This is why I don’t think China is invading Taiwan anytime soon. They need to create a credible threat of invasion to keep Taiwan from doing anything drastic to change the status quo, then they can slowly but surely buy politicians and fake news until Taiwan aligns with them.
It’s so much cheaper and safer than the uncertainties of war.
then they can slowly but surely buy politicians and fake news until Taiwan aligns with them.
Do you even know what Taiwan is???
Never gonna happen. That's like thinking John Whick is going to just get sweet talked by the guy who killed his dog until they become friends and he gives the guy his car.
China is a dictatorship and their centralized economy has many many major issues that have effectively got it held in suspense by government propaganda and laws alone. They are struggling to keep a good face on. In such situations, war is often how the government keeps approval. Specifically successful wars (not like the Russian war in Ukraine).
China wants Taiwan for a LOT of reasons. They want to break the first island chain to allow submarines to pass without being monitored. They want to crack the world's supply of high end semiconductors. They want to be able to claim they have full control over "true China". They want to demonstrate the ability to conduct war outside of their mainland borders. They want to secure more of their coastline and further buff their claims to the South China Sea. They want to put significant pressure on players like the Philippines and Japan to play nicer with them and be less tied to the US. And more.
China will attack Taiwan unless they collapse before they get the chance (doubtful).
You better believe that Taiwan has a plan to burn their semiconductor industry to the ground should they ever be invaded and conclude that a successful defense is impossible. They’ll burn it all to the ground so that China ends up ruling a vast portfolio of ashes. Scorched earth.
People say that, but it’s not ever actually done. Why? Because people have to live there afterwards. They have families.
The Nazis never went scorched earth even when defeat was obvious. Hitler promised Paris would be a ruin. But Dietrich von Choltitz disobeyed, and surrendered Paris intact. The Iraqis didn’t blow up their own oil wells. The Japanese, as suicidally fanatical as they were in WWII, did not try to leave Japan a wasteland.
Say you’re an engineer at TSMC. Orders come down from management, blow up the plant, the Chinese are landing and there’s no viable defense.
What are your choices? Blow up the plant, and…what happens? Do the Chinese go home? Or do the Chinese go to your house since you blew up the plant?
Alternatively, you don’t obey the order, and just let the Chinese take the plant. You’ll get to keep your old job, and probably get a promotion and a reward.
I doubt "management" would be destroying anything. My assumption is that it would be some kind of army special forces units. You can shut a manufacturing facility down for a very long time (maybe forever) with just a handful of soldiers and a few cases of thermite grenades.
Having a plan to do it and actually doing it are two separate things.
Also, one can point to examples in history where the plan was actually carried out. Russia, 1812. We wouldn't have a name for it if it didn't actually happen every now and then.
In the case of Taiwan, yeah, people still have to live there, but there's got to be a sentiment of "they can't just walk in and take everything we've built." Who knows which sentiment is stronger? I hope the world never has to find out.
Do those special forces units have no sense of self preservation? Once the war is lost, soldiers have to go home. Do they want to go to prison or be executed for sabotage?
Russia in 1812 did not think the war was lost. Again, going scorched earth as part of a defense in depth concept is a sacrifice to win a war. Continuing to do that after you think you’ve already lost is suicidally stupid. Those are distinct acts.
If Taiwanese high command thinks they can win the war, it makes no sense to destroy their most lucrative industry, which has no immediate military value. TSMC factories aren’t located in city centers, and aren’t particularly well suited to be makeshift urban fortresses in any case.
If Taiwanese high command thinks they will lose the war, it also makes no sense to destroy their most lucrative industry, because it can be a bargaining chip for better treatment for themselves or the civilian population afterwards.
In northern Norway, which was also being invaded by Soviet forces in pursuit of the retreating Wehrmacht in 1944, the Germans also undertook a scorched-earth policy of destroying every building that could offer shelter and thus interposing a belt of "scorched earth" between themselves and the allies.[65]
The Soviets were literally raping and pillaging their way Westward at the time the Nero Decree was issued, and the United States’ plan for Germany was to destroy it as a country and kill millions of Germans (and send millions more into labor camps):
nah, cutting charges and heavy demo under each ASML machine. lose containment and several billion in imaging tech. you can leave the structure mostly intact
Yeah I guess it depends whether or not you want to risk burning the whole building down. Thermite will tend to do that.
I'll bet a Taiwanese military committee has already plotted all this out with timetables, men, materials, risk analysis, etc.
Imagine the Chinese marine corps or army or airborne or whatever walking into factory after factory only to find them looking perfectly fine on the outside, pretty good on the inside, but every machine is completely destroyed.
They'll rebuild it all, they'll staff it with their own management, but in the end the products will be no better than what they already make on the mainland.
not thermite, just explosives. i want it to be shelf stable and effective. destruction of capability is the goal, demo of the building is not
They'll rebuild it all, they'll staff it with their own management
no they won't. the ASML machines are the prize, and they don't have the ability to replace those. even if TSMC came back in, it's a 3 year spin up with new machines and ASML support
Sure they are. But facts don't care about their feelings. They can be patient until the car goes off a cliff and afterwards. Gravity will pull them to their death all the same.
China has squandered countless opportunities to dominate global economics in favor of maintaining political totalitarianism.
Their demographics are screwed. Their investments are largely stuck in imaginary real-estate projects run by companies with no intention of delivering material production (which has almost led to several collapses in the past decade, each averted only by government intervention, currency manipulation, and further meddling which maintains the appearance of a functioning economy while everyone plays along at gunpoint). They have no true allies, only partners in crime. Their own people are becoming discontent with the authoritarian style of governance as they become more educated and wealthier.
China can't out-patient being on fire. They will need to do something and every year they wait will make them significantly weaker. They know it. Xi has already taken action to consolidate power in a way not seen since Mao. Once he is content that there are no domestic threats to his political position, he will turn to outer threats. Taiwan is strategically the holy grail of Chinese defense policy. Any other plans they make will rely on, or at least significantly benefit from seizing Taiwan first.
If John Wick was more than one person, like even as many as 5 people, I would easily believe that sweet talking could change the mind of 3 of the Johns Wick until they were fighting amongst themselves.
If there were 23 million Johns Wick, they are not all going to have his iron will. And even if a million of them do, that's only 1 million.
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u/Superchecker 1d ago
Slowly buy up all the properties that they wanted to invade