yeah we heard that story before and we all know how good it went for ukraine...
So taiwan should definitely keep arming up and be ready for a fucking invasion.
I’m weirded out time and time again why people and newspapers listen to the likes of Xi and Putin. You know? Dictators who lied over and over and over and over and over and over again?
Their job is to report what is said exactly, not give their commentary on it (otherwise, you get fox news). Now, good journalists also provide the current news in context of past actions, but they should still let the reader decide if it will happen again.
Friendly reminder that CPC-KMT relations were downright friendly. The tensions surrounding the Taiwan Strait today are a direct product of the DPP's policy.
The DPP has received sizable backing and support from the US state-funded National Endowment for Democracy. Oops.
lol
The CPC and KMT were moving towards peace. That's undeniable.
Then, the DPP comes in from what's certainly not a coup and takes power. This is the same DPP that has changed Taiwan's focus from economic development (under the KMT) towards "national security issues and China's threat to Taiwan in local elections."
These are issues that were directly provoked by DPP hostility in relations. The DPP has categorically set back peace in the region by at least a decade.
The CPC and KMT were moving towards peace. That's undeniable.
Towards peace like Russia walks towards peace in Ukraine? Come one buddy let it go, I can't take you serious...
Do you understand history at all? Jesus Christ it's like Westerners forget that history doesn't start when the new government takes power.
Yeah, yeah...west bad, communism good, got it. move on.
Did anyone say that?
The relationship between the CPC and the KMT was, if not warm, at least warming rapidly. Denying that is to deny recent history.
Could you. Fucking. Imagine. If he said yes I'll invade Taiwan in 2027.
He could've said "Why would I wait until 2027? I could invade it tomorrow if I had wanted"
He would never say it. He would have said "we don't comment on internal affairs".
I recall people laughing at the US warning Ukraine that a Russian invasion was imminent.
In hindsight, it was imminent since they annexed Krimea almost 10 years ago.
Considering Russia's red lines were made very clear (and were crossed), I'm not sure why anyone is surprised.
China's red lines were also very clear, but then Pelosi decided to stomp right over them anyway.
It's rather concerning how today we're more concerned about protecting ideology than we are about maintaining world peace.
The only way to not have crossed Russia's supposed red lines would have been for Ukraine to never exist in the first place.
No matter what was done Putin would have found some way to justify his invasion.
Russia's red lines were primarily "no foreign intervention into Ukraine." Considering that the US 4th Psychological Operations Group literally posted a video claiming that they organized and supported and "pulled the strings of" Euromaidan...
China doesn't get to dictate what Taiwan does.
Russia doesn't get to dictate what Ukraine does.
Very simple. The only ideology being pushed here is the delusion that one country should be able to dictate the actions of another to placate the ego of an authoritarian leader. Implying Russia or China were forced into doing anything is some DARVO bullshit.
The US gets to dictate what Canada does, though. We've had to put up with American bullshit for decades.
And they shouldn't, as you as you said it's bullshit. Same principle, just have the courage to be less selective about how you apply it
I mean, I agree in theory but in practice that's not how the world works. We don't live in an ideal world.
The US would never allow Canada to align with Russia against the US. Russia would never allow Ukraine to align with the US against Russia. China would never allow Taiwan to align with the US against China.
Same shit, different shitter.
Ok good, I'm glad we're able to find some common ground here. And here's another bit of common ground I think we have:
If, the government of Canada decide it was in its best interest to align with Russia and that's what the people of Canada wanted, and they tried to do this, and the US then said that Canada was rightfully part of its territory and it would prefer to use peaceful means of unification but would ultimately take Canada by any means necessary.....I would stand right next to you, I'd be angry with you and call out the moral bankruptcy and how the US has no right to do that. I'd probably even influence the way I voted in my country.
But here's the thing. That's a hypothetical scenario for Canada. The people of Canada and their way of life is safe. Me, and my family here in Taiwan? Not so much. And that's 100% because of the CCPs claim that they own us and will take us by any means. A claim they could revoke at any time.
The world isn't perfect, no, but that won't stop me from calling out this type of shit no matter who does it and it's certainly paper thin cover to hide behind if you're trying to justify that which you know cannot be morally defended.
Don’t bother, it’s just a tankie shill posting bad faith arguments from a 1d all account.
Yeah true, that's probably enough now that it's starting to go in circles. I don't know why but I'm still surprised that people could genuinely hold these views. Still, I always hope to learn something but ultimately it's probably a waste of time.
The US is literally funding the right-wing party in Canada to be more conservative, more extreme, less secular, and more friendly to US interests.
We can't do ANYTHING about it. We're already America's removed.
Would be interested to read more about that if you have sources. Like I said, I'm not afraid to criticise the US but that is no excuse for the actions of others.
It's important to remember that in the US, political aims are achieved by funding think tanks and political parties and "independent protests" rather than on funding the government at large. So, I'm attributing the actions of the decision makers in the US (Republican officials, key Republican decision makers) to American policy at large. After all, in a two-party system, the Republicans will eventually regain power and they will follow the policy of these key decision makers. It's rather odd that the decision makers in American politics aren't government officials, but I guess that's the wonders of a two-party democracy. You can say that Koch (for example) isn't an American government official, but then I'd ask you what defines a government official if not a high degree of influence over government policy.
Maybe the Democrats are better, but from what I've seen all they do is not actively make things substantially worse.
Tankie you for sharing your opinion. Always love to hear the latest take on geopolitics from a brand new account.
It's tankie to... Want to avoid war? Damn.
!
It's rather concerning how today we're more concerned about protecting ideology than we are about maintaining world peace.
!<
Agreed.
It's gonna be Jan 1, 2028, isn't it?
Or 2026
Among all the other very good reasons this would be a completely fucking stupid and morally bankrupt thing to do (doesn't mean it won't happen), this would have a devastating impact globally. You thought the chip shortage was bad during COVID? That was caused by just a change in demand from people's shift in spending habits. Can you imagine the impact of China trying to invade the country that produces 60% of the entire world supply of chips? When it comes to advanced chips they produce 90% (source).
Just...fuck right off please. Nobody wants you here anyway.
They produce 90% of the world's advanced chips more out of systematic neglect than out of any technological gap.
Intel floundered years of technological supremacy because they were run by an incompetent manager type. They refused to run a foundry model for decades.
Samsung has completely lost competitiveness and the South Korean government is happy to let them do whatever because South Korea is more like the Samsung government of Korea.
SMIC can't get access to EUV machines, but even then they're already knocking on the doors of Intel's current process.
Can I read more about this somewhere? My understanding was that it would be extremely difficult to the point of impracticality to compete with TSMC or would at least take decades to match them in terms of process and scale. I don't really know much about chip manufacturing though.
China isn't held back by personnel. Intuitively, this makes sense even if you subscribe to the Western idea that Chinese people can only copy things: Taiwanese people can easily work in China because of trade/border agreements, China isn't a poor country, and TSMC employs a massive number of highly experienced engineers. The Taiwan/China culture war is really a Western construct and many TSMC engineers are happy to take jobs in China. SMIC has already shown 7nm DUV capability (comparable to state-of-the-art by Intel).
The only thing holding back Chinese semiconductor capability in terms of hardware is the lack of EUV machines, which are only made by ASML. There are rumours spinning around in Chinese circles that Huawei has an EUV prototype in the debugging stage with a tentative release target of 2025.
If anything, China is far more constrained in terms of software (in a market dominated by Cadence and Synopsys), but this is much more easily circumventable with enough resources. The only reason Cadence and Synopsys haven't had much competition is because it's really expensive to develop and doesn't have that much competitive edge, but that equation changes for China given how happy the US is to slap export restrictions everywhere.
Yeah I guess China firing missiles around Taiwan was just a western construct too I guess. Come on, I'm interested to learn more about chip manufacturing and the practicality or otherwise of someone competing with TSMC and thought you might have interesting sources I hadn't read.
You could also argue that the U.S isn't constrained by population and they also have access to the technology and even buy in from TSMC but they haven't managed to kick start chip manufacturing there yet either unless there are developments there that I missed.
For now, doesn't seem like the situation is going to be changing anytime soon.
Look at when China-Taiwan relations deteriorated. Relations were improving at record pace under the KMT in the 2008-2016 period. The CPC had basically recognized the de facto independence of Taiwan, even having Xi Jinping meet the KMT Chairman in 2015.
That rapidly deteriorated with the election of the DPP in 2016, who immediately took an extremely hawkish view on China, invited the USN to cross through the Taiwan Strait in a FONOPS (which, prior to this, had been established as territorial waters under the status quo), started paying US politicians hundreds of thousands of dollars to speak in Taiwan, coincidentally started seeing more aid from the US, forced TSMC to expand their US footprint (with many complaints from TSMC), and followed the US in placing export controls to China. Years of progress under the KMT unraveled.
You have to understand the context here: under the KMT, it's agreed that the two parties will disagree on who "rules" the territories of China. It's also implicitly established that neither party will seek to relinquish their claim on the other's territories. For both the CPC and the KMT, this is a matter of ideology and policy. Knowing that this ideological block isn't going anywhere, CPC-KMT discussions led to the conclusion that, fine, we won't agree, but we also won't do anything about it. Neither military intruded over the status quo median line, neither military provoked the other with missiles or fighters or whatnot, and it was established that the issue was one of minimal importance compared to economic development and peaceful codevelopment. China knows that taking Taiwan is basically impossible, and Taiwan has no aspirations to retake China.
In comes the DPP, arms swinging, with support from the US, and says that the KMT is clearly siding with the CPC on this issue and is clearly going to seek reunification with the CPC. Reunification is against KMT policy for obvious ideological reasons, but alas. So, the DPP comes in, saying they want de jure independence and to align with the US, fuck China, Taiwanese people aren't Chinese, etc. etc. Obviously, China isn't too happy about this, but things proceed as usual.
Taiwan then declares that the Taiwan Strait is international waters (since, per DPP policy, Taiwan is not China and thus the Taiwan Strait doesn't classify as territorial waters), that they want more weapons from the US, and that they don't want to trade with China. China is unhappy about this, but it exposes a key vulnerability in the concept of international waters: there's nothing stopping China from flying in international waters. So, with the justification of the US FONOPS (i.e. sailing an armed US warship) through the Strait, China starts flying sorties past the median line (which, as established, is now international airspace). China also starts shooting missiles from international airspace crossing international airspace into international airspace, using US FONOPS as justification for this being perfectly reasonable. That's how we ended up here. I'm strongly opposed to the DPP, not strongly opposed to Taiwan. I see the DPP as being intentionally provocative and throwing away a massive economic boon (trade with China) in exchange for the DPP's own ideological goals. It's coming at the cost of opportunities in Taiwan, it's destabilizing the region, and it's pushing Taiwan into the same unstable flip-flopping political situation as the US.
Right, CCP recognised Taiwan as defacto independent by ratifying the anti secession law in 2005. What are you smoking, mate? I don't know about the chip situation but I haven't seen anything substantive from you and it seems to me like you have a somewhat distorted view of the situation as a whole but again, if you have anything source wise that talks about it I'd be interested to read it.
Accidentally posted this in the main comments but this is where I meant to put it.
2008-2016.
Guess who was in power in 2005? That's right, the DPP.
And? Taiwanese voted for their government so... China had no choice? I don't buy the helpless China argument for a second. They did it because they wanted to, because they say they own Taiwan. They chose it, as they chose to fire missiles around Taiwan in a childish outburst and as they choose to claim they will use force to take Taiwan if necessary. Nobody is making them do these things. They are wrong and they are completely the choice of the CCP. I really don't see where this argument can possibly lead except to permit all countries to commit all atrocities they feel they have the right to.
I'm saying that the DPP is primarily responsible for destabilizing cross-Strait relations. I'm really not sure why you're arguing with this: it's the same reasoning used to justify the attempts to overthrow Castro in Cuba as well as the actual coups of multiple South American countries. They became ideologically unaligned with a global superpower and had to go. Geopolitics has not tangibly changed since then, except for China supplanting the ex-USSR as the "big bad" in the West.
The fact that there's been no KMT coup, despite KMT officials basically controlling the entire military, is a testament to the restraint of all parties.
And I'm saying, that's bullshit. There's only one country claiming they own the other and shooting missiles at it. That's where you should be looking to see who's primarily responsible for 'destabising cross straight relations' as you so clinically put it.
Have you... Read the official KMT policy?
Taiwan is not the DPP and the DPP is not Taiwan. The fact that everyone in the West seems to think this is the case is a product of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in "speaker fees" to US politicians and influential people visiting Taiwan.
The US is constrained by capitalism and globalization... And years of mismanagement at Intel under Krzanich... and the lack of profitability of Global Foundries.
Intel only recently adopted a foundry model: previously, their fabs were only used to manufacture Intel chips... I'm sure you can imagine some of the issues there, but it helps that Intel is a massive company. Intel really bit off more than they could chew with 10nm and started to lag behind.
GloFo used to be AMD (until it was spun off for profit because AMD needed money... GloFo gave up on 7nm because it was seen as too expensive.
As for Samsung? Nobody really knows why Samsung's technology sucks, but it sucks. Something wrong with their FinFET process in general I guess.
TSMC isn't a decade ahead. They're maybe 5 years ahead of SMIC and maybe 2 years ahead of Intel/Samsung. They're only so far ahead of SMIC because SMIC isn't allowed to import EUV machines from ASML since the US decided that China was getting too close to toppling American dominance in semiconductors and AI.
The main thing limiting SMIC is the lack of EUV machines, but Huawei is expected to pop one out soon based on the rumours being spread on Chinese forums. That's the story. TSMC doesn't have some magic sauce, they have scale, billions of dollars in government support, and a slight technological edge. If anything, TSMC's magic sauce is that the most desirable job in STEM in Taiwan is to become an engineer at TSMC: they attract top talent in a way that Intel doesn't.
Anyone seriously contemplating whether China would invade Taiwan needs to look at a map of Taiwan. There is no feasible invasion of Taiwan without millions of casualties: it would be a fight infinitely worse than Vietnam. Taiwan is the perfect fortress, with urban combat surrounded by densely-forested mountains and decades of buildup explicitly designed by the KMT to block a Chinese invasion. It's also an island separated by more than a hundred kilometers of open ocean. The KMT understands this, as does the CPC.
The only practical military option available to the CPC is a naval blockade like the US did to Cuba, but the KMT was actively trying to stimulate trade with China in the 2008-2016 period to make a blockade economically infeasible. Today, China imports more goods from Taiwan than from any other country in the world.
All this talk of war is fearmongering and posturing to justify increased defense spending at the cost of a lasting and sustainable peace.
Russia with a population of 140 million is almost at 400k casualties in Ukraine. Do you think China's leader with a population of 1.4 billion would mind 4 million losses?
It's a little different invading a flat semi-unprepared country compared to a literal nightmare fortress island that is Taiwan.
140 million is a little difference to 1.4 billion as well.
We should take it serious, most world leaders besides Biden were saying the same just days before Russia started its invasion.
Imagine if Taiwan invades China instead
So WWIII is due for 2027 now? I'll put it in my agenda.
yeah we heard that story before and we all know how good it went for ukraine...
So taiwan should definitely keep arming up and be ready for a fucking invasion.
I’m weirded out time and time again why people and newspapers listen to the likes of Xi and Putin. You know? Dictators who lied over and over and over and over and over and over again?
Their job is to report what is said exactly, not give their commentary on it (otherwise, you get fox news). Now, good journalists also provide the current news in context of past actions, but they should still let the reader decide if it will happen again.
Friendly reminder that CPC-KMT relations were downright friendly. The tensions surrounding the Taiwan Strait today are a direct product of the DPP's policy.
The DPP has received sizable backing and support from the US state-funded National Endowment for Democracy. Oops.
lol
The CPC and KMT were moving towards peace. That's undeniable.
Then, the DPP comes in from what's certainly not a coup and takes power. This is the same DPP that has changed Taiwan's focus from economic development (under the KMT) towards "national security issues and China's threat to Taiwan in local elections."
These are issues that were directly provoked by DPP hostility in relations. The DPP has categorically set back peace in the region by at least a decade.
Towards peace like Russia walks towards peace in Ukraine? Come one buddy let it go, I can't take you serious...
Do you understand history at all? Jesus Christ it's like Westerners forget that history doesn't start when the new government takes power.
Yeah, yeah...west bad, communism good, got it. move on.
Did anyone say that?
The relationship between the CPC and the KMT was, if not warm, at least warming rapidly. Denying that is to deny recent history.
Could you. Fucking. Imagine. If he said yes I'll invade Taiwan in 2027.
He could've said "Why would I wait until 2027? I could invade it tomorrow if I had wanted"
He would never say it. He would have said "we don't comment on internal affairs".
I recall people laughing at the US warning Ukraine that a Russian invasion was imminent.
In hindsight, it was imminent since they annexed Krimea almost 10 years ago.
Considering Russia's red lines were made very clear (and were crossed), I'm not sure why anyone is surprised.
China's red lines were also very clear, but then Pelosi decided to stomp right over them anyway.
It's rather concerning how today we're more concerned about protecting ideology than we are about maintaining world peace.
The only way to not have crossed Russia's supposed red lines would have been for Ukraine to never exist in the first place.
No matter what was done Putin would have found some way to justify his invasion.
Russia's red lines were primarily "no foreign intervention into Ukraine." Considering that the US 4th Psychological Operations Group literally posted a video claiming that they organized and supported and "pulled the strings of" Euromaidan...
China doesn't get to dictate what Taiwan does.
Russia doesn't get to dictate what Ukraine does.
Very simple. The only ideology being pushed here is the delusion that one country should be able to dictate the actions of another to placate the ego of an authoritarian leader. Implying Russia or China were forced into doing anything is some DARVO bullshit.
The US gets to dictate what Canada does, though. We've had to put up with American bullshit for decades.
And they shouldn't, as you as you said it's bullshit. Same principle, just have the courage to be less selective about how you apply it
I mean, I agree in theory but in practice that's not how the world works. We don't live in an ideal world.
The US would never allow Canada to align with Russia against the US. Russia would never allow Ukraine to align with the US against Russia. China would never allow Taiwan to align with the US against China.
Same shit, different shitter.
Ok good, I'm glad we're able to find some common ground here. And here's another bit of common ground I think we have:
If, the government of Canada decide it was in its best interest to align with Russia and that's what the people of Canada wanted, and they tried to do this, and the US then said that Canada was rightfully part of its territory and it would prefer to use peaceful means of unification but would ultimately take Canada by any means necessary.....I would stand right next to you, I'd be angry with you and call out the moral bankruptcy and how the US has no right to do that. I'd probably even influence the way I voted in my country.
But here's the thing. That's a hypothetical scenario for Canada. The people of Canada and their way of life is safe. Me, and my family here in Taiwan? Not so much. And that's 100% because of the CCPs claim that they own us and will take us by any means. A claim they could revoke at any time.
The world isn't perfect, no, but that won't stop me from calling out this type of shit no matter who does it and it's certainly paper thin cover to hide behind if you're trying to justify that which you know cannot be morally defended.
Don’t bother, it’s just a tankie shill posting bad faith arguments from a 1d all account.
Yeah true, that's probably enough now that it's starting to go in circles. I don't know why but I'm still surprised that people could genuinely hold these views. Still, I always hope to learn something but ultimately it's probably a waste of time.
The US is literally funding the right-wing party in Canada to be more conservative, more extreme, less secular, and more friendly to US interests.
We can't do ANYTHING about it. We're already America's removed.
Would be interested to read more about that if you have sources. Like I said, I'm not afraid to criticise the US but that is no excuse for the actions of others.
It's important to remember that in the US, political aims are achieved by funding think tanks and political parties and "independent protests" rather than on funding the government at large. So, I'm attributing the actions of the decision makers in the US (Republican officials, key Republican decision makers) to American policy at large. After all, in a two-party system, the Republicans will eventually regain power and they will follow the policy of these key decision makers. It's rather odd that the decision makers in American politics aren't government officials, but I guess that's the wonders of a two-party democracy. You can say that Koch (for example) isn't an American government official, but then I'd ask you what defines a government official if not a high degree of influence over government policy.
On the Freedom Convoy protest bullshit:
Conservatives in the U.S., including right-wing media and high-profile Republicans, are vocalizing their support for the Canadian convoy and donating money.
How American right-wing funding for Canadian trucker protests could sway U.S. politics
U.S. Republicans vow to probe GoFundMe decision halting Canada trucker donations
On funding for Canadian "independent think tanks"
How a conservative US network undermined Indigenous energy rights in Canada
U.S. Republican Koch oil billionaires help fund the Fraser Institute. Why the Fraser Institute?
On direct funding to politicians ("bribes" or what have you)
The US funds the International Democrat Union, who directly gave Stephen Harper a cushy job after he was ousted as PM in 2015.
On blatant economic favoritism by the DOJ to crush Canadian businesses: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSeries_dumping_petition_by_Boeing
Maybe the Democrats are better, but from what I've seen all they do is not actively make things substantially worse.
Tankie you for sharing your opinion. Always love to hear the latest take on geopolitics from a brand new account.
It's tankie to... Want to avoid war? Damn.
It's rather concerning how today we're more concerned about protecting ideology than we are about maintaining world peace.
!<
Agreed.
It's gonna be Jan 1, 2028, isn't it?
Or 2026
Among all the other very good reasons this would be a completely fucking stupid and morally bankrupt thing to do (doesn't mean it won't happen), this would have a devastating impact globally. You thought the chip shortage was bad during COVID? That was caused by just a change in demand from people's shift in spending habits. Can you imagine the impact of China trying to invade the country that produces 60% of the entire world supply of chips? When it comes to advanced chips they produce 90% (source).
Just...fuck right off please. Nobody wants you here anyway.
They produce 90% of the world's advanced chips more out of systematic neglect than out of any technological gap.
Intel floundered years of technological supremacy because they were run by an incompetent manager type. They refused to run a foundry model for decades.
Samsung has completely lost competitiveness and the South Korean government is happy to let them do whatever because South Korea is more like the Samsung government of Korea.
SMIC can't get access to EUV machines, but even then they're already knocking on the doors of Intel's current process.
Can I read more about this somewhere? My understanding was that it would be extremely difficult to the point of impracticality to compete with TSMC or would at least take decades to match them in terms of process and scale. I don't really know much about chip manufacturing though.
China isn't held back by personnel. Intuitively, this makes sense even if you subscribe to the Western idea that Chinese people can only copy things: Taiwanese people can easily work in China because of trade/border agreements, China isn't a poor country, and TSMC employs a massive number of highly experienced engineers. The Taiwan/China culture war is really a Western construct and many TSMC engineers are happy to take jobs in China. SMIC has already shown 7nm DUV capability (comparable to state-of-the-art by Intel).
The only thing holding back Chinese semiconductor capability in terms of hardware is the lack of EUV machines, which are only made by ASML. There are rumours spinning around in Chinese circles that Huawei has an EUV prototype in the debugging stage with a tentative release target of 2025.
If anything, China is far more constrained in terms of software (in a market dominated by Cadence and Synopsys), but this is much more easily circumventable with enough resources. The only reason Cadence and Synopsys haven't had much competition is because it's really expensive to develop and doesn't have that much competitive edge, but that equation changes for China given how happy the US is to slap export restrictions everywhere.
Yeah I guess China firing missiles around Taiwan was just a western construct too I guess. Come on, I'm interested to learn more about chip manufacturing and the practicality or otherwise of someone competing with TSMC and thought you might have interesting sources I hadn't read.
You could also argue that the U.S isn't constrained by population and they also have access to the technology and even buy in from TSMC but they haven't managed to kick start chip manufacturing there yet either unless there are developments there that I missed.
For now, doesn't seem like the situation is going to be changing anytime soon.
Look at when China-Taiwan relations deteriorated. Relations were improving at record pace under the KMT in the 2008-2016 period. The CPC had basically recognized the de facto independence of Taiwan, even having Xi Jinping meet the KMT Chairman in 2015.
That rapidly deteriorated with the election of the DPP in 2016, who immediately took an extremely hawkish view on China, invited the USN to cross through the Taiwan Strait in a FONOPS (which, prior to this, had been established as territorial waters under the status quo), started paying US politicians hundreds of thousands of dollars to speak in Taiwan, coincidentally started seeing more aid from the US, forced TSMC to expand their US footprint (with many complaints from TSMC), and followed the US in placing export controls to China. Years of progress under the KMT unraveled.
You have to understand the context here: under the KMT, it's agreed that the two parties will disagree on who "rules" the territories of China. It's also implicitly established that neither party will seek to relinquish their claim on the other's territories. For both the CPC and the KMT, this is a matter of ideology and policy. Knowing that this ideological block isn't going anywhere, CPC-KMT discussions led to the conclusion that, fine, we won't agree, but we also won't do anything about it. Neither military intruded over the status quo median line, neither military provoked the other with missiles or fighters or whatnot, and it was established that the issue was one of minimal importance compared to economic development and peaceful codevelopment. China knows that taking Taiwan is basically impossible, and Taiwan has no aspirations to retake China.
In comes the DPP, arms swinging, with support from the US, and says that the KMT is clearly siding with the CPC on this issue and is clearly going to seek reunification with the CPC. Reunification is against KMT policy for obvious ideological reasons, but alas. So, the DPP comes in, saying they want de jure independence and to align with the US, fuck China, Taiwanese people aren't Chinese, etc. etc. Obviously, China isn't too happy about this, but things proceed as usual.
Taiwan then declares that the Taiwan Strait is international waters (since, per DPP policy, Taiwan is not China and thus the Taiwan Strait doesn't classify as territorial waters), that they want more weapons from the US, and that they don't want to trade with China. China is unhappy about this, but it exposes a key vulnerability in the concept of international waters: there's nothing stopping China from flying in international waters. So, with the justification of the US FONOPS (i.e. sailing an armed US warship) through the Strait, China starts flying sorties past the median line (which, as established, is now international airspace). China also starts shooting missiles from international airspace crossing international airspace into international airspace, using US FONOPS as justification for this being perfectly reasonable. That's how we ended up here. I'm strongly opposed to the DPP, not strongly opposed to Taiwan. I see the DPP as being intentionally provocative and throwing away a massive economic boon (trade with China) in exchange for the DPP's own ideological goals. It's coming at the cost of opportunities in Taiwan, it's destabilizing the region, and it's pushing Taiwan into the same unstable flip-flopping political situation as the US.
Right, CCP recognised Taiwan as defacto independent by ratifying the anti secession law in 2005. What are you smoking, mate? I don't know about the chip situation but I haven't seen anything substantive from you and it seems to me like you have a somewhat distorted view of the situation as a whole but again, if you have anything source wise that talks about it I'd be interested to read it.
Accidentally posted this in the main comments but this is where I meant to put it.
2008-2016.
Guess who was in power in 2005? That's right, the DPP.
And? Taiwanese voted for their government so... China had no choice? I don't buy the helpless China argument for a second. They did it because they wanted to, because they say they own Taiwan. They chose it, as they chose to fire missiles around Taiwan in a childish outburst and as they choose to claim they will use force to take Taiwan if necessary. Nobody is making them do these things. They are wrong and they are completely the choice of the CCP. I really don't see where this argument can possibly lead except to permit all countries to commit all atrocities they feel they have the right to.
I'm saying that the DPP is primarily responsible for destabilizing cross-Strait relations. I'm really not sure why you're arguing with this: it's the same reasoning used to justify the attempts to overthrow Castro in Cuba as well as the actual coups of multiple South American countries. They became ideologically unaligned with a global superpower and had to go. Geopolitics has not tangibly changed since then, except for China supplanting the ex-USSR as the "big bad" in the West.
The fact that there's been no KMT coup, despite KMT officials basically controlling the entire military, is a testament to the restraint of all parties.
And I'm saying, that's bullshit. There's only one country claiming they own the other and shooting missiles at it. That's where you should be looking to see who's primarily responsible for 'destabising cross straight relations' as you so clinically put it.
Have you... Read the official KMT policy?
Taiwan is not the DPP and the DPP is not Taiwan. The fact that everyone in the West seems to think this is the case is a product of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in "speaker fees" to US politicians and influential people visiting Taiwan.
The US is constrained by capitalism and globalization... And years of mismanagement at Intel under Krzanich... and the lack of profitability of Global Foundries.
Intel only recently adopted a foundry model: previously, their fabs were only used to manufacture Intel chips... I'm sure you can imagine some of the issues there, but it helps that Intel is a massive company. Intel really bit off more than they could chew with 10nm and started to lag behind.
GloFo used to be AMD (until it was spun off for profit because AMD needed money... GloFo gave up on 7nm because it was seen as too expensive.
As for Samsung? Nobody really knows why Samsung's technology sucks, but it sucks. Something wrong with their FinFET process in general I guess.
TSMC isn't a decade ahead. They're maybe 5 years ahead of SMIC and maybe 2 years ahead of Intel/Samsung. They're only so far ahead of SMIC because SMIC isn't allowed to import EUV machines from ASML since the US decided that China was getting too close to toppling American dominance in semiconductors and AI.
The main thing limiting SMIC is the lack of EUV machines, but Huawei is expected to pop one out soon based on the rumours being spread on Chinese forums. That's the story. TSMC doesn't have some magic sauce, they have scale, billions of dollars in government support, and a slight technological edge. If anything, TSMC's magic sauce is that the most desirable job in STEM in Taiwan is to become an engineer at TSMC: they attract top talent in a way that Intel doesn't.
But have you considered, that the existence of an independent Taiwan is an insult to Xi's ego? And that's what really matters here.
/s obviously
Anyone seriously contemplating whether China would invade Taiwan needs to look at a map of Taiwan. There is no feasible invasion of Taiwan without millions of casualties: it would be a fight infinitely worse than Vietnam. Taiwan is the perfect fortress, with urban combat surrounded by densely-forested mountains and decades of buildup explicitly designed by the KMT to block a Chinese invasion. It's also an island separated by more than a hundred kilometers of open ocean. The KMT understands this, as does the CPC.
The only practical military option available to the CPC is a naval blockade like the US did to Cuba, but the KMT was actively trying to stimulate trade with China in the 2008-2016 period to make a blockade economically infeasible. Today, China imports more goods from Taiwan than from any other country in the world.
All this talk of war is fearmongering and posturing to justify increased defense spending at the cost of a lasting and sustainable peace.
Russia with a population of 140 million is almost at 400k casualties in Ukraine. Do you think China's leader with a population of 1.4 billion would mind 4 million losses?
It's a little different invading a flat semi-unprepared country compared to a literal nightmare fortress island that is Taiwan.
140 million is a little difference to 1.4 billion as well.
We should take it serious, most world leaders besides Biden were saying the same just days before Russia started its invasion.
Imagine if Taiwan invades China instead
So WWIII is due for 2027 now? I'll put it in my agenda.
Always has been...
Dude keeps a beautiful garden. That's about the nicest thing I can say about him.
Why would they have to believe China
Because even 'the last warning' is still a warning. Taiwan can better be prepared than think it's a lie.