In early 2020 my wife and I traveled to New Zealand as part of our 50th anniversary celebration. There we saw hundreds, well probably thousands of tourists. Those from South Korea and Taiwan were clearly “westernized”—it showed in their openness to strangers, their behavior toward family members, even their personal hygiene practices.
Taiwan losing its freedom would be a terrible blow not only to the Taiwanese but to all our other Asian allies and near-allies.
It would likely tip the balance of power in the world far more toward tyranny than the loss of Ukraine.
We held out for decades in Germany, and it finally resulted in the moral bankruptcy of the CCCP, and the financial bankruptcy of communism.
Same for Korea, same for Japan.

Historical notes, may be relevant for context here:

Recall the US got 'invited' into WWII by trying to help China. We embargoed stuff Japan needed for their war machine, then running rampant through China. Japan needed oil, and to get that post-embargo they'd need to do things we'd object to. So, before they ran out of oil, while they still had military capabilities, they hit us.

Well, we beat Japan, Japan removed troops from China then later China's civil war ended with our favorite, Chiang Kai-shek, losing and getting chased offshore to Formosa.

I've been to Taiwan. Nothing wrong with it, good well-educated and productive folks, but nothing IMO worth getting into another world war for.

Here's an idea for a possible twenty-year solution, with a far lower bodycount than WWIII:

1) Allow legal residents of Taiwan, born in Taiwan and having clean criminal records to apply for US citizenship, with expedited processing, with a 15 year window to apply, with our nation's welcome to come live here.
2) Issue public notice that, for twenty years following this notice, any invasion or blockade of Taiwan will be met with instant and unlimited thermonuclear response.
3) Simultaneously with above notice, and attached thereto: another public notice that twenty years and one day from this notice, any and all treaty and defense obligations of the US with respect to Taiwan are null and void.

That'd give the people in Taiwan plenty of notice, and legal citizens there the option to come out before mainland comes over, if they don't want to be PRC subjects. I'd think new investment on the island would dry up immediately. Twenty years is a long time for industry - the infrastructure there would be ancient by then. As I recall, our current war plans include, if Taiwan gets overrun, taking out the key industries there anyway.

Given the option of waiting 20 years and having no US opposition to reclaiming their island, or rushing in and kicking off armageddon...even the PRC wouldn't mess up that choice.

And maybe removing a major barrier to decent relations might cool down the arms race a tad.

quote:

I've been to Taiwan. Nothing wrong with it, good well-educated and productive folks, but nothing IMO worth getting into another world war for.

Here's an idea for a possible twenty-year solution, with a far lower bodycount than WWIII:

1) Allow legal residents of Taiwan, born in Taiwan and having clean criminal records to apply for US citizenship, with expedited processing, with a 15 year window to apply, with our nation's welcome to come live here.
2) Issue public notice that, for twenty years following this notice, any invasion or blockade of Taiwan will be met with instant and unlimited thermonuclear response.
3) Simultaneously with above notice, and attached thereto: another public notice that twenty years and one day from this notice, any and all treaty and defense obligations of the US with respect to Taiwan are null and void.

That'd give the people in Taiwan plenty of notice...

That'd give the people in Taiwan plenty of notice and enough time to fully develop their own nukes. The only effective deterrent would be if China knew they would gain nothing (the tech industry would be destroyed) AND they would lose millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people in their biggest cities.

quote:

Originally posted by 9mmepiphany:
I've found that the newer generations of Taiwanese, especially the middle/techno classes are leaning more toward reunification with the mainland simply based global economies.

Hong Kong was always the PRC's "backdoor" for trade with the world when political tensions made open trade "problematic". AS open trade with the PRC became normalized, the need to keep up the facade of a "separate HK" became less important...that's why the UK returned HK to the PRC prior to the end of it's treaty

Trying to get a populace to believe in an ideal so much that they're willing to die for it is hard to do, I'd admit that as much as I'm like to see Taiwan put up a fight, their government and major cultural figures haven't been so convincing or, embracing of the ideas of freedom from the CCP. Most Asian cultures are largely deferential when conflict is a possible, usually compromising in order to avoid conflict and to keep some balance...at what point do they 'resist' and 'push-back'? ...when is it too late? You'd have thought the events with Hong Kong would've been enough evidence but, people remain either unconvinced or, refuse to face the reality until it's too late. Taiwan has had a constant US SOF presence for a few years now, large weapons purchases to modernize their forces are finally happening and they have a civilian-defense program as firearm & medial training has taken on a new urgency...how many of the people embrace these changes, up to them.

As for why UK gave up HK, 1) it was honoring the 99yr treaty that was signed and 2) after exhausting themselves winning the Falklands War, the obvious was apparent that trying to retain any overseas territories or colonies outside of the Commonwealth, would be futile, particularly when mainland China controlled its freshwater access and was already taking aggressive positions to make life difficult should the UK delay the handover.

Taiwan has some of the smartest nuclear scientists on the planet, hands down. They also have a functioning nuclear power program. If they don’t have nuclear weapons that have been all but tested, I’d be shocked. Add in their purchases of our planes and missile tech, they have a delivery system that could really do some damage to the ChiComs on the mainland.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
As for why UK gave up HK, 1) it was honoring the 99yr treaty that was signed and 2) after exhausting themselves winning the Falklands War, the obvious was apparent that trying to retain any overseas territories or colonies outside of the Commonwealth, would be futile, particularly when mainland China controlled its freshwater access and was already taking aggressive positions to make life difficult should the UK delay the handover.

The 99 year lease treaty with the PRC was for the "New Territories"

Hong Kong Island and Kowloon had been ceded to Britain in perpetuity that China was forced to sign when the British occupied HK. The shift in power between the UK and the PRC made returning HK to the mainland a obvious move

Taiwan has in their National Museum all the historic treasures from the “Forbidden City. It was forbidden because it was emptied by Chiang Kai-Shek as they evacuated and moved to Taiwan island.

As long as Taiwan states clearly they Will destroy all 5000 years of priceless history before handing it over to PRC they have a huge chip.

That museum is amazing if anyone is into museums and history.

HK Ag

Mainland China has not waged any successful war against anyone, any time in modern history. They have lost every single conflict with an external power. Much of their military image today is a paper tiger promoted by propaganda.

I don't believe they will actually invade Taiwan because all of the chip fabs will be spoiled and made useless using the means others have described. I'm sure Taiwan has made this clear, and China knows it.

Second, China's navy can only operate close to shore because they are conventionally powered with limited range. They cannot touch the U.S. or even a carrier battle group that is far enough off shore. I don't believe the "hypersonic" missile claims either. More propaganda.

The U.S. Navy could blockade China from a safe distance and within a short amount of time China will be starving because they have to import food to survive. They also need fertilizer to grow what food they are able to.

China's goal is to reunify by economic benefit. And absent Trump taking China to task as he is now, they might have surpassed the U.S. economy under a weak U.S. President. The problem is Xi wants to be Mao and is doing a lot of harm to China to placate his ego, and the economic outlook is getting a lot worse.

Lefty, the Japanese couldn’t shoot straight either before WWII.

The Chinese have 230 times the capacity of the US in shipbuilding, and 50% of the GLOBAL shipbuilding capacity. That’s during peacetime, even if you assume the US can ramp up 100x during war, we are still woefully short.

China won’t fight a war on our strength, but theirs. If they want to take out most of our carrier groups, it’s almost comically easy. Similar to our WW2 Q ships, they just package a few thousand drones and sea launched drones from a container launch package. They have over 3k container ships, we’ve seen what those drone boats can do in Ukraine.


Sure, a carrier group can stop 3,000 of them… but just a handful is all that need to get through.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

Originally posted by 9mmepiphany:
I've found that the newer generations of Taiwanese, especially the middle/techno classes are leaning more toward reunification with the mainland simply based global economies.

Hong Kong was always the PRC's "backdoor" for trade with the world when political tensions made open trade "problematic". AS open trade with the PRC became normalized, the need to keep up the facade of a "separate HK" became less important...that's why the UK returned HK to the PRC prior to the end of it's treaty

Trying to get a populace to believe in an ideal so much that they're willing to die for it is hard to do, I'd admit that as much as I'm like to see Taiwan put up a fight, their government and major cultural figures haven't been so convincing or, embracing of the ideas of freedom from the CCP. Most Asian cultures are largely deferential when conflict is a possible, usually compromising in order to avoid conflict and to keep some balance...at what point do they 'resist' and 'push-back'? ...when is it too late? You'd have thought the events with Hong Kong would've been enough evidence but, people remain either unconvinced or, refuse to face the reality until it's too late. Taiwan has had a constant US SOF presence for a few years now, large weapons purchases to modernize their forces are finally happening and they have a civilian-defense program as firearm & medial training has taken on a new urgency...how many of the people embrace these changes, up to them.

As for why UK gave up HK, 1) it was honoring the 99yr treaty that was signed and 2) after exhausting themselves winning the Falklands War, the obvious was apparent that trying to retain any overseas territories or colonies outside of the Commonwealth, would be futile, particularly when mainland China controlled its freshwater access and was already taking aggressive positions to make life difficult should the UK delay the handover.

I think Chinese and Taiwanese culture #1 guiding principle is "don't rock the boat". So if we take their citizens, whoever is left over in Taiwan would probably be those types of people, which would just let themselves get absorbed, and would gladly wait in line for their bread so to speak.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
They cannot touch the U.S. or even a carrier battle group that is far enough off shore. I don't believe the "hypersonic" missile claims either. More propaganda.

I read a David Poyer novel where China nuked a carrier group while at war with the U.S. Could that be a possibility? Surely, the U.S. wouldn't retaliate against a civilian target or hit a naval base due to the close proximity of civilians.

Old thread revival!

https://www.newsmax.com/financ...dkt_nbr=010502oorlqf

Bessent Warns of 'Economic Apocalypse' if Taiwan Lost

Taiwan is no longer just a test of American resolve abroad. It is a test of whether the world economy can survive a single semiconductor chip chokepoint, The New York Times reports.

The Taiwan island democracy produces the overwhelming majority of high-end semiconductors that power everything from iPhones to AI data centers.

As China’s military rehearses the unthinkable, U.S. officials are warning that a blockade or invasion wouldn’t merely rattle markets or disrupt tech launches — it could detonate a global economic catastrophe.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently underscored the stakes, calling Taiwan “the single biggest threat to the world economy” and “the single biggest point of single failure” — warning that if the island’s chip output were cut off, “it would be an economic apocalypse.”

CHIPS STAMPED IN TAIWAN

That language would have sounded hyperbolic a decade ago, when Washington framed Taiwan mostly through the lens of geopolitics and democracy. But now the fear is painfully practical: the U.S. economy — and China’s — runs on chips stamped in Taiwanese fabs.

A confidential 2022 analysis commissioned for the Semiconductor Industry Association delivered the kind of numbers that make even hardened executives look up from quarterly earnings.

Cutting off Taiwan’s chip supply, the report warned, would unleash the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression. U.S. output would plunge 11% —roughly twice the hit of the 2008 recession. China’s collapse would be worse, a 16% decline.

Bloomberg Economics has put the cost of a conflict over Taiwan at more than $10 trillion—about 10% of global gross domestic product.

The White House has tried, repeatedly, to change that math. Under President Biden, the U.S. attempted a classic government-industrial intervention: subsidies. The CHIPS Act poured roughly $50 billion into incentives meant to rebuild domestic chip capacity and lure investment stateside.

TSMC expanded its footprint in Arizona, Samsung pledged major investment in Texas, and Intel announced plans for a sprawling Ohio campus.

But building factories is only half the battle. The other half is persuading the biggest chip buyers to use them — and that’s where Washington ran into a wall of corporate pragmatism. Chips made in the United States cost more — industry executives put the premium at over 25% — driven by labor, materials, regulation, and permitting.

Even when manufacturing plants rise from the desert, they can be a generation behind Taiwan’s most cutting-edge output, because Taiwan has long insisted its newest manufacturing technology stays on the island first, and it has spent the past 50 years to position its country to get to this point.

That stalemate is why the Trump administration’s approach looks, to its supporters, increasingly prescient.

Trump has long argued that the U.S. should use trade power to reshape supply chains, and he has denounced CHIPS-style grants in favor of tariff leverage — carrots replaced by sticks.

$200B ON US CHIP PLANTS

That logic has already driven a wave of deal-making. The U.S. is on track to spend about $200 billion on semiconductor plant plans through 2030, according to SEMI, the global chip industry association — enough, on paper, to lift U.S. capacity sharply.

Yet even that eye-watering sum doesn’t guarantee security, because Taiwan and China are investing, too.

In March 2021, Adm. Philip S. Davidson, then commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, warned Congress that “the threat is manifest during this decade,” adding, “in fact, in the next six years” — an assessment that helped cement 2027 as a focal point for planners.

That timeline became harder to dismiss after Russia invaded Ukraine. If anyone doubts an autocrat would risk economic self-harm to seize territory, Washington’s message is now: look at Russia President Vladimir Putin.

Even the corporate world is beginning to speak that language. Elon Musk has warned that “people maybe are underweighting some of the geopolitical risks that are going to be a major factor in a few years.”

A July 2023 classified briefing in Silicon Valley, CIA Director William J. Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines laid out intelligence about China’s military buildup to some of the most important CEOs on the planet: Tim Cook of Apple, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, and Lisa Su of AMD in the room, with Qualcomm chief Cristiano Amon joining by video.

The message was blunt: China’s trajectory suggested a move on Taiwan by 2027 was plausible. Cook reportedly told officials afterward that he slept “with one eye open.”

But purchase orders are what determine whether America can build a meaningful alternative to Taiwan.

McKinsey’s Bill Wiseman described the industry’s collective shrug with brutal clarity: too many executives assume that if disaster strikes, everyone will be wrecked together — so no one wants to be the first to eat the cost.

TSMC, NVIDIA, INTEL

That’s where Trump’s tariff threats — and the bargaining chips they create — have mattered.

In the most consequential maneuvering, TSMC itself became leverage: expand U.S. capacity faster, or face escalating trade penalties.

Nvidia, the world’s AI kingmaker, sits at the heart of this because it designs the chips that power the AI boom but relies on TSMC to manufacture them.

The logic of coercion is straightforward: if tariffs make Taiwan-made chips more expensive, the path of least resistance becomes buying from Arizona — even at a premium.

Some of that pressure has translated into multi-billion-dollar commitments, including a massive expansion of TSMC’s U.S. investment and new steps by major buyers to shift production onshore.

Intel, battered by financial strain and technology doubts, has also become a central piece of the reshoring strategy — both as a domestic manufacturing pillar and as a symbol that the U.S. cannot afford to lose its last best chance at leading-edge production.

Howard Lutnick, now driving the Commerce Department’s industrial push, has set a goal to move 40% of Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing to the United States.

It’s a moonshot ambition aimed at turning a single point of failure into a diversified network.

The question hanging over everything is whether America is moving fast enough to outrun the clock that Davidson started and Ukraine reinforced.

Is $200 billion through 2030 enough to turn a potential economic apocalypse into a manageable disruption? Or does that spending — spread across years, battling costs that make U.S. chips more expensive and often less cutting-edge — amount to an insurance policy that still leaves the house half built when the storm arrives?

If Taiwan goes dark, the world won’t have the luxury of debating strategy. It will have to confront a $10 trillion bill — and the shocking realization that the most important economy on Earth has been built on a supply chain that still runs through a single island.

It's a double-edged sword. The flip side is that the semiconductor bottleneck issue is able to function somewhat as a modern day non-nuclear Mutually Assured Destruction.

China knows that Taiwan has rigged their semiconductor factories to render them inoperable, and will pull that trigger if needed.

Doing so would be devastating to the US and world economy, but also to China's economy specifically.

As a result it lessens the chance China will risk disrupting the status quo.

Once China and the US are able to build out their own semiconductor production capabilities, it removes this safeguard, meaning China would be more willing to risk it, since not only would their own economy take a smaller hit but also the US would be potentially less willing to protect Taiwan as vigorously since it's no longer as economically vital to our economy.

It's one of Taiwans' most important strategic assets.

Dumb question: why do the semiconductor fabs need to be in the US? Understand that it's good for US economy but if there are concerns about cost and regulation hinderances, why not have the fabs elsewhere that would be under US protection from china? For example, perhaps in Mexico - cheap labor, absence of regulations, perhaps will drive the need for immigration lower, close enough for US air cover, ....?

Always have a backup plan. Trusting other countries to supply critical components to the US is asking for problems.

The US should have it's own supply of water, food, fuel, plus all types of manufacturing including gunpowder, aircraft parts, etc.

Look, this is a serious question and requires high levels of Strategic and National Security knowledge. I defer to our present expert:

"Um, you know, I think that this is such a, you know, I think that this is a um. - this is, of course, a, um very long-standing, um, policy of the United States and I think...blah, blah, blah...and for that question to even arise."

Quoted in part from the knowledgeable esteemed Alexandria Ocasio Cortez during her response at the Munich Security Conference.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
Dumb question: why do the semiconductor fabs need to be in the US? Understand that it's good for US economy but if there are concerns about cost and regulation hinderances, why not have the fabs elsewhere that would be under US protection from china? For example, perhaps in Mexico - cheap labor, absence of regulations, perhaps will drive the need for immigration lower, close enough for US air cover, ....?

Fabs are massively complex- probably some of the most complex manufacturing of any product. I'd have to guess that Mexico probably lacks the labor pool for such a facility. Also, it seems to be run by the cartels.

As my uncle, a Chosin Reservoir veteran, once told me...and I quote,"them little yellow bastards fight like there ain't no tomorrow."

We'd best be careful with China.

Nixon and Kissinger fucked up.

Taiwan will be fine as long as the US and Japan defend them. Its a mountainous island with very few places to land landing craft. They have 2 years of mandatory military service and are equipped with US weapons.

quote:

Nixon and Kissinger fucked up.

Though I was very young at the time, it seemed like a great thing. Now I know better.