In the way Ukraine’s only card is its mineral wealth, sure.
Taiwan is the Belgium of the American security system. If our guarantees are useless there, they’re useless everywhere and new global security guarantors are needed. If Taiwan falls, moreover, China has unconstrained access to the Pacific. That brings the next conflict closer to American shores. It also threatens American naval power globally given our reliance on Korean and Japanese shipyards.
This branch of the discussion stems from my assertion that high-end compute is the enriched uranium of our time. I’m sorry I can’t defend this better. I feel US tech is busy making chatbots and deepfake video generators, and at best fancy overpriced drones like Anduril. This is not the future of warfare.
I have nothing to say about Ukraine. My original root comment is simply that weakening TSMC’s capacity by spreading it to the US is not in the interest of Taiwanese security. But as I responded elsewhere, this is probably just optics.
Why aren't people questioning the Ukraine mineral narrative? Is the news story really solid? We heard similar stories about Afghanistan. Here are some counterpoints. This video points out articles by Bloomberg stating Ukraine has no such relevant mineral reserves.
Ukraine's $500 billion rare earths scam: they don't exist, and we should know better
> But, I think I see where you’re going: the US preemptively destroying Taiwan’s fab capacity…
I'm not going anywhere. China would bomb TSMCs factories itself and spend hundreds of times more on an invasion and subsequent sanctions and costs than it spends on funding its own semiconductor development, if it meant it could control Taiwan. Taiwan's cards are that it is a linchpin for air and naval control of the South and East China seas, and that it is protected from invasion by a hundred miles of water and challenging geography. That's why China wants it. That's the card.
Blow up all TSMC's factories on Taiwan tomorrow and relocate its scientists and engineers and you think China would suddenly drop its ambitions to "reunify" and take control of the island? Since its alleged only card was gone?
My take is that it doesn’t even matter if Taipei has any card: this is not an economical/technological issue, it is an ideological one. China won’t blink an eye to invade if the conditions are right, because they want to unite their country, it is part of their identity. That might happen if anywhere else, there is a land grab. That won’t be Ukraine, because the US are not involved there, but if the US try to follow up on their claims about Greenland or Panama, Taipei is doomed within a month. As Trump is an adept of quid pro quo, that would mean a good deal for him, so the goal is to extract as much value from Taipei before letting them dead in the water.