Taiwan and China thread.

US has a huge budget but I'm sceptical of how quickly they can manufacture and replenish stocks. China surely has the edge there. US would be relying on a quick and decisive victory which going by previous wars is unlikely.

If Taiwan has agreed to have advanced chips manufactured abroad then they are basically opening the door to China at a future date. By then US will have derisked themselves. They will be less motivated to defend Taiwan when their top companies can survive without it.

It depends what is more important to China - securing the semiconductor fabs, or the land/people. If the former then moving the fabs abroad is going to put pressure on them to act before then. There's an AI revolution underway and if a single country can gatekeep that technology then it gives them world domination without any rivals.
 
Chojin said:
It depends what is more important to China - securing the semiconductor fabs, or the land/people. If the former then moving the fabs abroad is going to put pressure on them to act before then. There's an AI revolution underway and if a single country can gatekeep that technology then it gives them world domination without any rivals.
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Securing the semiconductor fabs actually makes little sense - it isn't like your average manufacturing facility where you could capture them, replace a few staff and be pumping stuff out a few weeks later. They can, and probably have already done so, acquire most of the knowledge base through corporate espionage, the facilities themselves are only a part of a bigger equation and they'd also need the support, maintenance and design elements from Western based companies as well as a raft of critical personnel. To put them to use in any useful way for China is probably almost as much effort as developing and building the ability to produce advanced semiconductors from the ground up.

TBH China's only option really right now would be flattening the place anyhow, their military infrastructure is probably still 2 years away from being able to support an invasion of Taiwan if it was even moderately defended - I earlier said 2025-2027 but China hasn't really made extensive moves since then which would make next year really feasible, unless they were happy to grind it out at huge losses.
 
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Rroff said:
Securing the semiconductor fabs actually makes little sense - it isn't like your average manufacturing facility where you could capture them, replace a few staff and be pumping stuff out a few weeks later. They can, and probably have already done so, acquire most of the knowledge base through corporate espionage, the facilities themselves are only a part of a bigger equation and they'd also need the support, maintenance and design elements from Western based companies as well as a raft of critical personnel. To put them to use in any useful way for China is probably almost as much effort as developing and building the ability to produce advanced semiconductors from the ground up.
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It's an AI race and essentially a zero sum game if one country can gain exclusive access to some proto-AGI in the next few years. There is the possibility that China will try and spoil America's party over that if they have superpower aspirations.

Knowledge is one thing, in the tech industry it's common for knowledge to spill out when you have employees rotating around Nvidia, AMD and Intel over the years. Can't really keep a lid on that.

Which makes physical resources more prized than raw knowledge. Creating a fab is a difficult time consuming process. If it was just a case of throwing money at it China would already be at the top now. It took China decades to manufacture their own ballpoint pen. They probably knew the theory long before they cracked it. I think if they had inherited a western factory that would have taken much less time.
 
Chojin said:
Which makes physical resources more prized than raw knowledge. Creating a fab is a difficult time consuming process. If it was just a case of throwing money at it China would already be at the top now. It took China decades to manufacture their own ballpoint pen. They probably knew the theory long before they cracked it. I think if they had inherited a western factory that would have taken much less time.
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Problem is it is the same for running a fab, especially for putting new designs through it, etc. it is probably just as prohibitive even with an existing facility to do something useful with it as building it from scratch unless you also inherit the entire end to end process (including all the support from external companies) - if you don't you pretty much have to redesign a lot of stuff anyhow.

And I'd imagine at the first hint of any serious invasion kicking off removing key staff and sabotaging or removing key equipment would be high up the list of priorities.
 
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Rroff said:
Problem is it is the same for running a fab, especially for putting new designs through it, etc. it is probably just as prohibitive even with an existing facility to do something useful with it as building it from scratch unless you also inherit the entire end to end process (including all the support from external companies) - if you don't you pretty much have to redesign a lot of stuff anyhow.

And I'd imagine at the first hint of any serious invasion kicking off removing key staff and sabotaging or removing key equipment would be high up the list of priorities.
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If it's ASML Holding you are referring to then indeed, China's SMEE are a few years behind them, and you would expect an invasion to sever any connection between them and China.

But when it comes to sabotaging equipment then that might be all that China wants in the end - to create a "semi-conductor winter" lasting multiple years and giving them enough time to catch up.

Since there are restrictions on supplying high-end chips to China they could take a sour grapes approach to that, and if Taiwan's fabs are destroyed then I suppose would leave the West with Intel and then TSMC in a few years.
 
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Chojin said:
If it's ASML Holding you are referring to then indeed, China's SMEE are a few years behind them, and you would expect an invasion to sever any connection between them and China.

But when it comes to sabotaging equipment then that might be all that China wants in the end - to create a "semi-conductor winter" lasting multiple years and giving them enough time to catch up.

Since there are restrictions on supplying high-end chips to China they could take a sour grapes approach to that, and if Taiwan's fabs are destroyed then I suppose would leave the West with Intel and then TSMC in a few years.
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I think denial is a more likely scenario (also advances in AI, etc. could potentially force a situation where China feels like they have no other option if they can't compete - as per something I've mentioned in other threads recently situations like that have happened historically and are perfectly possible to happen again if a country feels like they are backed into a corner even in this day and age).

Not just talking about stuff like the scanners but that is one of the bigger complications.
 
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StriderX said:
Taiwan is literally miles away from the Chinese Mainland, it will be flattened before the US could finish arguing about whether it was worth risking their vanity carriers.
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I think you may be underestimating the military power the three carrier strike groups in the area could unleash, let alone the land based assets the USA have in the region.
 
Terminal_Boy said:
And China would fail against the US and allies in any action against Taiwan.

China is hailed as “near peer” to the USA in some quarters, but so was Russia until they invaded Ukraine.

Having more things and more people operating those things hasn’t been a winning strategy since the Eastern Front in WW2.
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Quantity does have a quality all of its own though. In the Air and Naval domains at least 50-90% of all the the really fancy high end US capabilities would be expended in the first few weeks of an all out war in that theatre. The industrial capacity to volume produce the fancy stuff on tight timelines isn't really there (look at Patriot and SM production rates - sure they can be ramped up, but not to the rate they would need to expend them)

Numbers don't mean everything, but if you can take out 4 of their guys for every one of your guys - you still loose if they had 5 to one advantage to start with.

Chojin said:
US has a huge budget but I'm sceptical of how quickly they can manufacture and replenish stocks. China surely has the edge there. US would be relying on a quick and decisive victory which going by previous wars is unlikely.

If Taiwan has agreed to have advanced chips manufactured abroad then they are basically opening the door to China at a future date. By then US will have derisked themselves. They will be less motivated to defend Taiwan when their top companies can survive without it.

It depends what is more important to China - securing the semiconductor fabs, or the land/people. If the former then moving the fabs abroad is going to put pressure on them to act before then. There's an AI revolution underway and if a single country can gatekeep that technology then it gives them world domination without any rivals.
Click to expand...
They wanted Taiwan dealt with before the rise of the semi conductor industry. It might be an economic objective - but there's no way it would be the main aim. Besides seizing the actual fabs intact couldnt be guaranteed - and the fabs alone are not enough to do anything other than disrupt the global market. They need the supply chains, expertise, service contracts with western companies etc for the fabs to be worth a war for.
 
Minusorange said:
news.sky.com

China hacked Ministry of Defence, Sky News learns

MPs will be told of a massive data breach involving the Ministry of Defence later today, targeting service personnel.
news.sky.com news.sky.com

It's a shame this will probably be brushed under the carpet because despite it being obvious China is an enemy, the West is too reliant on them
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Yes we are. The current Government has been a shambles at addressing domestic resilience and and strategic necessities and there is no hope that the next Government won't be much worse. We're going to let our last blast furnaces close so no more domestic virgin steel. We continue to punish any form of domestic heavy industry which means any energy transition or new national infrastructure will be manufactured abroad. We chase Net Zero with a hunger that will ensure what remains of the UK's mass car manufacturing closes because the West has allowed China to gain a stranglehold on the essential raw materials. We are too reliant on them, we've obviously been far too reliant on them for 20 years and no one with any power is suggesting a single policy that will reverse that course in either the current or the next Government. Sucks doesn't it.
 
PlacidCasual said:
Yes we are. The current Government has been a shambles at addressing domestic resilience and and strategic necessities and there is no hope that the next Government won't be much worse. We're going to let our last blast furnaces close so no more domestic virgin steel. We continue to punish any form of domestic heavy industry which means any energy transition or new national infrastructure will be manufactured abroad. We chase Net Zero with a hunger that will ensure what remains of the UK's mass car manufacturing closes because the West has allowed China to gain a stranglehold on the essential raw materials. We are too reliant on them, we've obviously been far too reliant on them for 20 years and no one with any power is suggesting a single policy that will reverse that course in either the current or the next Government. Sucks doesn't it.
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Well the only thing anyone cares about is their hallowed house prices, so why would they care about something important like being able to defend said house? Pfft.

Passive income parasites are killing this country.
 
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ASML and TSMC assures the U.S government that if China invades Taiwan they can destroy the equipment.

TSMC and ASML says they have safety measures built into their systems so they can remotely shut down or destroy their equipment in Taiwan if China lands on the island.

www.bloomberg.com

ASML and TSMC Can Disable Chip Machines If China Invades Taiwan

ASML Holding and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. have ways to disable the world’s most advanced chip-making machines in the event that China invades Taiwan, according to people familair with the matter.
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com




So if one of China's goals for invading Taiwan is to capture and control TSMC, that now becomes harder as failsafes have been built in to remotely destroy TSMC in the event of an invasion
 
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