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China 'Must Seize TSMC' If the US Were To Impose Sanctions, Says Top Economist (theregister.com) 328

China should seize Taiwan to gain control of TSMC if the US and its allies impose sanctions against the Middle Kingdom like those now in place against Russia, according to a prominent Chinese economist. The Register reports: This latest development comes in a speech by Chen Wenling, chief economist for the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, delivered at the China-US Forum hosted by the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China at the end of May. The text of the speech was posted to the Guancha (Observer) online news site. In the speech, Chen opened by saying that China and the US needs to ease the hostile relations between them, and that a confrontation between the two powers would be "a disaster for mankind."

However, she then claimed the US was seeking to isolate China, citing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreements as attempts by the US to create two large "anti-China" trade bodies, although the US pulled out of the former and the latter was cancelled because of disagreements. Echoing many concerns in the West, Chen said that China needs to take steps to secure its industrial chain and supply chain, and make strategic preparations to "deal with the United States' insistence on breaking the chain and containing it," according to a translation of the text. This means that if the US and allies imposed sanctions on China like those deployed against Russia, China "must recover Taiwan" and "seize TSMC, a company that originally belonged to China."

Chen claimed that "they are speeding up the transfer to the United States, and to build six factories in the United States. We must not let all the goals of the transfer be achieved," a possible reference to the US CHIPS Act, which seeks to encourage the building of semiconductor fabrication plants on US soil, which may include funding going to TSMC for chipmaking facilities it is building in Arizona. While alarming, Chen's speech appears to suggest that China should only take this action as retaliation to threats against its economic security, and there is no reason to believe that sanctions comparable to those on Russia are likely unless China becomes involved in a similar act of hostility against another country.

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China 'Must Seize TSMC' If the US Were To Impose Sanctions, Says Top Economist

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  • by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @05:43PM (#62601618) Homepage

    I guess she hasn't learned anything from the Ukraine experience. The only way China will be able to invade Taiwan successfully will be to use the Russian tactics of destroying everything. And that includes TSMC. Because if they leave infrastructure standing, the Taiwanese will resist the invasion just as the Ukrainians are resisting the Russian invasion.

    • by Austerity Empowers ( 669817 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @06:17PM (#62601690)

      They couldn't do much with it BUT destroy it, that's been the essence of the trade agreement from the get-go. Western IP in exchange for asian labor. While TSMC definitely employs some top notch semi-conductor physicists, they likely would flee, assuming they're located there to begin with. All that's left is a factory with no brains to use, and no plans to realize.

      • by slashdot_commentator ( 444053 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @06:41PM (#62601772) Journal

        How is a civilian work force supposed to flee from an island during wartime?

        • by Dorianny ( 1847922 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @06:51PM (#62601806) Journal
          It took months for Russia to amass its troops at the border for the assault. Most believed it to be just a ploy to get concessions but nobody is going to make that mistake a second time if China amasses an invasion force across the Taiwan Strait.
          • Most believed it to be just a ploy

            Nope. The longer the Russian army stayed congregated at the border, the more certain the US military became that Russia was going in. Biden was offering public early warnings right after the Russian wargame event was supposed to be finished, but the Russians lingered months afterwards.

            I agree, there's no way China is going to be able to conceal an invasion attempt. My predictive surprise is that China will attack US military satellite systems before launching.

        • by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

          How is a civilian work force supposed to flee from an island during wartime?

          Ships and boats, my friend. It's only 75 miles to Japan.

        • Hmm, good point. I'll have to do some reading on that, once I get done with this delicious Vietnamese takeout.

        • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @04:13AM (#62602866)

          How is a civilian work force supposed to flee from an island during wartime?

          Good question. Unless China fly jets over and decimate airports, shipping ports, and everything which looks like a boat on day one the answer is obvious. Why not ask refugees from Africa who arrive in Italy as the first port of entry into the EU how they got there?

          Speaking of which maybe you recall that everyone in the world except for Fox News knew that Russia was going to invade the Ukraine about 4 weeks before the first Russian even set foot in the country. You can do a lot of things in secret, assassinations for one. Waging war, not so much.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nonBORG ( 5254161 )
      I think it is a mistake to consider China's conventional warfare capability less than Russia's. China has less nuclear capability or weapons count than Russia but for conventional warfare their capabilities are very significant. Don't forget they also have a few inside men including Milley who promised to let China know if we were going to attack them.
      • I think it is a mistake to consider China's conventional warfare capability less than Russia's. China has less nuclear capability or weapons count than Russia but for conventional warfare their capabilities are very significant. Don't forget they also have a few inside men including Milley who promised to let China know if we were going to attack them.

        I'd like to think both the US and China (and Russia too) have a somewhat functional system to prevent a leader who is not quite right in the mind starting WW3. That could be a friendly phone call, or a bullet to the back of the head, whatever works. Our lives all depend on it. '

      • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @08:09PM (#62602036)

        I think it is a mistake to consider China's conventional warfare capability less than Russia's.

        Perhaps, but launching an amphibious assault across 160 km of ocean is way more difficult than what Russia did in Ukraine.

        • by haruchai ( 17472 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @10:24PM (#62602338)

          Why? The PRC Navy is so much larger they could lose 1/2 the fleet and still have a 5x advantage and enough to setup levels of blockades so that no one can leave Taiwan by sea.
          Russia was attacking from only 1 side & Ukraine was being resupplied from the far borders. A blockaded Taiwan with an enforced no-fly zone is entirely on their own unless someone wants to risk going head-to-head with Chinese ships & aircraft.

          • Why? The PRC Navy is so much larger they could lose 1/2 the fleet and still have a 5x advantage and enough to setup levels of blockades so that no one can leave Taiwan by sea.

            The PRC can only shuttle 30,000 troops across the straight at a time with their current capability, and that is without any heavy equipment.

            A blockaded Taiwan with an enforced no-fly zone is entirely on their own unless someone wants to risk going head-to-head with Chinese ships & aircraft.

            China doesn't have the capability to enforce a no-fly zone around Taiwan.

          • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @03:11AM (#62602762)

            The PRC Navy is so much larger

            How many of those ships are amphibious troop carriers?

            they could lose 1/2 the fleet and still have a 5x advantage

            Taiwan doesn't need ships to counter ships. They can fire Tomahawks and other anti-ship missiles from land or air.

            enough to setup levels of blockades so that no one can leave Taiwan by sea.

            The ships enforcing the blockade would soon have the same fate as the Moskva.

            A $100k missle can sink a $1B ship.

          • by Whateverthisis ( 7004192 ) on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @09:43AM (#62603578)
            You're missing the strategic picture here.

            The PLAN (it's called the People's Liberation Army Navy, not the PRC Navy) is large in terms of ship numbers, but is severely lacking in experience. In all of military history the most difficult operation to carry out is an opposed amphibious landing. We tend to think it's not difficult because the Marines did it quite well, but that was through a ridiculously high cost in men to learn the lessons required to do it successfully. It requires extensive coordination and combined arms assault; Naval bombardment and aerial attack to support landing forces. Those landing forces must then secure both a massive buffer zone as well as a deep water port in order to continue to be resupplied and maintain readiness and combat effectiveness, otherwise they will be besieged and destroyed by the defenders.

            The PLA (and it's cadet branch the PLAN, because the Army controls the Navy in the Chinese military) must choose a single port to attack, secure it's facilities intact, and hold off any counterattack to build up strength. Taoyuan port seems obvious, as it's 45 km from Taipei and the goal would be to take out the government as China's policy is that the people of Taiwan are Chinese and the government is illegitimate. However this would be the most opposed landing they would face and likely lose. The Port of Kaohsiung would make more sense; it's the largest port in Taiwan with significant infrastructure, but it's also the furthest away from Taipei meaning they would need to secure the port, build up a massive army, and fight the whole way across the island.

            Meanwhile, the US, India, Australia, Japan and the majority of Europe opposes this kind of tactic. Each of them would continue to resupply the Taiwanese forces to resist. The PLA could not stop that resupply, because if they blockade the Eastern ports of Taiwan, 1) they would stretch their Navy out, not able to support their landing forces, and 2) America could just run the blockade. If the PLAN attacks an American ship doing business in Taiwan, that would justify the US Navy getting involved and in that situation China loses big. The Japanese are already making statements that they will defend Taiwan, and the Japanese "Self Defense Navy", the 4th largest Navy in the world, is also well equipped, trained, and experienced participating in US actions. Australia likely joins in too; the PLAN would be facing American equipment by well trained, professional, experienced Navys that combined are on par in terms of size. Meanwhile, all Taiwan needs to do is destroy the cranes and port facilities if they're losing the landing; the landing forces will then be unable to resupply, run out of food and ammo, and surrender or be destroyed.

            The PLAN has zero experience at Naval warfare outside of anti-piracy patrols. The PLA in general has not fought a serious war since 1950. They are severely lacking in a non-commissioned officer corp, meaning that the high level control is good but the unit-level leadership is sketchy. Notably every unit above company has dual control; a military officer and a political officer, and we all know how well that worked for the Soviet Army. Many of China's new weapons have not been tested in battle and their soldiers are not experienced. In the hell that is an opposed amphibious landing, most units would crumble. Meanwhile the Taiwanese military is supplied with some of the best equipment the US can build and trained by the US military (FYI, the Ukrainian military was also trained and supplied by the US, which is why they are so effective), and they will have no where to run; they'll be fighting for their homes.

            China likely cannot successfully take Taiwan without leveling it completely, and that would make them an international pariah, go against thier stated political position of Taiwan to their own populace, and risk delegitimizing their government.

    • by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @06:38PM (#62601766)
      In fairness destroying it would be probably the second best option as then it would deny the manufacturing to the west ensuring the sanctions hurt us more than them. China can probably ramp up manufacturing faster than us.
      • by quenda ( 644621 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @07:00PM (#62601826)

        China can probably ramp up manufacturing faster than us.

        China is as dependent on the West as we are on them. Chinese manufacturing still depends on imported parts.
        Until 5 years ago, China could not even make ball-point pens without balls imported from Switzerland.

        https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]

        • China cannot survive without selling to western markets.

          The west can survive without the latest iPhone.
          • by quenda ( 644621 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @08:34PM (#62602098)

            The west can survive without the latest iPhone.

            You have no idea the depth of inter-dependency in our supply chains. Finished consumer goods are not the real problem.
            Mining, industry and agricultural production all over the world will be suffering from a cascade of unpredicted shortages of vital inputs, if there is a major trade disruption. Some poor countries will see starvation.

            Have we not learned the vulnerability of just-in-time warehousing in the last 2 years?

          • You are aware that almost everything we produce here needs parts from China? You won't build a car, a power plant, construction equipment or even get any buildings built without material or parts from China.

        • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @04:19AM (#62602876)

          Until 5 years ago, China could not even make ball-point pens without balls imported from Switzerland.

          I've heard this story repeated a lot and then I look at the USA's non-existent capabilities of semiconductor manufacturing. The reality is it's not a case of China not being able to make balls for ball point pens. It's China choosing not to and importing the result from another country. Much like the west does with a lot of things we can *only* get from south east Asia right now.

          Just like in this article when (if) Intel opens an advanced manufacturing facility in the USA for 5nm nodes, the media will be all over it in the same way, but it wasn't an issue of "couldn't" be done as much as it was "didn't want to" be done. You can see this play out right now with investment picking up due to the global supply chain issues. Countries are realising domestic production may not be bad, not because they couldn't do it in the past, but because it was cheaper to let someone else do it for you.

      • Lol no they can't. ASML is in the Netherlands.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by gravewax ( 4772409 )
          ASML has had various restrictions on China trade for some time, as a consequence China have been building competitors to ASML for some time and many disputes about them stealing ASML IP, if war came I would expect they could quite rapidly replace ASML.
          • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            That's nice. Where are they getting lenses from? ASML doesn't design nor make those. Zeiss does.

            This is the fun thing. Everything that makes TSMC successful except for engineering of the actual fab and economic side is made elsewhere, and it's decentralized. Designs for chips come from US. Machines to make chips come from Netherlands. Lenses for said machines come from Germany. And that's just a few things without which you cannot make a TSMC clone.

            Grabbing it is utterly pointless for anything other than de

            • by ghoul ( 157158 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @11:25PM (#62602448)
              China has a fab (SMIC), A EUV manufacturer (Dongfang), a Laser company working on the EUV laser(SMEE), an optics company working on the optics. A Chip layout company, a noble gases company. Pretty much China is the only country with all pieces of the Chip manufacturing puzzle though 1-2 generation behind. In the West US has the software, Netherlands the EUV machine, Japan produces the masks, the noble gases for the lasers come from Russia (thats an interesting one. If Ukraine war goes on for another 3 months ASML cant make anymore machines). So China is better prepared for a trade war than almost any other country.
              • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                Problem being that 1-2 generation behind implies that this is just incremental improvement.

                When in reality, it's about moving to EUV. Something that was so fundamentally difficult, it was over a decade late for Western companies to get done compared to what they expected.

    • War is more nuanced than you believe it to be. If it makes you feel any better, war is probably more nuanced than Chinese generals and politicians believe it to be.

      While I'm more inclined to think that the Chinese will fail to invade Taiwan, there's nothing to stop the Chinese from leaving a parting shot of blowing up everything of value in Taiwan, particularly TSMC, if the Chinese leave enough missiles in reserve. We don't "win" even if the Chinese don't "win".

      • The problem here is that Taiwan has at least some retaliatory capability, so it might just do some significant damage to China's industrial capacity along the way. A war between the two has no certain outcome, other than leaving a lot of stuff smashed on both side of the Strait.

        • so it might just do some significant damage to China's industrial capacity along the way.

          Ukrainians have a better chance of mounting an offensive into Russia. Shanghai is a big place.

        • One thing is for sure, the US will try to be one of the last to join WW3. But it won't be the huge economic win that it was last time because we already outsourced most of our manufacturing.

    • by gravewax ( 4772409 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @06:44PM (#62601784)
      Taiwan has considerably less defensive capabilities than Ukraine and China has considerably more offensive capabilities than Russia. combine that with Taiwan will not have the easy path for 10s's of billions of military aid rolling over the border from the world that Ukraine has.
      • China has shit seafaring capability. Could they destroy Taiwan's economic capability, certainly. But could they easily take the island intact unless the US and Japan roll over and let them? No.

        • by Tailhook ( 98486 )

          China has shit seafaring capability.

          China doesn't need a world class navy to deal with Taiwan. Taiwan isn't on the other side of an ocean. It's just off shore. Militarily China needs only three things to take control of Taiwan:

          1.) China needs a strong anti-capital ship threat to keep Western navies at bay. Hypersonic anti-ship missiles will do nicely, so China is rapidly developing exactly that.
          2.) China needs air superiority over Taiwan to protect bombers and naval patrol assets. That part is easy given the extreme advantage of oper

        • China has world's largest navy and we are supposed to take your word their seafaring capacity is shit?

          Granted most of their ships are small and only suitable for operation within a few hundred miles of shore - like for example against an island 70 miles off the coast?

          China could not do patrols in the Gulf of Mexico like US does patrols in the China sea but off their own they can absolutely dominate.
      • by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @10:53PM (#62602380)

        It's the exact opposite. Ukraine didn't even have a credible military eight years ago. Russians have exceptional ground warfare capability, which they allowed their corruption to hollow out from inside. Chinese have at least as much corruption as Russians, and they have to assault over water which is far harder while having far less assets capable of such an assault. And worst of all, Ukraine is flat tank country. Really easy to advance in outside cities and previously dug in areas. Finally The only way to get any materiel to Ukraine is to fly it to Poland, put it on a train, drive a train to Ukraine's border, unload, reload into Ukraine's rail gauge train, and have Ukrainians drive it across the border and into Ukraine. It's extremely logistically complex.

        Now compare it to Taiwan. Taiwan has been preparing for Chinese invasion since 1950s. It's an island sitting quite a distance from Chinese mainland. It's extremely mountainous, with much of waterline being cliffs of various kinds. It has an intricate network of dug in positions built over more than half a century of preparations aimed specifically at stopping invasion from PRC mainland. And if you want to send help, you just put it on a ship and send it to a Taiwanese port on the opposite side of the island, because blockading those is basically impossible for PRC.

        Finally whatever you say about Russia, they're net producers of everything you need to have modern civilization. Things like oil, food and ores needed for basic civilizational necessities like steel. They're net exporters of all those things. War is taking quality of life of Russians way down due to trade sanctions which reduce efficiencies of all those critical sectors, lights aren't going to go out, trucks are't stopping and people aren't starving in massive numbers. Because there's enough domestic food production to feed Russians and they have precursors for everything they need to survive as a civilization domestically. It won't be an existence nearly as comfortable as it was before the war, but it's also not an extinction event either.

        China on the other hand is a massive net importer of everything that you need to have a modern civilization. They're massive net importers of fuel, food and most ores needed for basic civilizational necessities like steel. If US and its allies were to put sanctions like ones that have been put on Russia on China, it would have mass starvation event within a year after it ran out of whatever hasn't been stolen from its strategic reserves by the corrupt elite. Bonus points of failure to recover from African Swine Flu that would accelerate this even further. And it wouldn't even be able to make war at that point, because it would have little oil left to run war machines, much less supply lines for them. Even most of the manufacturing would shut down, because a lot of Chinese manufacturing imports precursors and then assembles them. It cannot function without access to global markets, because it needs imports to assemble things.

        One of the reasons for extreme political instability in China right now is that CCP leadership saw in Ukraine that pretty much all of the foundational assumptions they based their long term plans for retaking Taiwan... were wrong. Everything from "it's going to be easy, we just roll in and most people will surrender" and "Westerners will accept it and keep doing business as usual" to "we can have connections with a handful of elites which will let us control the international response". Remember how among the first ones to pull out of Russia were the three majors of oil consulting, Halliburton, Schlumberger and Baker Hughes? Three companies who's activities in Russia were in no way sanctioned by anyone, and who's social responsibility record speaks for itself in... frankly utter lack of any social responsibility. Until now. Because they got massively pressured into it by actual individual stock holders who were collectively outraged at the events in Ukraine.

        The fact that ordinary people rather than a small handful o

    • I think that China is currently carefully studying the errors of the Russians in Ukraine, in order to learn and not repeat them. Also, if China do an embargo of the island, it will be quite difficult to deliver weapons and supplies to Taiwan, contrary to Ukraine.
      Also, if the West decides to boycott Made in China products, like for the Russian gas, well... all the stores will have a lot of empty shelves, and no more IStuffs
      • Taiwan invasion would be different. Just look at the terrain. It would be more like Afghanistan where invaders had to fight tribes and failed due to terrain issues. With people motivated like the Ukrainians and trained it would be more like Gallipoli.

    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      It's even worse than that.

      What would seizing TSMC do? I'm sure the Taiwanese would destroy the fab making it useless - there are plenty of things that once destroyed cannot be brought online anymore. The EUV light source, for example - if you destroy that, the whole fab's useless.

      Then there's the supply chain as well - destroy the machinery and the fab's useless. You think the US and EU are going to supply China with the necessary parts to fix the fab? (TSMC doesn't work in a vacuum - they rely on parts fro

      • As you rightly pointed out its trivially easy to sabotage a fab. The day TSMC stops supplying chips to China is the day the fab starts to have mysterious malfunctions. Once enough losses have happened and the share price cratered ,China can probably just buy TSMC.
    • Are you assuming China hasnt learnt from Russia's mistakes? They will have better logistics in place. Also Russia's main problem was all the money they spent on buying collaborators in Ukraine was stolen by the agents supposed to be doing the buying. Russia expected to be welcomed as a liberator so they were not prepared. China wont do that mistake. First of all China executes people for corruption so Chinese agents wont try to steal the bribe money. Secondly they will go in loaded for bear
  • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @05:50PM (#62601628) Journal

    Taiwan is much stronger militarily than Ukraine, and China is somewhat weaker than Russia. And invading across an ocean is harder by several orders of magnitude.

    • by Frobnicator ( 565869 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @06:21PM (#62601718) Journal

      Actually not hard at all, if you read the earlier papers (you know, clicking not just the headline but the actual PDFs inside the stories) it is described in detail.

      TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, is one of the world's most valuable companies in market cap, and provides a huge amount of the world's premium computer chips and silicon wafers. They've (successfully) threatened companies like Huawei, they're about 1/5 of the global chip production, especially on the newest generation of 7-nm and 5-nm chip fabrication. In response to China's threats have been looking at expanding operation in Japan, the US, Germany, Singapore, South Korea, and other countries. Not just big on the global scale, they're the biggest economic target in Taiwan by far.

      The articles describe how the company would need to make it automated, essentially giving the executives a self destruct button that would automatically destroy the fabrication equipment in all their manufacturing and fabrication equipment in Taiwan and mainland China. Most of it could be in software, the fabrication equipment driving itself beyond the limits then deleting everything, but some of it would need to be with extra equipment -- which is inexpensive relative to the business overall -- that could destroy itself.

      Executives could push the big red self destruct button and the world suddenly loses about $50B/year in microchip fabrication equipment, hitting mainland China harder than any other country. We'd see the sting in video cards and high-end CPUs in the US, but our sting would be mild compared to the hit to China's economic damage. As the researchers point out, the loss of that one company's equipment to China would mean one of the few things China would value that it doesn't already have if they attempted to seize control over Taiwan. The company's global operations would suffer for a few years, but they could gradually recover elsewhere.

      • Alternatively in the months leading up to the invasion when China is amassing their forces, TSMC just has the Tawainese military wire up the buildings to blow them up or more likely asks the US government to do it.

      • Just park mobile AA and anti-ship batteries next to the plants. Lets China decide, sending in invasion forces with active modern area denial is suicide.

      • I dont believe that a sophisticated “destruct system” would be necessary. The valuable knowledge in cutting edge fabs is in the lasers, steppers, computers, masks, and to a lesser extent in the PVD systems. The rest is pretty standard robotics. I bet that a motivated team of 10 engineers could entirely demolish TSMC in a single workday given

        1. full facility access,
        2. some gasoline,
        3. matches
        4. a few 5 pound sledgehammers.

        The chances of china seizing TSMC? Zero, unless they pull
    • Russia having a stronger army then China was a pre-war analysis where the Russian's had even fooled themselves into believing that they had a modern, capable army.
    • Taiwan is much stronger militarily than Ukraine, and China is somewhat weaker than Russia. And invading across an ocean is harder by several orders of magnitude.

      The big factors for military are manpower, equipment, logistics, and discipline.

      China has a MASSIVE amount of manpower, and probably pretty decent equipment. I don't know about the logistics and discipline but judging by the way they locked down their country during COVID I suspect they're pretty decent there.

      I'd give Taiwan the edge over China in logistics and discipline, but they don't have nearly the same manpower, and even if their equipment is more advanced they have a lot less.

      Russia's major disadvant

    • not a good analysis, Russia were actually a lot weaker than expected and Ukraine would have been steamrolled in weeks if it wasn't for massive russian over confidence and 100+ billion in advanced weaponry delivered both pre and post the war commencing. Russia has a much stronger nuclear arsenal, but so far that hasn't come into play and likewise will unlikely be a factor in Taiwan. Taiwan are isolated with no easy avenue to get supported should China decide to invade. yes invading across an ocean is hard, g
    • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @07:23PM (#62601910) Journal
      One child policy for 40 year, two generations, selective female infanticide and sex selective abortions ...

      Chinese men are pampered beyond belief by their parents and coddled and cloistered. They are not the lean mean fighting machine shown in Hollywood movies. All nice crisp uniforms and bravado. A recent skirmish with India, they suffered casualities 3 to 1.

  • by redmid17 ( 1217076 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @05:53PM (#62601632)
    One carrier group could ground pretty much their entire air force and sink their naval forces in the city.
  • I am trying to think about how this is worse than invading a country that never attacked us and then having a future U.S. president declare "we should have taken their oil."

    • Re:How outrageous (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nonBORG ( 5254161 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @06:31PM (#62601750)
      So if we did something in the past then we cannot ask others to not do it? I guess slavery is fine then?

      I understand the sentiment but lets move forward. Iraq I actually agree in some respects but what DJT said before he was president is just fluff politicians/people say lots of stuff what matters is what they do.

      TSMC is also critical for the US, possibly we need to defend Taiwan on that basis alone. The time of appeasing China is over (IMO.)
      • TSMC is also critical for the US, possibly we need to defend Taiwan on that basis alone. The time of appeasing China is over (IMO.)

        Sadly that is the sort of dumb rhetoric that leads to war and suffering. China is saying the exact same thing, the time of appeasing the US war machine is over.

  • by ruurd ( 761243 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @06:23PM (#62601726)
    They can seize all they want. They will run TSMC into the ground in no time for the simple reason they cannot source the technology that is needed for chips production.
  • If war between Taiwan and China broke out TSMC would be destroyed, but even if it wasnt research and development can not occur under those circumstances. Key people at the company would leave, new nodes targets wouldnâ(TM)t be hit, and nothing of value would be left. We would be stuck technologically for a decade at the same node If you want to learn anything from Russia is donâ(TM)t be a geopolitical a-hole and everyone will be cool at the geopolitical party
  • A Pyrrhic victory (/ˈpɪrɪk/ (listen) PIRR-ik) is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Such a victory negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress.

    The phrase originates from a quote from Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose triumph against the Romans in the Battle of Asculum in 279 BCE destroyed much of his forces, forcing the end of his campaign.

    In this case, any attempt to seize Taiwan which appeared to be succeeding would no doubt trigger the destruction of TSMC factory.

    Could luck putting that humpty dumpty back together again.
  • This is a tautology...

    If the US (and the world) were to sanction China, like it has Russia for invading Ukraine, it would make twisted sense for China to invade Taiwan and seize its most valuable asset.

    But what would prompt such sanctions? China invading Taiwan and seizing TSMC.

    Such logic.

    • Yeah pretty much, this also stood out to me. They're already genociding freely and nobody is looking to sanction them over this. Another skirmish with India won't do it either. Nobody cares about Mongolia. We'd send them flowers if they attacked Russia. So this is really the only scenario where mega-sanctions could hit.

  • Knuckling under to China will have exactly the same result as knuckling under to Russia when they seized Crimea. China respects power and the resolve to use it, nothing else.

    Perhaps providing some kind of support for the people of Hong Kong might send a message to Winnie the Pooh about the consequences of making threats.

  • Foolishness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @07:13PM (#62601874) Homepage

    #1, TSMC is not transferring the new tech to the US, just the old tech we can already duplicate. The plans for the new 2mm plants are set to remain on Taiwan. Why? Because they know it is their key to making sure that the US actually defends Taiwan from Chinese aggression.

    #2, The idea that China could gain anything from invading Taiwan is ridiculous. Not only would Taiwan reject China and fight back along the lines of Ukraine, but the one thing they are sure to do is sabotage and destroy the chip plants. These are factories that use clean rooms. A few hand made pipe bombs can turn them into junk steel. Not to mention that they require highly trained employees who are not pro-communism.

    Without the chip plants, Taiwan becomes a war torn horror story, not a desirable jewel. Te entire world would suffer and everyone knows this. It is the main reason China has not invaded since they built their army up.

    China wants Taiwan to willing rejoin them, and they think they can scare them into this. The problem is they believe their own propaganda. They make sure none of their own people can complain about them and they think this makes the entire world believe China is a paradise.

    Taiwan is not so foolish. They know the truth and how China hides it. They would rather blow up the factories than rejoin.

    Rebellious provinces do not stay rebellious provinces for over 70 years without good reason.

    • by stikves ( 127823 )

      Let me see...

      Uyghurs (in now called Xinjiang region) willingly joined China back during the revolution day...
      Tibet joined China ... not so willingly...
      Hong Kong joined China very recently due to international agreements.
      China also wanted Vietnam back in the day, and they refused.

      I think Taiwanese residents can see the pattern here. Those who joined vs those who did not.

    • Re:Foolishness (Score:4, Informative)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @04:27AM (#62602892)

      It's not TSMC's tech. It's ASML's, a Dutch company, and the only company in the world producing equipment to manufacture such advanced chips. TSMC and Samsung are their two biggest customers.

  • All China needs to do to combat US sanctions is respond in kind. We'd both be crippled.

    This strategy only works with Russia because the US is almost entirely economically independent from Russia. We just have to put up with expensive gas. With sanctions on China, we'd have to put up with expensive consumer goods. Across the board.

    And that's just our side. I won't begin to try to predict what Chinese sanctions do to the US. However, I will hazard a guess that China will suffer less than the US, especially thanks to the First Amendment (China can suppress complaints, the US can't).

    • China can suppress complaints, the US can't

      That's not an advantage, it's a major disadvantage. Open criticism is by far the most efficient means of information. (Long-standing) police states are brittle, ever doubtful of opportunity, and ever willing to believe the worst, and that fact has historically been one of the greatest security blankets to the free world. We can make a lot of mistakes and recover by the flexibility of liberty, but regimes made of glass and fear don't dare to make any.

      Still, you're not wrong that economic harm would be

  • China should sanction TSMC exports to US and allies. And any planes or ships which are exporting chips should be seized in international waters. The precedent has been set by the US seizing Iranian oil tankers headed for Venezuela. Its OK to commit piracy as long as a single country has passed a domestic law.
  • All of the machinery in an advanced fab is controlled with complex software. If TSMC thought an invasion was due, they should have daily unlock encryption and certs that need to be provided from offshore sources before fab can operate each day.
    In the event that TSMC is not longer in control of their facilities, offshore agents have been instructed to withhold the download of the daily digital ignition keys -essentially mothballing the facility until invasion forces have withdrawn from the island.
    PRC hacker

  • That is a pretty good reason to support Taiwan, pretty good for a country that had their first free direct election of president in 1996. The US is ranked as a 'Flawed democracy' while Taiwan is a 'Full democracy'; Ukraine is number 86 with a 'hybrid regime'.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • I'm curious what the basis is for the claim that TSMC was originally Chinese. The company was founded in Taiwan and has always had its operations there. The founder, Morris Chang, was born in the mainland but his career has been in the US and Taiwan. There's no connection to the People's Republic.
  • by Bu11etmagnet ( 1071376 ) on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @01:54AM (#62602652)

    Founded in Taiwan in 1987 by Morris Chang, TSMC was the world's first dedicated semiconductor foundry and has long been the leading company in its field.

    "A company that originally belonged to China" does not compute.

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