwan is already part of China and by that logic Taiwanese success is automatically Chinese success. I agree that cultural revanchism plays a major role.
They might not be more successful, but they are still very successful given the difficulties they face, and any Chinese person with half a brain can realize they give lie to the idea the CCP likes to propogate that there's something intrinsic to Chinese culture that requires an authoritarian approach.
This seems like one of Putin's motivations for invading Ukraine. He couldn't stand having a prosperous Ukraine aligned with the EU and the US that could foment discontent inside Russia.
Ukraine was the poorest country in Europe, and by most metrics, worse off than Russia before the war.
Sure, you can write all sorts of alt-history fanfiction about how great it would be if 2014 didn't happen, but that's just one of many possible futures.
Leaving aside the war, Ukraine has many of the positive resources of the Baltics (just more so.) There is every reason to believe that an EU-aligned (or member) Ukraine would be an economic success story.
It's not just that he couldn't stand it, but rather what it does to his position inside Russia. If your business model is to rabbit on about how wonderful Russia is, and how sucky all other countries are, if there's a more successful more free country next door containing almost the same kind of people, then your words are hollow.
USA will, from all signs, not only continue to have a hostile Cuba, but also create a hostile Mexico.
And that's even before considering the internal hostility to the regime that the deliberately-engineered major economic collapse--that is already happening despite numerous policies that will deepen it still being in the pipeline and not yet in place--will create.
The US withdrawing from international engagement, trashing alliances, and trashing its own economy may enable competing powers more space to dominate their own regions, but it doesn't do anything to strengthen the US's regional position, it radically weakens it.
China is a democracy. It's literally what you're describing Taiwan as. That said I do agree that it does cause China's superiority to be called into question. Imagine if the Confederate states of America managed to take hold of Cuba and hold out.
EDIT: I'm literally factually correct. In 5 of the 6 indexes China has a Democracy score where as Brunei, an absolute monarchy, doesn't!
Legally (according to their constitution) USSR was also a democracy. But that hardly meant much in practice. Of course the Chinese society is probably much "freer" than than the Soviet one was prior to Gorbachev's reforms but again.. an extremely low standard.
Brunei isn't on the Bertelsmann because it is small (<1 million people), not because of its political structure.
The EDI explicitly does not try to asses whether a country is democratic or not, but just allows relative comparisons. It also doesn't include smaller countries but doesn't have as clear of a cutoff.
If you are going to use inclusion on one or more of these lists as an argument, you'll have actually cite where those lists use status as a democracy as a criteria for inclusion and how that is assessed.
China has a fig leaf of a democracy. It meets the simplest definition of a democracy, the citizens do get to vote on something. Compared to most of the developed world, it's a far cry from a liberal democracy that allows for dissenting positions and parties. China's flavor of governing is objectively neither good nor bad (they have managed to become a superpower after all) but it's nothing like the democracies of the West.
China has "democracy" in the same way it has the freedom of speech.
In China, you can vote for The Party, or, for The Party. Much like how in the USA, you can vote for the red wing of the Centralized Corporate Power Party, or the blue wing of the Centralized Corporate Power Party.
Much like how in China, you have the freedom to stand in Tienanmen Square and shout "Down with the USA, long live Chairman Mao, long live The Party" much like you can do so in Times Square or in front of 1600 Penn or in downtown LA.
More like the Union holding out for 70 years in Puerto Rico after the Confederates won. In what sense do you mean China is a democracy? I may be brainwashed on CIA propaganda, but as far as I understand only party-vetted candidates may stand for election.
Wait do you not know what the KMT did? They're a rightwing party that killed/disappeared 30k journalists and intellectuals in Taiwan. How in the world is that comparable to the "union"? (But also yes Puerto Rico might be a better example).
In the sense that they're on the V-Dem index, they have election laws, they have voter rolls, they have voter turnout, etc. Yes they have one party, so you don't directly vote for the President, but neither do Americans.
It's democratic because it's on the index? Every state is on the index. China ranks 177 out of 179 states on the index lol. So sure, where a perfect democracy score is 1.0, they score 0.015. It's not zero.
Yes, the KMT dictatorship era was awful. You might be surprised to know that in Taiwan there are national holidays commemorating those persecuted by the KMT. The reason The ROC (Taiwan) is more aptly comparable to the Union when making an analogy to alternative American history is because it was the original, legitimate government of China and the PRC were the rebels, just like the USA and Confederacy.
You are confused. Look at Taiwan's present, not its long gone past. As I mentioned in another thread, during my last trip to Taiwan, I revisited the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, which features a museum where Chiang Kai-shek's life and rule are documented. The errors and brutality of his rule in particular are well-documented and preserved, officially accessible to all citizens and visitors. This is a wonderful example of transparency. You won't find anything like this in mainland China.
Democracy isn't when you have multiple parties. It's when you elect people to govern. Many americans think that America has a uniparty, despite all appearances.
I feel like you have it the wrong way around. There are a lot of political setups where you "elect someone" that are absolutely not democracies. I can be an authoritarian supreme leader who allows citizens to elect who will run their province (from my choice of candidates of course!) and I really don't think it's reasonable to claim that this situation is a "democracy".
It's autocracy with democratic characteristics.
I agree your criticisms of democracy in the US and Taiwan have some validity but in terms of deciding whether China might be a democracy or not they seem like whataboutism.
What you mean like hong Kong? That humiliation pales in comparison to the damage done domestically as taiwan's defenses would necessitate a gross loss of life. Then consider the diplomatic posture of every major economy on the China sea.
> That humiliation pales in comparison to the damage done domestically as taiwan's defenses would necessitate a gross loss of life.
There was life lost in Hong Kong. Potentially not the same amount, but yes lives were lost (not just what was mentioned in the media or from protests).
And also a vibrant democracy, potentially serving as an example (foreign and domestic) that alternative political systems are an option and perhaps even desirable.
I have a strong impression there are similarities with Russia and Ukraine. Having a neighbor with a similar culture and overlapping histories that also has independent, democratic government was likely viewed as a direct threat to the Putin regime and one of the driving reasons for the invasion. I could see a similar calculation with Taiwan/China.
1) The USA does not have launchable nuclear weapons in neighboring countries to Taiwan that necessitate a buffer
2) Taiwan does not represent unprotected border territory. Heck, attacking it sustainedly would require significant and slow naval logistics
3) Other than human intellect, there is little in the way of natural resources to obtain out of Taiwan. It's economy is manufscturung and export driven.
Other than some nationalistic pride to recapture teritority, they are not much alike.
> Other than some nationalistic pride to recapture teritority, they are not much alike.
To add, Taiwan uses traditional Chinese and is more conservative to traditional Chinese culture. China abandoned all of that during the cultural revolution. There's been a recent nationalist push to embrace "traditional" Chinese identity, involving mainand Chinese people going to sites in Japan and elsewhere wearing "traditional" Chinese clothing.
Imagine the nationalistic outrage if someone wore a kimono in China. In practice, these traditional Chinese clothing are cheaply made cosplay from Taobao
> 1) The USA does not have launchable nuclear weapons in neighboring countries to Taiwan that necessitate a buffer
Existing US land and sea based nuclear weapons could hit targets in China in a matter of minutes. Being based closer to China/Taiwan might shouldnt matter in the age of ICBMs.
> 3) Other than human intellect, there is little in the way of natural resources to obtain out of Taiwan. It's economy is manufacturing and export driven.
Why do people keep spreading misinformation?
E.g. Taiwan grows and produces some of the best tea and coffee in the world. High end tea leaves costs more than some stock grants here. China tried for years to replicate it and has some success but definitely still far off.
Taiwan is renown for many things - not just semiconductors. It's just you might not know about it. A lot of your every day life might have something to do with Taiwan.
Yeah, I subscribe to your theory too. It's odd how Putin and his defenders spout all sorts of theories about the evil of NATO and "the West", but if you (addressing the dictators here) have faith in your arguments, why suppress viewpoints that disagree with yours, with media company closures, network firewalls and threats of years in the gulag?
Because their argument, in which they do have faith, is that a cacophony of disagreeing viewpoints casting doubts on the common national project is hurtful, even if those doubts are unfounded and those viewpoints unsubstantiated.
I'm not defending autoritarianism or communism, but I think you're just not putting yourself in their shoes and looking at things from their POV. They supress other viewpoints not because they're afraid to be shown wrong, but because they believe it's best to supress them and not have people confused by enemy missinformation.
(Not an expert, but this is my impression from talking to both chinese and vietnamese people who defend or at least don't oppose their communist governments, and also spanish autoritarians who defend the Francoist regime. I used to think they were brainwashed/dumb/evil, and now I think their worldview makes a bit of sense, even if it's still misguided.)
One of the reasons for the collapse of the USSR was that the propaganda done by the US was better than the propaganda done by the Soviets. So it's not like there isn't a historical reason for this either.
A much bigger reason for the collapse was that the planned economy and distribution (plus military spending) failed to produce enough basic goods and quality of life for many started dropping.
To the extent that party elite started building their own, parallel universe of food, summer camps for kids, apartments, shops, etc. closed to the ordinary people. It was clear to many people that the Soviet road, as followed, goes to a variant of a North Korea lifestyle.
If we want to argue historically, is it not more that the Taiwanese government is a more direct successor of the historical China? So maybe China should really be part of Taiwan? Or should it belong back to the Japanese?
Just goes to show how ridiculous arguments by "history" are.
Considering they are one of the most democratic countries in the world (as per The Economist Democracy Index), even outranking the United States, I think they are more than capable of determining themselves what their future should be through their right of self-determination.
Is Ireland historically and culturally British? Sort of.
Is Czechia historically and culturally German? Sort of.
Is Ukraine historically and culturally Russian? Sort of.
Is Pakistan historically and culturally Indian? Sort of.
Once you have to ignore the wishes of the population and resort to historical arguments, forced reunification becomes a conquest.
I certainly wouldn't like my own government to start expansive wars into, say, Silesia, because it used to belong to the Czech crown for 500 years. But I have a say in this. The Chinese population might not.
I bet you're located in the USA?
Because nowhere else in the world would anyone even think that somehow logic, sanity and common sense should be suspended just because Israel is mentioned in a conversation.
> I bet you're located in the USA? Because nowhere else in the world
CCP and internet police are much more likely to use this logic than anti-Israel Americans. If they were, in fact, an American that was anti-Israel, they wouldn't be so riled up about defending the CCP first and foremost. I'm reminded of the island of Truth Teller and Liar problem: https://sites.millersville.edu/bikenaga/math-proof/truth-tel...
My argument had nothing to do with pro or anti-Israel, I was just point out that I've only encountered this archiemedean lever/pivot point namely "Israel" in the USA.
It usually goes exactly like in this thread -- someone saying common sense things like not re-drawing borders and killing other humans today, just because something someone did 100 years ago -- and someone, from the opposite side (nothing to do with Israel) asks if this applies to Israel as well -- because they know damn well it applies to Israel and the point either puts Israel in a bad light or Israel would not like that particular point.
At this point if someone asks if "does this apply to Israel" it's usually the bad guys trying to use Israel's name as a logical nuclear weapon.
You suspect OP to be based in American and influenced by some American line of reasoning towards Israel. I'm saying that someone from the CCP is more likely to change the target by attacking American hypocrisy towards Israel
It's also the case in Germany, but Germany sees Israel as a unique situation to which normal rules do not apply (and pointing out this contradiction may land someone in jail) and does not say "what about Israel?" when the context is any other country.
No problem. Neither of the current populations in Israel should have the right to ethnically cleanse the other one, regardless of historic demography in 1900 AD or 1 AD.
You're Chinese police aren't you? This seems to be the whataboutism script Chinese bots have been using on other social media platforms in recent months.
I don't support Israel. I just find it too obvious the way
you try to shortcircuit and distract away from accusations towards the CCP by moving the point of contention elsewhere. Yes, America can be hypocrital but it doesn't change what people have said here about the CCP.
Never underestimate the power of saving face. The Taiwan invasion had a dry run with how they handled Hong Kong. This is going to happen and my guess is it will be on Trump’s way out. That way it all gets done during the 2028 election season, and all the next President can do is pout.
It’s a win-win for Trump because he keeps China at bay for three years, which is good enough for him.
How are Taiwan and Hong Kong at all comparable? Hong Kong never had their own military, was never an independent nation, and was officially handed over from Britain to China in 1997. There was no armed invasion of Hong Kong - Chinese military was already garrisoned there for 25 years.
There are, or were, talks in Taiwan and China about the possibility of a "one party two systems" style unification similar to Hong Kong. It was pretty fringe but growing in popularity until China cracked down on Hong Kong. I don't know if it's much of a thing anymore, but I do know a couple of old Taiwanese that still believe in it.
> The idea that the US protects Taiwan from a possible Chinese invasion over chips is one of those things that sounds believable but really isn't going to happen.
I recently got (second-hand) one Taiwanese business perspective on this.
Background: A friend of mine runs an SME in Europe and one of their key suppliers is in Taiwan. Friend visits Taiwan regularly to maintain the relationship. The following conversation happened around a year ago.
My friend gets talking [in private, off the record, after a drink or three] to one of the Taiwanese managers, and the topic turns to China and the invasion scenario. My friend asked if the Taiwanese business had put any thought into what might happen (thinking maybe they've explored the business continuity angles).
The Taiwanese guy basically shrugged, and said that if the Chinese were to launch an invasion, "Taiwan is completely * * * *ed", there's nothing the US or anyone else could or would do to be able to prevent that. He apparently didn't seem up tight about, more resigned. No interest in trying to plan any kind of response, because they feel they'd be hit with overwhelming force and would be completely on their own for long enough that it would all be over.
My friend was and still is concerned about his business continuity, with his key supplier potentially going offline, so is quietly exploring his options.
That is extremely unlikely to happen, Taipei has invested a lot in defense, and until lately the public in Taiwan at least says they would fight[1]. It's extremely unlikely that they will fold so fast that the US won't have to get involved or to choose to not get involved.
> 3. Taiwan successfully defends itself, repels the Chinese invasion, and possibly even takes back some territory.
That won't happen either. China has an incredible manpower and material advantage, they are unlikely to be effectively defeated. Even if Taiwan can deny the channel and prevent a landing they will still be effectively blockaded.
> 2. Stalemate. Taiwanese people fight bravely, and Chinese forces turn out to be weaker than expected. In this case, the US would be in a comfortable position to send aid and weapons to help Taiwan, prolonging the war to weaken China. With some luck, a regime change could happen without firing a shot.
It will take weeks before we can tell if there is a stalemate or not, and the stalemate will not be stable. If the Americans try to provide aid they will have to cross the Chinese blockade and they will have to fight to do so.
I was gonna take some issue with point one until I read point to, which sounds like it addresses my thoughts. China could take Taiwan quickly, but it would come at a pretty high cost to Chinese forces. I personally don't think China is really that invested into conquering Taiwan militarily, the Chinese invasion has been 6-9 months away for 30 years now according to "foreign policy" experts on Chinese-Taiwan relations. You can find books in the 90s predicting an invasion happening the following fall just as you see in today's articles. While the Chinese government is far from benevolent, if you go based on history, its more likely the US invades Taiwan than China. Other than border disputes with India and teaming up with the US to handle Somali pirates, China hasnt really had any real military activity since their failed campaign against Vietnam 40-50 years ago. At least that I know of. Which I would say perhaps backs up one point you may. Chinese forces could be massively weaker than expected. War sucks, but the tiniest benefit you can at least attribute to US interventions is, we do have some real combat experienced folks. China doesn't have any actual combat experience other than the once in a blue moon Chinese and Indian forces pop shots across the border, but no real sustained campaign. But yea, as we have also seen. Regardless of military might, rooting out guerilla forces is the hardest. The Taiwanese government may fall with China installing a military governor, but if the Taiwanese resort to guerilla warfare, it will be hard for Chinese forces to keep total control and stability for a long time.
Just my thoughts though based on my knowledge. If anyone has anything to add, would be glad to read and learn more.
I direct you to some foreign policy experts (war on the rocks)[1].
While we can't know what the central party committee is thinking, we know what they are saying, Xi in a speech in 2021 set the priority of having the capability of taking Taiwan by force by 2027.[2] Additionally they are probably not building the largest navy in the world and the largest collection of civilian roll on roll off ships for show.
I am not saying they will attack, but they definitely want to have it as an option.
I think it's more likely that over the next few years US power fades in the region and Taiwan strikes a bargain with China. The Taiwanese are extremely pragmatic when it comes to these sorts of things, and I somehow doubt they'll enter into a conflict they know they can't win. China is also pragmatic and would be willing to allow Taiwan significant autonomy if they can on paper say they've reunited Taiwan with the motherland.
In my opinion, the most likely scenario is that China will ramp up pressure with "gray zone" actions, (exercises of the coast, election interference, propaganda, cyber attacks, air defense zone and airspace incursions, overflights over straits islands), while at the same time pushing for negotiations for peaceful reunification.
Essentially salami slicing Taiwan sovereignty, in order to undermine their authority and erode their red lines without triggering a conflict, and attempting to demonstrate resistance as futile.
Nothing will happen unless China believes they can achieve a swift victory. It may turn out that they believe this, turn out to be wrong, and get themselves stuck in one of the other scenarios. As happened to Russia.
Speaking of blockade, the United States can (before or after hostilities between Taiwan and China begin) keep ships carrying oil, food, and animal feed from reaching China.
My impression after spending month and half in Taiwan last year is that China wouldn't have to fire a single bullet to take over the country. The only thing that would stop China is a US president with the strength to put two aircraft carrier strike groups between the island and the mainland. [0] If China needed Taiwan strategically they can surround the island in two days and take it the next. I concluded China is only postering and it is the economic threat with its ASEAN trading partners and the EU that keeps it at bay. The ASML chip fab machines are designed to be remotely disabled so they are not getting chips. [1] There is nothing to be gained from attacking the island and that is the reason it hasn't happened.
The US is not going to help defend Taiwan is a fair thesis, but reciprocally, China is not going to attack Taiwan.
Even if Russia gets all of it's demands in the peacemaking process with Ukraine, that war has done permanent and lasting damage to it's economy and global position. For China to attack Taiwan, it would give up any hope of continuing it's healthy trends towards increased economic and political importance.
Eventually, Taiwan will re-join China when it is sufficiently strong. It's symbolism as a continued humiliation by the west is more useful as propaganda than an actual military target.
> that war has done permanent and lasting damage to it's economy and global position
Assuming the Ukraine is forced to surrender and Russia keeps the territories, Russia's reputation will increase. They'll be able to say they fought NATO and won. Even today, people say with a serious face that Ukraine started the war and many believe it.
Russia is damaged, but if it's allowed to win, it will recover and become a beacon for the global authoritarians/south.
Unfortunately, dictators don't care much about damage to it's economy as long as they continue to be in power. When they expand and occupy more land, they will look very good in their country's history book which is a huge motivation for dictators. That's the reason why nobody thought Putin would seriously consider invasion but he did. And China will definitely attack Taiwan when the timing is right. Even if a million people dies, Xi would still be considered a hero by most chinese people if he took back Taiwan.
It remains to be seen if the person I think you are referring to is a non-dictator. He said he would be a "dictator on day one", and he sure was, but then he somehow forgot to revert to non-dictator mode...
Regarding "crashing real estate": actually, most other countries would love to have built enough to bring down real estate prices. Being able to afford a place to live is good for most people! But of course, investing in real estate makes you interested into increasing the value of your property, so you're now incentivized to stop more real estate being built (and also to stop anything else that might decrease the value of your property - thus NIMBYism).
Russia is out of the AI race. That has been lost and there's no way to reverse it.
If Russia wouldn't have started a war, it could have focused on building huge datacenters. It has all the energy it would have needed, now all it can do with it is sell it to China for cheap.
"Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind," [...] "It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world."
The US is not going to defend Taiwan because of chips, but China is also not going to attack Taiwan because of chips - if they do, they'll attack it for the same reason Putin attacked Ukraine: an "us vs them" mentality helps keep dictators in power, and nothing creates such a mentality better than a war. We can only hope that China is sensible enough to see the downsides too, but the current international climate is not a real deterrent. And I have to admit China has a better claim to Taiwan than Russia to Ukraine - they never recognized Taiwan's independence, while Russia (together with the US and the UK) agreed in 1994 to guarantee Ukraine's security in exchange for it renouncing the ex-USSR nuclear weapons stationed on its territory (https://www.npr.org/2022/02/21/1082124528/ukraine-russia-put...) - and now they're "guaranteeing their security" by invading them.
Putin was popular in Russia in 2022 and his domestic enemies were weak. Putin didn't need a war to hold on to power. Wars are sometimes fought to distract from domestic problems, but that wasn't the case here. Putin has argued for more than 20 years that the Russia/Ukraine border was not determined correctly when the USSR fell and that the 1991 borders were "unfair" to Russia. Add to that Ukraine's cultural shift away from Russia, messy elections, NATO, and the belief that Russia would easily defeat Ukraine and it's pretty clear why Putin decided to invade in 2022. No reason to hypothesize alternative theories. Putin is still very popular especially among older generations despite the heavy cost of the war.
> continuing it's healthy trends towards increased economic and political importance.
They "just" need to flip the script: be the single superpower that all countries are dependant upon, and then take over Taiwan. And then announce "Does anyone have something to say about what I just did?", and enjoy the silence. Already China is investing all over Africa, buying their compliance (which is what the US also did in the past).
Thanks to Daddy Issues 1 (Musk) and 2 (Trump) in the White House, their path just got a lot easier.
The response of the Russian 2014 invasion of Crimea was also quite muted because the EU was dependant on Russia's energy..
> Taiwanese people fight bravely, and Chinese forces turn out to be weaker than expected. In this case, the US would be in a comfortable position to send aid and weapons to help Taiwan, prolonging the war to weaken China. With some luck, a regime change could happen without firing a shot.
After 3 years of war they will sell it out to China. Taiwan started the war in the first place, actually.
> The [US State] department's fact sheet on Taiwan-US relations earlier included the phrase "we do not support Taiwan independence" - this was removed last week as part of what it said was a "routine" update.
Their posturing during peacetime does not translate into showing up during wartime.
In fact we have already seen how they cosy up to dictators during wartime. The USA spent decades and decades backing military coups and assassinating democratically elected leaders all over the world under the guise of fighting the Cold War only to suddenly do a U-turn and pander to Putin. Russia has won the Cold War without direct military confrontation with the US.
We have also seen how Trump's first administration betrayed the Afghan government by negotiating directly with the Taliban and locking the Afghan government out of the process. He's doing the same now with regards to the war in Ukraine.
If you know any Taiwanese people, ask them whether the removal of "we don't recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation" brings them any comfort in light of how the Trump administration is treating Zelensky and America's NATO allies. Ask them what they think of Trump's expansionist rhetoric about annexing Canada, one of America's most steadfast allies with centuries of friendship.
Talk is cheap, and Taiwan as well as America's other Pacific allies are beginning to see through it.
> Russia has won the Cold War without direct military confrontation with the US.
Let's not rewrite history just to score some cheap propaganda points: the USSR lost the Cold War, and lost it badly. Russia (or rather, putinism) might be winning Cold War II, or The Oligarchic Wars, or whatever you want to call this new conflict, but the actual Cold War ended in the 90s.
I apologise; it was not my intention to rewrite history. It was a rhetorical device, though I can see how I came across as trying to be revisionist. But you're right that it's important to be precise.
It was not. I'm a real person, and I'm genuinely willing to concede that I was sloppy in my choice of words. But I'm not sure how I can prove it to you.
>The idea that the US protects Taiwan from a possible Chinese invasion over chips is one of those things that sounds believable but really isn't going to happen.
>From China’s perspective, the cost of war is much higher than the cost of developing these chips themselves.
You've got it completely backwards. China doesn't want Taiwan because it has the best chip manufacturing in the world. Taiwan has the best chip manufacturing in the world because China wants to invade them and they wanted to give the US a reason to defend them and China a reason not to. War with Taiwan will impact global chip supply even if China can produce their own, which their economy will feel.
I think a fourth option is rising its head: USA is becoming so weak geopolitically that being allied with them is becoming an incredibly bad position to be in.
Therefore I assume that it's possible that Taiwan will simply choose to integrate with mainland China. This would be a huge change in their sentiments for sure, but these things may happen when large wheels are turning.
> From China’s perspective, the cost of war is much higher than the cost of developing these chips themselves.
There are more reasons than chips.
First is Chinese nationalism. The Island of Taiwan has been under the control of various Chinese regimes over the centuries. Taking Taiwan is a rejection of the West and can be tied by to the "century of humiliation".
America has military posts in Korea, Japan, Phillipines blockading China's entrance to the larger Pacific Ocean. Having Taiwan would allow them to break this up.
On Taiwan is also a trove of Chinese art and antiques.
I wonder if Bacardi might be a better analogue for what TSMC gets from this deal.
Bacardi started a distillery in Puerto Rico (iirc, to sell in the US without tariffs) well before the Cuban Revolution. When the Cuban government seized Bacardi's assets, they were able to move everything to their other sites in Puerto Rico and Mexico.
As you point out, I highly doubt this deal moves the needle on whether or not US provides military aid to Taiwan. But it does help give them more options if the situation in Taiwan becomes untenable.
Something I never see anybody discuss is that China is completely dependent on imported oil and the U.S. has the strongest Navy in the world. Unless I'm missing something, sanctioning oil deliveries to China should actually work in a way that sanctions don't really work against Russia, since Russia is a net energy exporter (bringing up Russia since I think that's the natural comparison for whether sanctions work). From my cursory research, China has a small petroleum reserve, hardly imports any oil via pipeline from Russia, and an industrial economy ceases to function almost immediately without oil.
One, secure the supply of chips. Just look at what happened with COVID coinciding with increased TSMC fab demand from Apple, NVidia, and AMD.
Two, prevent China from gaining the technology and expertise to make cutting edge chips. This is already happening and can be handled a number of different ways if China even wanted to try gaining this capability from Taiwan (debatable).
Two doesn't really require defending Taiwan. One is the USAs primary economic concern.
And I know this is hard to believe, but there are actually still people ideologically aligned with supporting democracies against invasion by fascist countries..
You seem to be assuming that the invasion would happen by surprise. That's effectively impossible due to the scale of the operation. Especially because China is full of foreigners and the logistical effort would be impossible to hide.
If China decides to invade, everyone would likely know it weeks in advance. They just could not be sure if it's an actual invasion or a massive military exercise that simulates an invasion. And in either case, the US would have plenty of time to decide whether to commit additional carrier strike groups to the region before anything happens.
What would make carrier strike groups effective in the situation? Given their recent record in the defense of Israel and against the Yemeni Red Sea blockade, one could argue that their era is over. The two most likely outcomes from a carrier strike group engaging with China forces are either a humiliating retreat, or WW3. I think US are smart enough to keep them at bay. Maybe station one in the area for monitoring the situation and assisting evacuation of Americans.
You are approaching this from the wrong direction.
Air forces, navies, and drones cannot conquer a country. For that, you need ground forces with plenty of heavy equipment. Which can only cross the sea in slow and vulnerable ships. To stop them, you need long-distance firepower with large enough warheads. A carrier strike group is the least vulnerable way of delivering such firepower.
The job of a carrier strike group would not be defending vulnerable targets, as in Israel or the Red Sea, but destroying them. Its job might not even be engaging the attacking forces. It could be a reserve force beyond the reach of the initial aerial campaign but still close enough to move in when the actual invasion starts. It could even be a force that remains neutral if the actual invasion never comes (unless China attacks it first).
So how will the carrier strike groups be used? Sink Chinese navy ships? That's one step up the escalation ladder.
China will reciprocate with sinking some escort ships of the carrier groups, just to make a point and demonstrate their hypersonics. Another step up the escalation ladder.
At which point, the carrier groups either back off to de-escalate and avoid losing a capital ship. Or stay there and continue the escalation. As mentioned in another comment, this is projected to stop the Chinese invasion at the cost of losing two carriers. That is, if WW3 doesn't start first.
The underlying assumption is that the US intends to escalate to a full-scale war if China does not back off. If China does not believe in that, the US Navy is just a bunch of expensive but inconsequential toys that can be safely ignored.
If the deterrent works and China does not invade due to the risk of a major war, it's the best-case outcome. If it fails and a war breaks out, massive casualties are likely. Wars are usually not as one-sided as the ones the US has fought in the past decades. But it would not be WW3, as most countries have no reasons to get involved.
Xi has said that if peaceful unification doesn't happen, it will happen through force. I think that's what he's going to do. People just love to cope around hard topics.
> the US is not going to help defend Taiwan, no matter who is in the White House.
You are skipping a very important detail in the whole equation. The detail that teleportation was not invented yet. For China to take over Taiwan, they need to somehow place soldiers in Taiwan, and there's 100 miles of sea that complicate that.
The war over Taiwan is going to be a complex chess match. US wants to keep being able to prevent China from crossing those 100 miles, and China wants to deny the US the ability to do that. US can perform sea and air patrols, but those are quite expensive, and China can try to make them even more expensive. The war is not going to have a clear starting date, like 24-Feb-2022. It's going to be a gradual increase of the invasion threat posed by China that will force the US to increase its local military posture. A certain type of blockade will happen, but it's going to be intentionally unclear how total the blockade will be. The US and its allies will try a measured response. China will try to create tensions it the US alliance. The US will try some sanctions. China will try to seed disinformation inside the US public debate sphere. Costs will ramp up. Etc, etc.
But it's not going to be as simple as the US will look at the problem and will count the beans and call it quits.
> If you believe the US will or should only act in its own interest, then its interest is to remain the only superpower.
Not necessarily. Remaining the only superpower is far from guaranteed, especially looking at current economic and demographic trends. A better strategy might be to lead by example, establishing high standards that will set a benchmark for their successor.
You assume that if it's not rational to start a war they would not start it.
People in Ukraine and EU did the same mistake. Wars can start for no reason or for bogus "fake news" reasons. E.g. US can attack, say, Canada, at any time, there's no fundamental law of nature to prevent that.
My impression was that the most likely scenario was China blockading Taiwan until forcing a surrender. In that case, the US and its allies would have time to respond although may be busy doing other things (eg responding to ships near Australia/NZ or Japan)
Your situations seem possible but don't really cover any of the nuance of the real situation (see what China has been doing to the Philippines in the south china sea)
A multiyear conflict with China would be difficult for the US. The manufacturing capacity and proximity would make a large category of aid difficult/impossible/useless. (Allies like SK or Japan could be more helpful in this situation)
If China has a seriously good-enough, home-made processor and storage chips, it could gain from a war with Taiwan. If this would mean to cripple the EU's and possibly also US's and to a lesser degree it's own economy through the absence of chips on the market, having that good-enough, home-made processor would be what keeps China afloat, while the rest drowns. And if it could get Taiwan and its chip manufacturing capabilities, it would have won the war with even bigger gains.
At least the EU has no way to survive without Taiwan selling them chips.
I still suspect the long con is that we'll see peaceful reunification.
The RoC is very import dependent, and we're staring down the barrel of some major swings in world trade. Will they be able to compensate if the US economy slips into a new Great Depression and drags much of the West with it? Will the US be as interested in honouring blank-cheque defence promises when inflation is 16% and unemployment 20%?
Prediction: USA will NEVER put troops on the ground in Taiwan, particularly with the current admin. There is no risk/benefit analysis where fighting a war makes sense for the USA. The USA's posture is a bluff - it's willing to provide aid and maybe a blockade but not fight directly. It's primary goal is to protect other regional allies and chip access (which it can build domestically).
Honestly, the idea that the US would spill American blood and treasure to defend Taiwan has kind of sailed into the sunset with our current administration. It is very much America 1st, 2nd and 3rd. If Taiwan wishes to stay independent, they need to be able to defense themselves alone because the current admin will not probably not lift a finger if current events are any measure.
> In the worst-case scenario, they would be 2-3 years behind the cutting edge, which is not mission-critical.
It's also worth considering how such an event might affect the US and allies. Would it slowdown, perhaps even halt certain operations/efforts for the US. For instance, all those chips the US needs to build supercomputers for "weather research". ;)
Is there a name for this argumentation "there are three options 2 are obvious nonsense so whatever i dream up in the third one must be true"? Kind of like no true scotsman...
There are a lot more options than these 3 - especially related to the middle one - that would play out differently
With the current administration, the US will just do the same thing they did to Ukraine. They will abandon them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyJY_dq8_SM The Trump administration will take TSMC's technology and then leave them to fend for themselves. Just as they literally forced Ukraine to denuclearize and now they have no power to keep Russia in check. We promised to defend Ukraine, but now the Trump administration won't promise security when It was already promised. The same thing is going to happen to Taiwan as soon as the administration get's theirs. We can't trust the current administration to follow through with any of their promises.
We are more likely to get pulled into a war with Russia and North Korea on the wrong side against Ukraine and the EU. Taiwan is a minor concern to what's taking place in our government right now. The very mere fact that Trump is siding and supporting Russian narratives, offering "gold cards" to Russian Ochlarchies, firing and gutting departments and agencies, including overwatch, should terrify everybody.
Trump is just flooding the zone with shit as he continues to break apart all checks and balances while keeping everybody distracted.
I've heard experienced weiqi (go) players use the metaphor that Taiwan is a Ko fight between China and US. That is, the threat of capture is used to exert influence and pressure elsewhere.
> The idea that the West protects Ukraine from a possible Russian invasion over land/culture is one of those things that sounds believable but really isn't going to happen.
Defend? Probably not... but it does give cover to absolutely annihilate mainland China and reduce it's ability to compete with the United States to nothing for decades if not forever.
I've read that in war gaming a Chinese invasion of Taiwan the US can stop it BUT they usually lost TWO aircraft carriers. That would be almost 14,000 dead US soldiers.
The official strategy is for Taiwan to turtle in the mountains and wait for coalition aid. There is a shitload of bases and weaponary in the area to repel a china invasion and Korea and Japan both know they're next if they let Taiwan fall.
However I think Trump has basically given up the game and made it pretty plain that he has no desire to help Ukraine or Taiwan and will be happy to sign 'deals' giving them up, even if those deals basically give the autocrats everything they want - just enough vague 'rare earth'-style bullshit that he feels he can claim them as victories in the press.
> > If you believe the US will or should only act in its own interest, then its interest is to remain the only superpower.
This is the error of non-Marxist 'realism'. The US is not a monolith with a single general interest. It is a class society with its own internal contradictions that play out, for one, internationally. There are legitimately diverging interests when it comes to the role of the United States abroad, and importantly, growing consciousness among classes which in some ways or others, view the institutions of the US' superpower-status as part and parcel of their own oppression domestically.
Not really sure how to read this, but to state it how most international commentators would put it:
China wants Taiwan because they think it is part of China, and because China is building an empire.
America would defend Taiwan because it wants to contain China, TSMC is an extra incentive.
In the Trump administration, this calculus may change. Trump may well let China take Taiwan in the spirit of carving up the world between major powers. I believe this will now happen.
In terms of invasion, it is far more likely China blurs the lines and blockades Taiwan, extracting concessions and using Russian-style tactics to take control without a real “war”. This is one reason why Trump’s policy in Ukraine is a disaster for the Taiwanese, as it confirms the efficacy and acceptability of such tactics.
> In this case, the US would be in a comfortable position to send aid and weapons to help Taiwan,
Trump made clear last year already that in case of a Chinese invasion, the US would not support Taiwan militarily: they would answer with economic sanctions instead.
They are building hundreds of naval destroyers and multiple aircraft carriers to invade a tiny island? Nope. The CCP is prepping to be the world hegemon and take over the world with drone swarms and bioweapons.
The Taiwan game is like the "Gulf of America" trick that Trump played. It's a test to see if you're with the CCP or against the CCP diplomatically.
One reason is that none of these factories can be built without European ASML machines, and given how the US is doing its absolute best to disrupt its relationship with Europe, maybe it would be time to stop selling them there and consider selling them to China instead.
Why would China even invide Taiwan? It would destroy "their" infrastructure and kill "their" people! There are much better ways to remove US influence from Taiwan!
They can just put sanctions or even blockade Taiwan. And if China puts sanctions on US, and dumps its USD reserves, it can destroy US economy.
US is crazy about proxies fighting their "enemies" for them. This type of thinking needs to stop! This is not cold war anymore.
An act of war, which the US would respond to with a freedom-of-navigation exercise backed up by the full might of US-PACOM. China would lose that standoff, which is why they're unlikely to do it unless they were confident of US non-involvement.
China is still modernising. They're outproducing the US in terms of new equipment, but flows aren't stocks, and the US also has decades of refinement and experience to draw on in comparison to China's zilch.
Don't get me wrong: the trend is towards Chinese dominance, but I don't think we're close yet. China would have to throw everything at Taiwan, and it would turn into a shooting gallery.
Why would China even invade Taiwan? For the same reasons they invaded and took Hong Kong. Because they have their own manifest destiny to reunify their country into what it once was. They don't care about the collateral damage to achieve this in the end.
> For the same reasons they invaded and took Hong Kong.
When was this a thing? Britain gave up control "voluntarily". There's been no military conflict whatsoever.
Yes, I get that there were changes in law, protests and all sorts of things but those all already happened when Hong Kong was part of China i.e. there was no "invasion".
Go ahead an look up the column of military transports entering Hong Kong during the ahead-of-schedule "reunification" that apparently wasn't an invasion.
I'm well aware of what happened in quite some detail. As I said I'm not saying I agree with what happened, but it's still not an invasion. You'd at most be stopping an internal riot / protest if that's what it is.
That's like saying if the military moved between Texas and California is that an invasion? Even if you count the whole thing as a civil war that's still not an invasion. Hong Kong returned to China in 1997. Too late to be complaining in 2025.
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.’”"
The One China Policy was and remains a convenient status quo for all parties. The risk is that China decides that it's newfound economic and military might have changed that calculus.
In a multipolar world, historical ignorance leads to geopolitical disadvantage. One should be well-versed in history before offering opinions on these matters. While American power once allowed it to shape global order unilaterally, a truly multipolar reality requires deep historical understanding to avoid diplomatic failures.
Russia has a fraction of the industrial capacity of China. Russia and Ukraine share several borders with multiple NATO countries, and Ukraine had integrated rail networks. Nevertheless Russia took 4 times the size of Taiwan and is taking more day by day.
Anyone that understands basic logistics and can read a map knows that this is not winnable. Not only that, but the undersecretary of state is the guy that advocated bombing TSMC. The US took a lot from Taiwan over the last 8 years and not even once did they even consider offering a free trade agreement in return. They made the Taiwan delegation visit a Zoo during the inauguration.
Singapore is allied with the west as well, but is taking a more neutral stance and a result have prospered many times over, while Taiwan has gone into total economic stagnation for decades. Where is all this moral posturing coming from? Let's look at reality and facts instead of reddit fantasies.
Pretty nice to work with, if you can run JS. (The rest is just Puppeteer to print. Though I couldn't use their command line tool, because it force-injects paged.js, and it didn't play well with the Preact components for previewing I had made.)
The risk of China taking Taiwan by force, unprovoked, in the near future is vastly overblown, in my opinion. Everyone involved, including China, prefers the status quo. If there’s one thing to know about war, it’s that it’s unpredictable. China hasn’t been involved in a war for decades, and while its military looks good on paper, its actual performance in a real war still unknown. Failing to win or even losing a war with Taiwan would mean saying goodbye to its global dominance ambitions, and weaken Xi's leadership.
The Chinese are strategic and patient. They just need to wait a few more years until they are able to blockade the entire island for long period of time. Then they can potentially take the island without firing a single shot. they don’t need to take on this kind of risk right now.
> China hasn’t been involved in a war for decades, and while its military looks good on paper, its actual performance in a real war still unknown.
This is a very important point. While China's military is huge and technologically advanced, it is structured very differently from western powers. To reduce the risk of a military coup, the PRC split up control of air, ground, and naval units, making it difficult to conduct joint operations. China's military is also structured more like the Soviet system, where decisions are made at the highest levels of command and lower levels are given little discretion. Information going up and down the chain of command can be delayed, ignored, or corrupted. This is inefficient in peacetime and can be disastrous in combat.
In contrast, most western powers have military branches that combine air, ground, and water forces (the US Army is the second-largest air force in the world, behind the US Air Force), and they are organized in a manner that encourages joint operations. Western militaries also push decisions to the lowest level possible, allowing forces to quickly adapt to changing conditions in combat.
Lastly, China has limited air refueling capability. This reduces the range and effectiveness of their air units. To reach targets far away, aircraft must carry external fuel tanks, compromising stealth, speed, and maneuverability.
It is for these reasons that China is very hesitant to test their military against any modern force. They're trying to fix these issues, but the PRC can't adopt the west's organizational style without making themselves vulnerable to a military coup, which (so far) they absolutely refuse to do.
When you try to predict dictators' behavior usong geopolitical arguments, you make the same mistake as the people who didn't believe in the Russian invasion into Ukraine.
It's the internal politics that pushes dictators to attack. And China currently follows the Russia's curve exactly there.
> And China currently follows the Russia's curve exactly there.
I still think Xi Jinping fears his people far more than Putin ever did. There's a huge powerful class of people who made tons of money off global trade in China, not just a few token Oligarchs from the 1990s like in Russia. They are the worlds factory, with a love of money and success. A global conflict is not something their people would easily stomach. While Russians seem to revel in their ability to withstand poverty and backwards systems I'm skeptical the same cultural malaise exists in China, even if they have strong national character (on paper).
> The risk of China taking Taiwan by force, unprovoked, in the near future is vastly overblown, in my opinion.
I don't share this view. China needs only a couple more (2-3) carriers and to arm enough H-6K's with anti-ship missiles to keep US capital ships at bay and they'll have all the tools they need to blockade and conquer Taiwan, perhaps without firing a shot. All of that will be in place in only a couple years; probably before Trump's term ends.
This is a supremely bad take. Completely devoid of true understanding of the situation.
Satellite imagery exposed China's has new landing barges at the Guangzhou Shipyard. These barges, equipped with 120-meter-long bridges and stabilizing pylons to land troops and vehicles on Taiwan's rugged coastlines by creating mobile ports[1]
You don't build these things if you don't need them. they have no other use except invasion.
> The Chinese are strategic and patient. They just need to wait a few more years until they are able to blockade the entire island for long period of time. Then they can potentially take the island without firing a single shot. they don’t need to take on this kind of risk right now.
...On the other hand, if they want to take Taiwan with a low probability of the U.S. intervening, it's hard to imagine a better time than right now.
One of the lessons Xi might have taken from Russia's war on Ukraine is that Putin made a tactical blunder by not invading during Trump's first term. Without the Biden administration's active support of Ukraine, Putin would likely have been more successful.
It's hard to guess probabilities on these sorts of things, but the current situation makes me uncomfortable.
(For what it's worth, the likelihood of a major Cascadia fault earthquake happening during the Trump administration is something that we can estimate the probability of, and even though it's not particularly high, it also makes me uncomfortable as an Oregonian.)
Taiwan without American support is extremely easy for China to take.
There is absolutely no risk whatsoever.
Everyone noticed trump behavior with zelinsky, Chinese too. It might instead push up their agenda to conquer Taiwan quickly before trump mandate end, or at least fund him to put up with a third mandate.
We spent so much time worrying about foreign adversaries. But if a collapse were to come, it won’t be because we are invaded by a foreign power, it would be because half of the people can’t stand the other half.
> We spent so much time worrying about foreign adversaries.
The US government has a report on how the current US government was put in power by a foreign adversary, who is also heavily invested in polarizing US society as part of their strategy.
> We spent so much time worrying about foreign adversaries
You can't ignore the decade long psyop by Russia to destabilize democracies in the West, which the result is exactly that you can't stand each other anymore.
I think foreign information operations had a fair amount to do with why half the people can't stand the other half. I mean, the schisms were there. But Russia (and others, but primarily Russia) amplified the divide, a lot.
Not even half. Only about 1/3 of eligible voters voted for Trump. And many of them are feeling a little dismayed or betrayed at current behaviors (presumably because they are rubes and got scammed).
A little over 1/3 didn't vote at all.
A motived pushed back from virtually any part of the electorate -- they have the 2nd Amendment for a reason guys -- or a small push from established military officers could easily topple Trump.
Arguably the real risk is social media, since they're all in bed together now, and have a stated aim of owning the system. If you're gonna topple trump, you'd better have a go at the zuck, theil, and larry ellison, etc
The difference is that we're not giving hackers direct access to weapons systems, while on the other hand, militaries are actively trying to use AI to control weapons directly.
or young folks are passionate, idealistic, lack real-world experience, and idolize heroes, which makes them perfect foot soldiers for carrying out tasks without questions.
nice work. i saw sometimes you break down long messages into multiple parts, is that a protocol thing(max characters)? Or did you do that purposely to troll spammers?
However, a blanket tax on every country, regardless of available alternatives, would leave businesses with fewer options and make it more likely that the cost is passed on to consumers.