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Computer Chip Factories Stop China From Invading Taiwan


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2022 Aug 9, 4:06am   782 views  9 comments

by ohomen171   ➕follow (2)   💰tip   ignore  

#taiwanchipfabs I have some further information on a possible China invasion of Taiwan. It is some perverse good news. If we look at a confrontation between China and Taiwan, it is truly David vs. Goliath. Taiwan is a small island with 24 million people. It has no nuclear weapons. Confronting it is China with over one billion people, the largest industrial base in the world, and the second largest GDP in the world. The Chinese military machine is awesome. They have an arsenal of 300+ nuclear weapons.
We have all seen Dracula movies at some point in our lives. We know the awesome power of the count. Yet, if someone holds a wooden cross close to him, he is stopped from attacking.
I have found "the wooden cross" that stops the colossus of China from invading Taiwan. Please allow me to introduce a friend of mine of many years, His name is Ken Flagler. He got an architecture degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Most graduates like him would devote their careers to designing beautiful homes, office parks, office buildings, etc. Ken took a radically different career path. He has devoted his career to designing nuclear reactors, nuclear fusion facilities, and "Fabs" manufacturing semiconductors and very advanced computer chips. One of Ken's clients is a major Taiwan chip manufacturer. Ken was hired to design and help build several "Fabs" for this Taiwan company in mainland China. (One of Ken's other great achievements was the design and construction of a $22 billion US chip "Fab" in South Korea.)
Here is a quick summary of the Taiwan chip industry as follows:
Taiwan's semiconductor sector accounted for US$115 billion, which is ca. 20% of the global semiconductor industry. In selected sectors like foundry operations, Taiwanese companies account for 50% of the world market, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) being the biggest player in the foundry market.
As impressive as these statistics are, they do not tell the whole story. Taiwan manufactures the most advanced computer chips on earth. China has devoted massive resources and its best skills at stealing intellectual property to catch up with advanced Taiwan chip makers. Reports I have received indicate that these efforts failed. China is still up to 6 years behind Taiwan in the design and manufacture of truly advanced computer chips.
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would, most likely, lead to the destruction of these very advanced computer chip "Fabs." Even if they captured these advanced factories intact, the highly skilled personnel would have fled or would refuse to work even under the penalty of prison.
All of a sudden all the advanced chips used in electric cars, advanced mobile phones, computers, and fighter aircraft like the F-35 would be gone. It would have a devastating effect on China's economy and the economies of many other advanced countries. The whole world would be thrown into a deep recession. It would take at least 5 years to replace this production capacity somewhere else in the world.
My readers the Chinese leadership is not stupid. They are aware of the consequences of the destruction of these vital Taiwan chip "Fabs." China is going to harass and intimidate Taiwan for a long time to come. It will not be pleasant. They are bluffing when it comes to an actual invasion. We should be polite and firm but not "call their bluff." I refer to some Chinese wisdom that I learned as a little child as follows:
"Always allow an opponent a chance to save face."

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2   Hircus   2022 Aug 9, 8:01am  

I think chyna would try very hard to maintain whatever chip production capacity to the best degree possible if they invaded. I think plenty of foundry employees would still goto work. Especially considering they would likely have a CCP gun placed to the heads of them and their families if they refused to help teach the CCP how to run it. I don't think many Taiwanese could flee the island while under siege, so the employees will still be mostly there.

Things would change though. During the invasion war, I'm doubtful chips would still be exported. So the world would go into chip starvation mode, and I'm doubtful the us would start buying chips from the new chinese owners once they eventually got production back up and running. I'm sure chyna would want to put spyware backdoors into all their chips ASAP, so any desperate buyers would just be fucked. Although, it's possible they may leave firmware alone on existing models to keep them binary identical in an effort to mitigate fears of backdoors by giving buyers evidence that the chips are unmodified, helping them reestablish customer chains. But the backdoors will come on future models / updates, when compelling new features and economics make it too juicy to not use the new models.

And plenty of countries will buy the new chinese chips. They'll say "if my chips dont have chinese spyware, it will just have american spyware, so oh well." exactly how they do today when they buy the cheap Huawei networking components which spy on their communications, but costs half the price.

In 3-5 years chip production from other countries will catch up and prices will start to trend downwards towards normal as the demand backlog gets cleared through. But you'll still have 2 prices/grades: cheap chinese, which will be favored by the 3rd world, and western/american chips, which will be the premuim price line used by the west. And many will have settled for cheap chinese during this transition phase, and will stay with it for many years to come, because the cost of replacing all the chinese chips with western chips will be like throwing big money away.
3   Ceffer   2022 Aug 9, 5:05pm  

Prolly one of the few posts where he is right. However, let's not go and get all goosey and admit it.
4   Patrick   2023 Aug 17, 8:19pm  

I had no idea TSMC was so central to the functioning of all our devices. Amazing if true like Ramaswamy says here:

https://sashastone.substack.com/p/episode-17-vivek-ramaswamy-and-tucker

https://www.tsmc.com/english
5   RWSGFY   2023 Aug 17, 8:57pm  

I bet 100-miles wide gulf has more to do with it then
any silly chips factory. There hasn't been as successful amphibious landing operation since Korean war (and even that one was a miracle because the opponent failed to anticipate it). Red Navy couldn't bag Odessa against an opponent w/o navy (and a serious air force) and that was probably the last attempt of amphibious landing in this half-century (I'd say ever, but "never say never"). The CCP makes it look like they can bag Taiwan presicely because they can't. They just hope to persuade Taiwanese into surrendering banking on the idea of "Chinese inevitability". It worked for Hong Kong after all (and didn't work for Vietnam in '79).
6   richwicks   2023 Aug 17, 9:28pm  

RWSGFY says

They just hope to persuade Taiwanese into surrendering banking on the idea of "Chinese inevitability".


The Chinese reunification party is gaining ground, because the DPP is so fucking corrupt. It's as corrupt as the US government is.

The DPP used to have in their platform the idea that they would declare complete independence from China, they don't have that anymore because the people of Taiwan aren't stupid, and they don't want war. China very well may not be able to take of Taiwan by force, but they can lay waste to the entire island. That's easy to do.
8   richwicks   2023 Sep 22, 10:58pm  

Patrick says







The KMT, the Chinese reunification party, is gaining ground in Taiwan. China isn't going to go to war to forcibly retake Taiwan, they're just going to wait.

China has enough problems keeping their huge country together than to get into an unnecessary fight. All Taiwan needs to do to avoid any conflict is state "we are part of China", although they have entirely different systems. This detente has lasted for 70 years.

Because the KMT is gaining favor, it's the US trying to foment war, because it would harm China quite a bit, or that's the calculation. Taiwan isn't easy to invade and it would only hurt future infrastructure to do it. I doubt Taiwan could win, even with US involvement. US involvement would be catastrophic for the United States as well.

China itself isn't making threats, the US just claims they are making threats.
9   B.A.C.A.H.   2023 Sep 23, 8:03am  

Normally I don't take the bait to read this guy's posts because he won't engage with his readers. I didn't even read this one, but the headline caught my attention and I just can't help myself. Have to make a comment here.

So many people said such stuff about international trade in Europe in the years before World War One. It was their dismissive argument, made all over Europe and all over the world, for why war would not happen. I think I've read that the portion of global GDP that was international trade was higher in the years before WWI than even now.

Silly people. Politics trumps economics every single time.

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