If China invaded Taiwan to controls fabs, the USA would just destroy them with air power. And that's assuming Taiwan didn't sabotage them first.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Taiwanese government hasn’t subtly signaled to China that the fans would be destroyed within 10minutes of an invasion. It would be stupid for them not too. Then again China is liable (but not guaranteed) to invade Taiwan less because of the fabs, and more because they consider Taiwan a rogue province that they want back.
Just go and search for early pictures of ww1, France was still using 19th century flamboyant uniforms that proved totally ineffective and later gave way to brown, camouflaged cloth.
Everyone thought WW1 would be quick and dissipate in a matter of months. Nobody was prepared for year long conflicts.
We can think that the war was predictably stupid because in hindsight we can see all the stupidity, but that is our historical privilege. Nobody was prepared for that in 1914. Just like we might very well be totally unprepared for the probable next worldwide conflict.
Nobody thought it would get as bad as it did
China understands that wars of expansion rarely have worked since WWII. They know a single US submarine could cripple world semiconductor manufacturing for months.
But I agree, they might try it for non-economic reasons like reunification. Or maybe cause they think--rightly or wrongly--that the USA would cower and wouldn't support Taiwan at all. Wars can be caused by miscalculation too.
By destroying the fabs, China would drastically level the playing field, putting those Taiwanese semiconductors out of reach of the US too.
Sounds like you just described the Oil/Gas industry, in which about a dozen wars have started over the last 100 years.
Fabs are a human resource, if you kill their staff or destroy them, their value is $0
At beat up on countries who can't fight back. And even then, its not really to steal oil, but just ensure that it is flowing.
The only real attempt to seize foreign oilfields was the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. That didn't really go well for Iraq. And, on their way out, they scorched earth and lit 80% of the wells on fire.
I keep thinking there's hope to avoid this war, but the way people comment here and on Reddit (in abject ignorance of geopolitical reality), I fear it's inevitable.
Fifteen (!) countries support Taiwanese sovereignty. The _rest of the world_ respects China's claim. It's insane that this rhetoric is even present in Americans' minds.
For some people it doesn't mater how stupid a war is. Only if it's profitable.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/semiconductor-shortage-us-te...
Okay, the U.S. destroys the Taiwanese fabs to keep them from communist China. Then what?
Other countries have availability, but only China has the supply chain to extract and process these elements at scale. For any other player to step up production to match current demand it would take years.
[1] https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/geopolitics-rare-eart...
edit: Apart from that, what would that stupid act do to the economy of the involved parties, and the world in general?
It's all interwoven.
Fuck it all, and great reset, or what?
I’d bet the big players already have plans for introducing decoy trucks, trains, planes & ships in the event a war breaks out in our age of unlimited surveillance.
I mean... TSMC is right here: https://www.google.com/maps/search/tsmc/@24.7768163,120.9992... If China wants it, their problem is not that they don't know where it is.
China wouldn’t start a war over semiconductors, but if the supply had already been cut off and internal economic collapse was imminent, it could drive a military response. Something similar to what the oil embargo (arguably) drove Japan to do in 1941.
Chinas primary military advantage is that the one or two million PLA soldiers with AKs don’t require semiconductors to be effective and western powers lack the willpower to engage in conventional warfare.
Everyone else's military is also.
> Everyone else's military is also.
Great. So if we are losing a war anyway, let's hit the enemy very hard by destroying the semiconductor industry.
Same tactic as some nuclear powers' doctrine, “if our country is going to be destroyed, let the world end too".
This is a strange reading of deterrence. Both MAD and credible minimum deterrence.
Not really. First, almost all fabs for modern chipset structures are located in Taiwan which means China won't invade Taiwan for a fab but for all fabs.
Second, the market is glowing so white hot that - even assuming China manages to take over all Taiwanese fabs intact and with staff cooperating, which is quite unlikely - there will be more demand than supply for many years to come.
No. Supply might play a part in a conflict, but I don't see this as being the cause.
"China's manufacturing economy AND its military are entirely dependent on foreign-sourced semiconductors."
Why would they risk a global conflict that would weaken its military that would implicitly be weak from a shortage? The only reason I could see them taking this approach is if the foriegn suppliers stop providing the chips and they don't ramp up their own production during an existing conflict, backing them into a corner to take over production in another country (good luck having those facilities intact and staffing them).
This is the problem with the whole "take Taiwan for the semiconductor industry" line of thinking. China needs foreign scapegoats (it's all _____'s fault that your life sucks) and prizes (look! we took back what is rightfully ours) so it can keep control of it's increasingly oppressed people.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2021/09/21/dou... Joe Biden and son are corrupt
https://www.dailynews.com/2021/09/19/patriot-or-traitor-mill... The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has said openly he would coordinate with the Chinese against America
The concept of nations bribing individuals to sway World Wars occurred in the last one:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/23/mi6-spain-200m-br...
"MI6 spent the present-day equivalent of more than $200m bribing senior Spanish military officers, ship owners and other agents to keep Spain out of the second world war"
Spain entering WW2 on the Axis side would have meant the Allies would be completely locked out of the Mediterranean, and probably changed the course of history. Bribing foreign government officials yields great ROI!
History has other examples of Autocratic competitors using Liberal nations' Democratic procedures against them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberum_veto
"The liberum veto was a major cause of the deterioration of the Commonwealth political system... when foreign powers bribed Sejm members to paralyze its proceedings, and resulted in the Commonwealth's eventual destruction and the partition of Poland"
The State Premiere of Victoria, home to the city (Melbourne) with the world's longest COVID lockdown, signed secret deals to partner with China for infrastructure development:
https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/paul-murray/frightening-s...
This is a country that America has just agreed to share nuclear technology and submarines with...
"Yale group spurs Mao's emergence" [0]
[0] https://psypolitics.org/2020/07/05/the-political-career-of-m...
China has time. Only when it becomes convinced that there is no hope for peaceful reunification will it dare to invade. And it is not clear whether they are even capable of doing so. The last successful amphibious invasion of similar magnitude was D-Day. Keep that hope alive and you have a more relaxed situation in a couple of generations. China must be limited, but it must not be snubbed. The perception of deepening relations between Taiwan and the US diminishes their hopes. They will wait long time, but they won't allow Taiwan to be taken away by a western power.
30-40 years ago the world wasn't so dependent on semiconductors. If all the semiconductor factories would be destroyed now, it won't be end of the world. They're not required to survive. I'd easily survive the winter without laptop and smartphone. But without heating it would be impossible.
First, China doesn't want to invade Taiwan for its semiconductors industry. They see Taiwan as part of their territory and view reuniting it with the mainland as the conclusion of the revolution. Also they want control of the Taiwan strait to secure the South China sea.
Then, Europe most likely wouldn't follow the USA into a war with China and as colonial empires don't exist anymore neither would Africa so it wouldn't be a world war.
It would certainly cause massive upheaval if China tightened its grip on Taiwan, diplomatic and economic sanctions, a massive shift in semiconductor production, a change in status for other semiconductor producing countries and a delay in the forward march of computing technology.
But not World War 3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sXu0nZoamk&feature=youtu.be
