The Chinese leader's message in San Francisco got the attention of U.S. officials because it was delivered at a meeting that was intended to reduce tensions.
The chip thing is definitely an issue. However, even if they didn’t get any chip tech or factories, they still get the island. Militarily speaking, the situation is similar to Cuba and US during the Cold War. Taking control of the island will grant them more military security. Additionally, it will grant them control over the shipping lanes in the surroundings waters, which are heavily used for international trade.
The US needs it for trade/their economy. China needs it to protect itself and gain more economic power. For these reasons, it makes sense for both China and the US to be heavily interested in controlling Taiwan. Personally, I really don’t see a likely solution to avoiding military conflict unless the powers of the two sides figure out how to resolve their antagonism, which I think is unlikely without a change in Chinese leadership.
Militarily speaking, the situation is similar to Cuba and US during the Cold War. Taking control of the island will grant them more military security.
I don’t really know if that makes a whole bunch of sense… The only country with the capabilities of attacking China is the US. The only real provocation that may spark that military conflict is an attack on Taiwan or South Korea.
Taiwan isn’t even that advantageous of a location for an invasion either way, the strait of Formosa would be a death trap for any amphibious landing. The most militarily important region for China is and always has been the Korean peninsula.
I think Chinas main motivation is that Taiwan disrupts their plans to completely control trade routes in the South China sea. Once the 9 dash line is under control and expanded to include the territorial waters of Taiwan, China will have a defacto monopoly on trade for most of eastern Asia.
They didn’t move them, they’re just building new fabrication plants here so we don’t have to depend on threatened foreign land for the production. https://pr.tsmc.com/english/news/2977
Also SMIC (China’s chip manufacturer) is now also producing 7nm chips, even though they were sanctioned in 2020. That means they either had a breakthrough in the process or they obtained and were able to repair and operate/reverse engineer the incredibly complex TSMC fabs.
7nm doesn’t need EUV, as things get smaller it doesn’t suddenly become impossible to do things with traditional lithography it just becomes harder and at some point incredibly uneconomical. They certainly ripped off the node from TSMC in some way (whether spionage or reverse-engineering), that is, the shape of the transistors and stuff but that doesn’t mean that they’re producing them in the same way.
If they invade, won’t all the chip fabrication places just blow all their shit up and wipe systems? Pretty sure TSMC said that was the plan.
Doesn’t seem like they’ll be able to capture a whole lot aside from land and that will come at a pretty steep cost I’d imagine.
I heard about that too. The technology produced there is too valuable to be left to invaders.
The chip thing is definitely an issue. However, even if they didn’t get any chip tech or factories, they still get the island. Militarily speaking, the situation is similar to Cuba and US during the Cold War. Taking control of the island will grant them more military security. Additionally, it will grant them control over the shipping lanes in the surroundings waters, which are heavily used for international trade.
The US needs it for trade/their economy. China needs it to protect itself and gain more economic power. For these reasons, it makes sense for both China and the US to be heavily interested in controlling Taiwan. Personally, I really don’t see a likely solution to avoiding military conflict unless the powers of the two sides figure out how to resolve their antagonism, which I think is unlikely without a change in Chinese leadership.
I don’t really know if that makes a whole bunch of sense… The only country with the capabilities of attacking China is the US. The only real provocation that may spark that military conflict is an attack on Taiwan or South Korea.
Taiwan isn’t even that advantageous of a location for an invasion either way, the strait of Formosa would be a death trap for any amphibious landing. The most militarily important region for China is and always has been the Korean peninsula.
I think Chinas main motivation is that Taiwan disrupts their plans to completely control trade routes in the South China sea. Once the 9 dash line is under control and expanded to include the territorial waters of Taiwan, China will have a defacto monopoly on trade for most of eastern Asia.
The land is most of what they want. Taiwan is militarily strategic land, it essentially blocks all access to the Pacific.
Even just destroying the competition makes their stuff much more valuable.
TSMC just finished building a factory in the US mainland.
They moved TSMC production facilities to Phoenix, Arizona. It’s slated to open in 2025.
They didn’t move them, they’re just building new fabrication plants here so we don’t have to depend on threatened foreign land for the production. https://pr.tsmc.com/english/news/2977
Also SMIC (China’s chip manufacturer) is now also producing 7nm chips, even though they were sanctioned in 2020. That means they either had a breakthrough in the process or they obtained and were able to repair and operate/reverse engineer the incredibly complex TSMC fabs.
7nm doesn’t need EUV, as things get smaller it doesn’t suddenly become impossible to do things with traditional lithography it just becomes harder and at some point incredibly uneconomical. They certainly ripped off the node from TSMC in some way (whether spionage or reverse-engineering), that is, the shape of the transistors and stuff but that doesn’t mean that they’re producing them in the same way.
Except they have problems finding workers. 3rd world Americans aren’t cut out for the jobs it seems like.
I think it’s mostly because it’s in Arizona… Not exactly the tech capital of the U.S…
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