Taiwan and China thread.

Allnamestaken · 3 Aug 2022 at 14:37

Jimbeam3678 said:
You are forgetting some people in Taiwan would actually like to be closer aligned with China. Its a complex situation summarised by my previous post and in a more detail by the post by @Scougar https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-us-one-china-policy-and-why-does-it-matter

Yeah ofcourse thats absolutely true.

Hopefully we can rid ourselves of our reliance on infrastructure based in areas of the world that become a national security risk for one reason or the other. In this particular case, fabs and other semiconductor based industry, just like the issues we are experiencing with power generation the west need to heavily invest in localising these things.

Puzzled · 3 Aug 2022 at 14:54

Allnamestaken said:
Yeah ofcourse thats absolutely true.

Hopefully we can rid ourselves of our reliance on infrastructure based in areas of the world that become a national security risk for one reason or the other. In this particular case, fabs and other semiconductor based industry, just like the issues we are experiencing with power generation the west need to heavily invest in localising these things.

Its starting to happen in some areas but is long long way off from not being reliant on Taiwan and China.

The other problem is that even if we had all our own manufacturing in the West, China is still sitting on the biggest reserve of rare earth minerals. I believe Turkey is claiming to have found a large reserve but not sure if that has been verified yet, Western companies should certainly be getting involved though.

JamesH85 · 3 Aug 2022 at 15:10

Chinese planes enter Taipei airspace.

dowie · 3 Aug 2022 at 15:21

JamesH85 said:
Chinese planes enter Taipei airspace.

Airspace or AIDZ?

Got a link?

Minusorange · 3 Aug 2022 at 15:25

dowie said:
Airspace or AIDZ?

Got a link?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1554823077414187008

dowie · 3 Aug 2022 at 15:28

Minusorange said:
[...]

That just seems to be info on aircraft around that area, in the strait etc. there doesn't seem to be anything specifically stating they entered Taiwan's airspace.

NickK · 3 Aug 2022 at 15:57

Chojin said:
It would be over very quickly. Even if the Chinese Navy was useless, their dongfeng missiles would destroy Taiwan.

Relations between China and Taiwan were always wobbly but it's really come to prominence since the Hong Kong national security law was passed. It went from being something that might be an issue in decades to come, to just a few short years.

I don't think China would want to do anything just yet though, as their game plan seems much longer term. More military bases in Africa outside of Djibouti and Equatorial Guinea. Plus secret bases in Argentina to annoy the US.

Another concerning aspect is how successful Chinese companies like ByteDance and Tencent have become with western consumers. The ties these companies have with the CCP gives them huge influence over whatever narrative they want to spin.

Unfortunately any launch activity would initiate a response. Same issue as Russia when Putin put their ICBMs on high alert. It didn't stop the resistance.

HungryHippos · 3 Aug 2022 at 16:09

Puzzled said:
Its starting to happen in some areas but is long long way off from not being reliant on Taiwan and China.

The other problem is that even if we had all our own manufacturing in the West, China is still sitting on the biggest reserve of rare earth minerals. I believe Turkey is claiming to have found a large reserve but not sure if that has been verified yet, Western companies should certainly be getting involved though.

I think Taiwan still is the only place that makes the absolute best semi conductor chips.

Some production is being spun up elsewhere, but it's on older/larger sizes, so not as good. Taiwan still holds the keys to the castle, which is why they're so important strategically.

Minusorange · 3 Aug 2022 at 16:14

dowie said:
That just seems to be info on aircraft around that area, in the strait etc. there doesn't seem to be anything specifically stating they entered Taiwan's airspace.

That's the only incursion today, poster just worded it badly

NickK · 3 Aug 2022 at 16:27

HungryHippos said:
I think Taiwan still is the only place that makes the absolute best semi conductor chips.

Some production is being spun up elsewhere, but it's on older/larger sizes, so not as good. Taiwan still holds the keys to the castle, which is why they're so important strategically.

There's a whole economic model based around chip fab size and a plant being so expensive. The payback period period followed by profit period before the technology is considered obsolete. This is why you don't see fabs being constantly updated to handle new sizes - it would be a continuous cycle of payback and no profit.

The world shortage of chips are in older tech, driven by COVID and lockdowns as plants shut down production temporarily. China has 12 new fabs being built for older tech to take advantage of this demand - yet the economics mean the fabs will never return a profit and possibly not even pay off the payback period as the tech would be considered obsolete globally by the point of profit and the existing fabs open production again dropping the price...

China's fabs are really to allow china to swamp the market and ensure that china is not dependant on US/Foreign fabs. They can make more trade selling the fab output to Russia for example. In that way they can get the payback.

The UK Brexit really put the UK on a bad position with regard to semiconductors. Intel etc opening a fab in the UK would have been exceptionally useful for providing the UK with additional sources of manufacturing income.

Custor · 3 Aug 2022 at 17:31

Minusorange said:
That's the only incursion today, poster just worded it badly

Airspace is 12 miles, China coast to Taiwan 100 miles?
So midpoint 50 and Willy waving until someone gets shot down?

arknor · 3 Aug 2022 at 19:35

HungryHippos said:
I think Taiwan still is the only place that makes the absolute best semi conductor chips.

Some production is being spun up elsewhere, but it's on older/larger sizes, so not as good. Taiwan still holds the keys to the castle, which is why they're so important strategically.

Wrong.
Samsung don't make chips in taiwan.
Intel don't make chips in taiwan
only TSMC do.

Samsung can do 3/4/5, TSMC can do 4/5 (3soon if they didn't already) and intel isn't far behind

Firestar_3x · 3 Aug 2022 at 19:49

arknor said:
Wrong.
Samsung don't make chips in taiwan.
Intel don't make chips in taiwan
only TSMC do.

Samsung can do 3/4/5, TSMC can do 4/5 (3soon if they didn't already) and intel isn't far behind

Doesn't all of this revolve around lithography machines made in the Netherlands anyway, without those you are basically relegated to older chip designs?

arknor · 3 Aug 2022 at 21:40

Firestar_3x said:
Doesn't all of this revolve around lithography machines made in the Netherlands anyway, without those you are basically relegated to older chip designs?

Pretty much, the company who makes them has a ban on China owning any so that's probably one of the biggest attractions for China wanting to take taiwan.

Seeing as china wants a semi conductor industry but it decades behind the west.

Rroff · 3 Aug 2022 at 21:49

arknor said:
Pretty much, the company who makes them has a ban on China owning any so that's probably one of the biggest attractions for China wanting to take taiwan.

Seeing as china wants a semi conductor industry but it decades behind the west.

I doubt seizing Taiwan will help them much in that respect though - even assuming they somehow took the fabrication facilities intact. Stuff like the ASML hardware and tool chain need experience and the full pipeline to do anything useful with and potential for gaining something, without years, potentially decades of work, from reverse engineering is limited (and likely not beyond what China can already glean from infiltration).

If China kicked off military action I'd be surprised if the fabs weren't the first thing sabotaged to prevent them gaining anything.

arknor · 3 Aug 2022 at 22:01

Rroff said:
I doubt seizing Taiwan will help them much in that respect though - even assuming they somehow took the fabrication facilities intact. Stuff like the ASML hardware and tool chain need experience and the full pipeline to do anything useful with and potential for gaining something, without years, potentially decades of work, from reverse engineering is limited (and likely not beyond what China can already glean from infiltration).

If China kicked off military action I'd be surprised if the fabs weren't the first thing sabotaged to prevent them gaining anything.

They could try to reverse engineer them though like they do everything else, assuming they can get any machines before they are turned to bricks

NickK · 3 Aug 2022 at 22:09

arknor said:
They could try to reverse engineer them though like they do everything else, assuming they can get any machines before they are turned to bricks

The US's military report on china's strategy for innovation is basically summed up by " they steal the idea and reverse engineer it, hence they're 2 generations behind".

Rroff · 3 Aug 2022 at 23:57

Curious - just a random Twitter post though:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1554963506973364225

EDIT: Zoomed in appears like a photoshop.

Freddie1980 · 4 Aug 2022 at 00:03

Amazing that a country the size of China can feel threatened by a small Island nation just of it's coast. If the potential outcomes weren't so serious China's insecurity would be comical.

Mason- · 4 Aug 2022 at 00:07

Freddie1980 said:
Amazing that a country the size of China can feel threatened by a small Island nation just of it's coast. If the potential outcomes weren't so serious China's insecurity would be comical.

It represents insubordination and rebellion.

Which for an authoritarian regime is completely unacceptable. Even though it’s small in area, its reluctance to roll over is massive.