> unless one considers China and Taiwan to be the same countries

The fact that the CCP is relaxed about core Chinese companies running their manufacturing in Taiwan might suggest that the CCP considers that it can make China and Taiwan one country, at a time of the CCP's choosing.

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m00x 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I've lived in Taiwan for a large part of my life.

They would lose all of TSMC if they do any military actions. It's not the fact that the CCP thinks that they can make Taiwan and China a country, it's the the fact that most of China does in fact consider them as one country. Taiwan is ready to defend themselves, but are very happy keeping their relationship with China the way it is.

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decimalenough 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"Very happy" is a bit of a stretch, since a significant proportion of Taiwan would prefer to jettison the current pretence of being "One China" and become fully independent.

But I agree that pretty much everybody will happily take the status quo over armed invasion.

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palata an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Isn't there some kind of "if you invade us we bomb our strategic factories" strategy? Like "if we can't have them, nobody can"?

	▲	wongarsu 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I think the plan is to defend, with allies motivated by the goal of saving TSMC facilities. If you destroy them the moment China declares war, Taiwanese allies might be much less invested But at the same time everyone understands that the Taiwanese would destroy the facilities before they fall into Chinese hands

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axus 39 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As a resident of Taiwan, would you say the average person there is comfortable obeying a strong central government, whoever that currently is?

As an American, I found the deference to authority very strange.

	▲	RussianBot9580 3 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		As an American, what are ways in which you can not defer to an authority - in a way that actually matters? Sure, you can choose to go outside dressed in gaudy colors, or not dressed at all if you are in SF. Or choose to flip the Democrat/Republican bit once every 4 years (usually without any effect on domestic or foreign policy, though not lately). But in a regular person's life, what authority do you want to opt out of? The average person can't do a thing about their HOA board, let alone a government representative.
	▲	actionfromafar 2 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Really? Surely it can't be unfamiliar at least. So many GOPs anxiously mentioning Dear Leader every chance they get.

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YetAnotherNick 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

My bet would be that invasion wouldn't look like quick war, but slow control of political power either through light force like economic blackmail, or through something similar to what US did with Venezuela.

Now that US has already opened the gate to labelling nation head as drug seller, this just eases things for China.

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conception an hour ago | parent [-]

Also the US has very publicly shown they don’t have the ability to effectively wage war over any period of time.

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sailfast 29 minutes ago | parent [-]

Yes and no. The Iran war is deeply unpopular and won’t even pass congressional approval for money. It’s being fought from pocket change budgets because they know they can’t pass a funding bill for it. Also not the same kind of war.

Any period time? US waged war for 20+ years in Afghanistan. Pretty effectively! To what end? Not an end an army can really achieve so… there you are.

But a war that might actually be popular? To save the world from communist dictators and make sure we have chips for our precious devices? I wouldn’t count out the United States. Or nuclear weapons, which still exist and are a thing.

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wongarsu 14 minutes ago | parent [-]

And it'd be the kind of war the US is best at. Boots on the ground, against conventional military, with a civilian population that is on the side of the US forces

No guerilla warfare, no insurgents, no need for extended beyond-visual-range warfare that depletes missile stockpiles

	▲	fc417fc802 3 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> no need for extended beyond-visual-range warfare that depletes missile stockpiles Was with you until that last one. If you haven't noticed missiles, drones, and interceptors have played a central role in ukraine.

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bdhdhduuyd 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They already consider it as one country. The CCP sees Taiwan as a province of China.

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amelius 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That act could throw us all back into the dark ages, though.

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pydry 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They're intentional about economic integration because it will in theory make unification easier without a war.

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yieldcrv 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Its the opposite

China isn’t going to invade China until after we get our semiconductors up and running in Arizona for real

(because US won’t have to think about that situation ever again)

removing dependence imperils that island, CCP already has an EUV machine so the inevitable sanctions and export controls on ASML’s in Europe won’t matter either

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0cf8612b2e1e an hour ago | parent [-]

It technically does not matter today. Sure the SOTA fabs only exist in a few places, but it’s not like a 2010/2015/2020 era chip is unusable trash. All of which are more geographically distributed.

	▲	cgio 20 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		For any critical workload a chip is considered trash after 5-7 years. They still run , of course, but increased incidents on platforms that are supposed to be 99.99 are hard to work with. Now if you mean there’s unused stock of those , that would maybe work, but I am not aware of significant unused stocks.