[mamon]

How many American soldiers station in Taiwan? And more importantly: how many nukes?

Since the answer to both is "zero" TSMC actually decreases Taiwan's security - it gives China a strong incentive to attack, with zero means to prevent it on US side.

[reincarnate0x14]

There are, and have been, US troops unofficially stationed in Taiwan the whole time even after the official bases were closed in the 70s. The US recently expanded the footprint of AIT, their technically-not-an-embassy facility in Taipei and built another in Kaohsiung. US personnel are present in some capacity at basically all ROC air force bases and at the over-the-horizon radar facilities used to monitor east Asia.

This has been an open secret for decades, recently causing a bit of a laugh when a US serviceman was in the background of a publicity photo of president Tsai Ing-wen touring a radar installation.

US policy of not deliberately provoking China over the Taiwan issue doesn't mean the US hasn't maintained a policy of nuclear deterrence over Taiwan since the Eisenhower administration. The PRC and US are well aware, and have extensively war-gamed, that a US/China military confrontation will very likely escalate to nuclear war. The US sailing a carrier or cruiser through the strait every time the PRC makes loud noises is reaffirming the status quo.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

My (non-expert) view on this:

If China attacks Taiwan (and the TSMC fabs are destroyed), everyone loses, including China. In the short term, it would probably hurt the West more, but once fabs in the West start spinning up, China would risk being embargoed from the most efficient chips, putting them far behind until they can catch up. (All the lithography machines seem to be coming from ASML in the Netherlands).

This may change in 5 years or so when China has caught up more, and is less dependent on TSMC chips. And China has patience. They'll deal with Hong Kong and Xinjiang first, ensure independence, then invade.

[jonplackett]

But what if they attack, or otherwise more subtly take control of Taiwan, and the fabs are not destroyed. I'm sure that would be their preference.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

Demolition charges are said to be in place to ensure this doesn't happen.

[gruez]

>it gives China a strong incentive to attack

That can be mitigated by planting bombs at the TMSC factory. If china attacks, they'll get end up with a rubble.

[mamon]

This mitigates only half of the problem - yes, China won't be able to use the factory for themselves, but if you take a closer look at the list of the largest TSMC customers from the article those are mostly American companies. Destroying TSMC factory would hurt the US disproportionately more than it would China. Which might matter in the current China-US trade war.

Also "planting bombs at the factory" scenario is one of the reasons why all armies in the world have spies and special forces - you send your special ops soldiers before your main attack to take control of the facility and prevent initiating the self-destruction protocol. I'm not saying it always works, but China can take a calculated risk here, since they win either way.

[wwtrv]

And what would China win exactly? Even if they somehow miraculously manage to keep TSMC up and running they would not be able to export anything produced there to other countries and permanently loose access to all western IP.

And the sanctions from US and other countries would massively outweigh any perceived economic benefits from invading Taiwan.

[lazide]

Any scenario where China invades Taiwan, global sanctions and embargoes are already happening. Blowing up the wests high end chip fab capacity for a minimum of 2-3 years at that point is a bonus.

[Traster]

If China attacks Taiwan, those American customers are going to lose TSMC as a supplier either way.

[qwertox]

That would freeze the car and smartphone production worldwide. No country would like to see this.

[gruez]

And why would taiwan care about worldwide car/smartphone production when the PLA is marching towards their factory?

[lazide]

Taiwan won’t necessarily care, but intelligence agencies of every other country undoubtably would. And putting proactive mines in a facility like that would be noticed.

[sudosysgen]

Rubble, yes, but people that can rebuild it also.

But most importantly, it would paralyze everyone except them economically, as they are the only country that can't use TSMC.

[wwtrv]

Why wouldn’t those people just move to different countries? I’m sure that most countries in the west would be very happy to receive large number of highly qualified engineers for free.

China can’t really close them in labour camps and expect them to be very productive...

I’m sure it would paralyze everyone economically, since China would just end up with a bunch of ruined factories with no staff and no way to replace most of the machines needed for fabrication (which are made in other countries).

simple replicating everything TSMC is doing in China would be several magnitudes cheaper (if you factor in the economic outfall of a military invasion)

[lazide]

I’m sure they are already duplicating (or attempting to) everything in China. They’d need to stop new research and development though to not always be a few (or more) steps behind. Blowing up the fab and putting all the engineers in a prison camp would do quite well at accomplishing that, no?

[sudosysgen]

You don't need them to be productive. You just need them to give you some secrets, and then your engineers continue the rest.

[skissane]

> it would paralyze everyone except them economically

It would cause a lot of economic damage to PRC too.

If they attack Taiwan, definitely the US and its allies will retaliate. They'd likely place trade sanctions on PRC which would damage much of it export businesses. They might even consider a naval blockade of PRC.

[meddlepal]

A naval blockade of a nuclear power probably leads to a nuclear war.

Taking Taiwan is a giant pain in the ass for China which is why it is unlikely to happen in any foreseeable future (e.g. 30-50 years). Honestly, it seems like China despite its words sometimes is perfectly content with the current status quo so long as Taiwan doesn't try to foment political unrest on the mainland.

[skissane]

> A naval blockade of a nuclear power probably leads to a nuclear war.

Suppose PRC tried to blockade Taiwan, US might respond by trying to blockade PRC. In that scenario, what does PRC do? Nuke US? Try to work around the US blockade? Come to negotiating table?

I don't think "Nuke US" would be at the top of list of strategies for PRC. Nuke US, US nukes you back, game over. Not a winning strategy.

[baybal2]

PRC is probably the one, and only state which may survive a full scale nuclear exchange.

Americans not taking it seriously is reflecting on the overall direction, and quality of their military decision making.

[lazide]

The current plan seems to be a takeover from within, using Chinese sponsored agents and social movements.

It probably won’t let them march troops on the island for a long time - if ever - but I bet they’re getting plenty of intelligence and trade secrets from it.

[csomar]

That's what people said about Hong Kong but things shifted quite fast.