[luplex]

Fascinating. Stories like this really make me want to learn Chinese and/or move there for a while.

The story highlights how they were able to benefit from US culture and education, to the point where they now took the lead. I wonder how the West could benefit from Asian culture.

[eric_khun]

You should check the Taiwan Gold Card1[1] visa that gives you a resident permit for 3 years. It is quite easy to get, just earn more than usd5.5k/month at your last/current job, or work in a "trendy" field (AI/big data/energy/biotech...). Happy to reply to any questions

[1] https://taiwangoldcard.com

[mazlix]

+1 this! I'm sitting in a cafe, working remotely from Taipei right now. Feel free to message me if you have any questions.

There's a large group of hackernews reader types of people here right now who all socialize here since Covid is non-existent.

[alliao]

the context behind such article I think should be provided.. China regards Taiwan as part of China, whether right now or eventually depends on how much CCP koolaid they've consumed. The whole Huawei chip ban from the US really shook Chinese to the core, and suddenly TSMC became strategic asset. And this is one of those articles wanting to sensationalise the history a bit. Largest grains of salt for me.

Chinese have invested absolute mind boggling amount of money to kick start their semiconductor industry, many people mentioned in the article have gone to work for and have already quit China; whether that was their intention to defraud the CCP or not is not obvious. But I haven't seen any signs of China having capacity on producing chips yet. Most high profile hires and companies have failed like the one Chiang went to

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3123429/troubled-chi...

[mytailorisrich]

> China regards Taiwan as part of China, whether right now or eventually depends on how much CCP koolaid they've consumed.

The problem with using "China" here is that it is always misleading if people have no prior knowledge of the situation.

Specifically "China" here means "People's Republic of China" because they consider that the "Republic of China" ceased to exist in 1949 and Taiwan, as a province of the Republic of China automatically moved under the PRC sovereignty. Conversely the Republic of China (in Taiwan now) does not officially recognises the PRC.

So it's a bit like if the two Koreas refused to acknowledge the existence of each other and claimed the whole peninsula for themselves, which I believe is actually not far from the situation there. But it's more complicated with China because of the existence of a "3rd faction" in Taiwan that would like to see Taiwan independent of any Chinese state whatever that state might be.

[rcxdude]

>So it's a bit like if the two Koreas refused to acknowledge the existence of each other and claimed the whole peninsula for themselves, which I believe is actually not far from the situation there. But it's more complicated with China because of the existence of a "3rd faction" in Taiwan that would like to see Taiwan independent of any Chinese state whatever that state might be.

I believe this is the official situation but I think the unofficial position is the People's Republic of China wants Taiwan while the Republic of China on the whole is perfectly happy with just Taiwan, but any official recognition of that fact just highlights the rejection in practice of the official position of the PRC and is likely to upset them further, so the official status quo remains as a strange diplomatic stalemate.

[mytailorisrich]

Well, I think this is the difference between the official positions (which are the same on both sides) and the reality on the ground in terms of relative power.

The PRC/mainland is massively bigger and more powerful than the ROC/Taiwan so they think that they have the means to pursue their official position.

Taiwan knows that they don't have the means to pursue their official position so there is little point making noise about it. And furthermore, the "3rd faction", which the current President belongs to, is not sympathetic to that position, anyway. But when the KMT is in power they do at in way that protects that position (eventual (re-)unifaction).

[sbierwagen]

No native English speaker thinks of Taiwan when someone says "China".

[throwaway4good]

The TSMC blockade of Huawei is about 1 year and that was really the shot that kicked the chip wars into overdrive.

I would expect see the first result of the Chinese scramble to ramp up self-sufficiency in about a year from now.

Probably the most interesting is Huawei's work with equipment manufacturer SMEE.

[throwaway4good]

Lots of Taiwanese see themselves as Chinese; not under the same government. But of the same people.

[throw546753]

To clarify this, they see themselves as part of the Chinese civilization (華人 = hua ren). A lot of Chinese diaspora do as well, for example Chinese Singaporeans are part this cultural sphere.

Taiwanese people have another term for Chinese Mainlanders (大陸人 = da lu ren).

[brobinson]

The data: https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/PageDoc/Detail?fid=7800&id=6961

So about 29.9% say Taiwanese + Chinese and 2.6% say exclusively Chinese.

[ngcc_hk]

% lower and lower. The recent 228 isa case. Many Taiwanese considered themselves Japanese as well. And many just Taiwanese. Let there be a vote ... actually it has been voted sort of.

[blueblisters]

I think the general lack of a common communication platform between China and rest of the world is pretty disappointing. There’s a lot of cool innovative stuff going on inside China which isn’t readily covered in-depth by mainstream tech media and you have to rely on a few substacks or twitter handles to fill the gap.

[dannyw]

The cultural belief that other countries do things better is what you describe. It's pretty Australian and American to think your country is the best at most things.

[gumby]

> It's pretty Australian to think your country is the best at most things.

What? Australia is the land that gave the world the term “cultural cringe”. Often something is described as “world class” to justify its quality (whether correctly or not) by an external reference.

If you move to the USA you’ll see the opposite: people implicitly assume that the local thing is the world’s best, and don’t even bother to say so as they assume it’s self-evidentially so. The other country I’ve lived in where this is true is France, which is possibly why they criticize each other so much.*

Of course the truth is that each of these places does some things well and some not so well.

* The French also moan a lot — it feels like the national pastime — but that’s different.

[techdragon]

As an Australian... I have no idea where this idea comes from. American Exceptionalism has historically been a thing, but other than a general impression that equipment which have been designed and built locally in Australia tend to be above average assuming that it wasn’t built to be the cheapest... the idea that “our stuff is the best” has never really been a thing, except maybe Beer... and only among people who are obviously fans of that beer.

Edit: This might be an east coast vs west coast of Australia thing. I’m from Western Australia and I just realised that this might be more of an east coast cultural thing...

[igravious]

> the idea that “our stuff is the best” has never really been a thing, except maybe Beer... and only among people who are obviously fans of that beer.

Are you saying that Ozzies regard their beer as world-beating (or are you saying the opposite) – I can't parse that sentence …

[goatinaboat]

Are you saying that Ozzies regard their beer as world-beating

Australians are very proud of their flagship beers, Fosters and Castlemaine XXXX, but they are not considered premium products in any country with a beer-drinking tradition.

[rcxdude]

Are they? At least Fosters I get the impression is more popular outside Australia than in it.

[someperson]

"Exceptionalism" is pretty common among many cultures. The term "Chinese Exceptionalism" is used pretty widely these days.