Taiwan’s defense minister on Monday pushed back against the idea of the US bombing the island’s semiconductor factories in the event of a Chinese invasion.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) recently said the US should “make it very clear to the Chinese that if you invade Taiwan, we’re going to blow up TSMC,” referring to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which produces the majority of the world’s advanced semiconductors.
When asked about Moutlon’s comments, Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said the military wouldn’t let that happen. “It is the military’s obligation to defend Taiwan and we will not tolerate any others blowing up our facilities,” he said, according to The South China Morning Post.
The idea of bombing Taiwan’s chip factories to avoid them coming under Chinese control is gaining popularity in Washington. A paper published in 2021 by the US Army War College suggested the US and Taiwan should plan “scorched-earth” tactics that could render Taiwan “not just unattractive if ever seized by force, but positively costly to maintain.”
The paper said the tactic could be done “most effectively by threatening to destroy facilities belonging to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the most important chipmaker in the world and China’s most important supplier.”
Robert O’Brien, who served as President Trump’s national security advisor, recently called for bombing Taiwan’s factories if China attacks. “The United States and its allies are never going to let those factories fall into Chinese hands,” O’Brien told Semafor in March.
America’s answer to everything is to blow things up.
Diplomacy?
What diplomacy !
Free Assange !!!
Hopefully it’s the Taiwanese who are drawing a lesson from the US proxy war in Ukraine. To wit, it might be a bad idea to become the empire’s cannon fodder in their latest imperial cockup.
Exactly … it seems that they may be getting clued in to what it is they are really signing up for: death and ruin. And this isn’t some agricultural backwater of Europe, it’s one of the hearts of the new industrial revolution. Hopefully the locals will realize that status quo wasn’t so bad after all.
I think that what the people want isn’t considered by any leaders in the EU or Taiwan.
It must be a new way to wage war against ones allies?
Think about the blowup of the pipeline, and sanctions against Germany and other EU members which also are NATO allies. You can’t make that up, they are that crazy.
Some years ago I read and article that said that Taiwan would blow up their own advanced manufacturing to keep it out of Chinese hands. It seemed like a decent idea then and even more so now that China is even more dependent on Taiwan semiconductors. The Chinese would set themselves back, technologically, if they could no longer access those chips.
You are expecting the people of Taiwan to live in poverty rather than prosperity just to hurt mainland China???
I’m not expecting anything. I have no idea what is really happening. I only related a story I read. It’s called a Poison Pill Defense and companies have used it to stop a hostile takeover https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/poison-pill
The microchip industy is Taiwan’t Crown Jewels and it is also necessary for it to be intact for China’s economy to function because they are heavily dependent on Taiwan semiconductors. If they invade, they not only do not gain chip manufacturing capabilities as their own, but they also will lose their competitive edge in the world because they then couldn’t get enough to carry on at the same high value manufacturing. It’s not what I want or expect, it’s just my observations and views. Where on Earth would you ever get the idea I want Taiwan to live in poverty or hurt Mainline China? I don’t believe the Taiwan people will be more prosperous under the Communists System and I also don’t think Mainland China needs to invade Taiwan. That ship sailed seventy years ago. BTW, it’s rude to frame a question so that I look like I want bad things. If you want truthful answers, it is best not to slander people.
You didn’t just “relate a story you read”; you also said “it seemed a decent idea then and even more so now”. The latter implies you indeed argued that it would make sense for them to beggar themselves to hurt China rather than having China take over.
China does not consider Taiwan as one of its provinces because it’s profitable … they would consider it part of China if it was all farm land. So the poison pill defense is not effective here: there is no scenario here where China agrees to a fully independent Taiwan.
Fortunately, China doesn’t have to agree to a fully independent Taiwan. That’s the situation whether China agrees or not.
Are you sure?
You have an intense passive aggressive attack style. You wasted your first shot defending an idea that you said was a good idea even more so now.
That idea that you championed was for Taiwan to destroy itself economically in order to set the Chinese back technologically.
Taiwan wouldn’t be better off under the yoke of Xi. Whateve my style, you are a CCP sympathizer.
China dosen`t want or need to invaded Taiwan , it`s the US Neo Cons and their friends in the MIC who are stirring the shit , the Chinese fear that the US will sooner or later get a military base in Taiwan = having the wolves at the door.
They’re not even hiding anymore that they blow up the countries where the game of proxy war is played on pawns. jfc. Psychopaths all.
You hit the nail on the head. I witnessed just how horrofic we are when I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam.
Watch and read about Vietnam and by all accounts it was HORRIFIC , clad you lived to tell the story .
Just when I thought this dsituation could not get much worse, more dangerous or stupid… What will they bomb in the U.S, with their hypersonic missiles o retaliate….????????
Destroy Taiwan in order to save it? Bizzare. More than 50% of population of Taiwan is for rapproachmebt with China. This kund of rhetoric is rejected by everyone in Taiwan. Who thinks it is a goid idea. It is quite possible that some racist minded people think that China cannot develop their own technology. They people live in tge past.
China already has the chip technologies…! They just haven’t fully revealed it…!
Given how fast China evolved from making steel in backyards to a modern industrialized nation, it is sure that China can quickly build its own chip industry for its own need.
Their chip manufactoring industry is being sanctioned by the G7.
The Netherlands just announced new sanctions on China in March:
Hong Kong
CNN
—
Europe’s biggest producer of advanced chipmaking technology has joined the United States in its escalating standoff with China.
The Netherlands announced Wednesday, via a letter from its trade minister to parliament, that new restrictions on overseas sales of semiconductor technology were needed to protect national security.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/09/tech/china-us-netherlands-chips-curbs-response-hnk-intl/index.html
Between the historical claims, the shipping lane control expansion China would achieve with taking Taiwan with the further bullying that would achieve of the other small countries, of whom they also have designs on their waters plus the chip manufacturing, one can understand why everyone is pushing at each other over that island. It represents so much more than just a want to absorb.
While the letter didn’t name ASML Holdings, Europe’s biggest tech firm, the curbs will affect the Dutch company, which is a key supplier to global chipmakers, including those in China.
The announcement marks the first public move by the Dutch government toward adopting rules, advocated by Washington, to restrict China’s chipmaking industry.
With their high quality technical labor force combined with national need, I don’t doubt that China will soon have a state of the art chip industry. Not wise of the Dutch and the Taiwanese to antagonize their main customer to the point where he gives up on them …
Perhaps they know more than you?
These desisions are not made fools and dummies in the EU even though most prefer to believe the US is the complete puppetmaster while ignoring the oldsters represented by the EU/G7/NATO and Brussels.
Yes, I don’t know everything … no one does.
But based on recent history, for example the Iran and Russia sanctions, the EU are indeed complete and utterly servile satraps to the USUK.
Mind you, the actual businesspeople of Holland, Germany, Italy, etc. must be pulling their hair out … but they can’t seem to control their govts.
They vote for their governments just like Americans do.
Yes, they get to pick from the different flavors of the same toothpaste put in front of them by the bankers and the MSM, just like us.
Anyone can get involved in politics and frequently do in many of EU countries, it’s not like in the US or UK.
Of course anyone can get involved … but it is much easier to win at the EU level if you agree with the guidelines set by the master (US). Local elections are usually much more democratic and representative, I’d agree.
No winning on EU level requires absolutely no agreeing with any guidelines – not even EU ones – there is a fairly low interest in elections for the EU parliament, which is why protest parties like UKIP* (which could not win seats in the UK parliament) could win several EU parliament seats.
* back when UK was in EU
Ultimately it is the responsibility of each country’s citizens not some conspiracy of bankers or the older descriptions involving money changers and shylocks.
I’m not referring to any “conspiracy”. I’m referring to the fact that corporate money talks in the west and that said corporate money has certain interests (usually, more money) and attempts to make sure that illusions of democracy don’t interfere with said interests.
Strong old-fashioned nationalism or state control are bad for corporate money so China, Russia, Hungary, Iran, etc. are out of favor. Weak pliable, easy corruptible western leaders like Von Der Leyen are perfect.
Perhaps nationalism is out of favor because socialists tend to go overboard with it?
Just look how poorly today’s Progressives behave towards those outside of their tribe but love to be in bed with coporations just as those national socialists used to do with their large businesses of their day.
Taiwan should end its alliance with the US & make peace with China. China is not crazy enough to invade Taiwan. It does not want to risk a war with the US. That kind of war would be a nuclear war & the entire Earth would be a scorched Earth.
“”oh we certainly did not blow up the nord-stream pipeline!
and when taiwan chip factories blow up we won’t have done that either!””
…. uncle sam
How Stupid the DC politicians have become…? Mind boggling…!
In America’s bid to “protect” Taiwan, we want to blow up Taiwan’s most valuable factories??? How does that make any sense whatsoever? We need to shut these neocons up for good and stop their bewildering logic from endangering us all.
It makes sense for plutocrats because they plan to manufacture here. They had no problem destroying European economies and Taiwan is no more special.
Nothing they do makes sense.
I have an idea. Let’s blow up Washington.
You mean DC…?!
no the whole state of Washington LOL
But of course.
Sounds like NS2 all over again , not to mention the yanks have been building new chip factories since they began shit stirring with China .
Shifting production as quickly as possible somewhere else would do the same thing.
But you can’t sell guns in that scenaro so that’s out (to the neocon Democrat clown that is).
If the US plan is to bomb the factories into oblivion, Taiwan would probably be better off rejoining with China and enjoying the protection it offers. From the US perspective, I’m rather confused- wouldn’t it better to have the Taiwan factories up and running, even under Chinese control, and have the semiconductors available rather than bomb the factories and not have them available at all? Unless someone cranks up a homegrown semiconductor factory in the US, it would be stupid to wreck the ones in Taiwan.
Presumably the intent is to make Taiwan a less attractive target for invasion, conquest, and occupation.
Right now, the PRC enjoys good, profitable trade relations with Taiwan.
If invading means all that trade gone AND the acquisition of 25 million welfare clients instead of 25 million productive workers because the infrastructure is gone, why would it choose that course, even setting aside the likelihood of a long, drawn-out war ending with the PLA slinking home in defeat as the US did from Vietnam and Afghanistan?
After Taiwan transfers sufficient manufacturing capacity to the US and, to some extent, Europe (which they are being coerced into doing) any such agreement with the mainland (even if completely voluntary and peaceful) would result in those overseas factories being seized (and likely sold to some company like Intel). The ones in Taiwan will be sanctioned and unable to get input materials etc. This is probably the plan.
This idea is insane. It’s like the Vietnam War notion of destroying a village in order to save it.
Taiwan is dependent on the US who not only has threatened to bomb the chip factories but is known to have bombed another Germany’s gas pipeline.
The most judicious policy should be to try to get along with China but somehow they believe that the policy of US rattling the cage is a secure policy.
I don’t know of more insane politicians than what we have in Washington. The Americans leave a trail of blood and death and ruins behind wherever they go. The officials are just criminals, people without a conscience, without morals. What on earth is wrong with them, they are evil but call themselves a Christian Nation which values life while it kills nations and sees nothing wrong with that, laws are not made for them. I find it incomprehensible how a so-called civilized nation can act like that? The only nation having used nuclear bombs at the end of the war with Japan shows no regret, no remorse for having killed so many civilians for no reason, the war was over. No nation is threatening the USA with invasion, the only time bombs ever fell on Americans was when the Philadelphia police dropped bombs on civilians in that city. This is a nation of killers. What is wrong with these people?