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by dageshi 487 days ago
If all it costs them were never having access to those chips again the chinese would've taken Taiwan already.

The chinese want to invade Taiwan because they think it's a rebel province, their only consideration is whether the US will oppose them militarily if they do.
2 comments
aprentic 487 days ago
It's clearly not just about the chips. China didn't attack Taiwan before 1987, when TSMC was founded.

There are many disincentives. The biggest one is that China is confident that they'll get full control of Taiwan without violence.

They believe that the US is in a state of terminal decline and Europe will never overcome centuries of infighting. A significant portion of the population of Taiwan wants to reunify. They fully expect that they can just continue to nurture supporters within Taiwan and wait out the West and Taiwan will just fall into their lap.

Why would they go to war when they think they can get everything they want without war?

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palmotea 487 days ago
> The chinese want to invade Taiwan because they think it's a rebel province, their only consideration is whether the US will oppose them militarily if they do.

IIRC, the US's wargaming shows that if it tries to intervene, it will lose. Taiwan is too far from the US and too close to China.

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aprentic 487 days ago
Exactly.

The US has unrivaled force projection capabilities; half the worlds carrier fleets, the largest navy by tonnage, and the technology to execute unprecedented combined arms maneuvers.

China has insane defense-in-depth; more missiles than you can shake a stick at, the largest navy by number of ships, a vast arsenal of countermeasures, and a 4:1 population advantage.

China can't stand toe-to-toe with the US anywhere except the immediate vicinity of China. In that vicinity, nobody can get close if China doesn't want them to.

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palmotea 487 days ago
> China can't stand toe-to-toe with the US anywhere except the immediate vicinity of China. In that vicinity, nobody can get close if China doesn't want them to.

I think you have a typo there.

Personally, I think if the US wants to defend Taiwan from invasion, it needs to stock them up with a massive amounts of missile/artillery/whatever systems and ammunition, and that needs to be distributed all over the island so there's no concentrated stockpile to attack.

But the US cupboard is bare, and Ukraine made it barer. IIRC, in an all-out war the US itself will run out of missiles in a few days or weeks, and lacks the capacity to replenish them at a reasonable rate.

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