Ask Lemmy

In 100 years, long after the United States has broken into Baltic states, there will be a reunification movement and people will ask "why do they want to invade Texas?". There will be politicians who's whole political careers will be built on the promise they can make the United States one country again. Understand this and you will understand China and Taiwan.

It's a staging area for the US that's very close to China, so there's that reason strategically. But really, there's not a lot of reason to which is why they haven't done so already. China is, as far as I'm aware, perfectly happy with the traditional US approach towards Taiwan, a policy of "strategic ambiguity" that doesn't officially recognize Taiwan as independent (while informally supporting them) and which has kept the peace for many decades. China does not gain much from provoking a military confrontation with the US, as things stand, China is winning the peace through economic development while the US is going all in on the military. By maintaining the status quo, China can leave the issue open and kick the can down the road, maintaining the possibility that someday in the future they may be in a strong enough position to press the issue.

Even still, China now has its own academia and engineering, and is larger than Taiwan. Hence, even without the corporate espionage mainland China is known for, wouldn’t investing in their burgeoning semiconductor industry make more sense, rather than spending that money on war?

That's exactly what they've been doing. That article mentions that they've actually recruited 3000 engineers from Taiwan's chip industry to help develop their own chips.

Yet while taking Taiwan would mean access to deep-water ports, it’s not as though Taiwan would ever pose a threat to Chinese power projection—their stance is wholly defensive. If China decided to pull an “America” and send a carrier to the Middle East or something, no one would stop them and risk a war.

Taiwan's stance is defensive, but the same isn't necessarily true of the US, which operates in Taiwan. The US has recently started throwing around rhetoric and shifting spending focuses towards treating a hot war with China as a serious possibility, insane as it may be. This is (hopefully) just bluster to justify defense spending, but I'm not at all convinced that if China sent a carrier to the Middle East, the US would not retaliate. If anything, they're looking for a reason.

Stopping american influence

The lithography machines could easily be reverse engineered.... Mechanically..... Only to find out just how complex the rest of the system is just to get it to even work making crap level chips much less anything respectable near the 3nm level. That would be hilarious. Like when the US left a bunch of helicopters and one of the revel factions got a hold of them...yey! We got the helicopters! Only to find out the helicopters aren't the thing that holds power. Barking up the wrong tree.

The gamble just doesn’t really seem worth it.

China is not invading Taiwan. However if it comes to a war with the US, then it really has to take out Taiwan. It is just too close to the mainland, allowing for easy bombing and missile attacks, while als being able to cut off shipping from the mainland. Obviously the US likes that a lot, as it makes war against the US much more costly for China.

At the same time leaders often make horrible decisions. Just look at the US invading Iraq and Afghanistan or Russia invading Ukraine. Clearly not good wars for the countries invading, but they still did it.

china is a bit like Yugoslavia before the end: lots of different ethnicities being forced to be together. letting a country made up of Chinese people exist in parallel to china keeps a flame of hope alight for those 51 non-Han Chinese ethnicities that were forced to be part of continental china. and China has struggled immensely with multitudes of local kingdoms and warlords throughout its history so it is afraid as its people are very aware of this past through historical dramas

Even if taiwans technology manufacturing gets destroyed in the invasion, it's still major part of western world's component infrastructure. They can also just rebuild. China gaining control over that or even just denying it to west would make china internationally more powerful no matter how it goes.

Most likely that isnt the only reason they want taiwan, but i dont believe it isnt one of them.

Same thing they gained from invading Hong Kong, they think it belongs to them.

Or as one of my old friends told me while playing Final Fantasy 12; the only legitimate reason to wage war against another country - land.

Hong Kong is already part of the Chinese mainland and was already kinda part of China, but Taiwan is a geographically strategic location that puts both Koreas, the Philippines, & Japan in a tougher position. Even without war it would make trade and travel in the Pacific much harder.

You are approaching this from the perspective of a rational peaceful person from the west, where usually the economy is number one in everything.

Xi has achieved unrivaled rule over the party. He has successfully established a police state that ensures that any domestic dissent is immediately crushed with brutal efficiency. He has subjugated the provinces that dared to think about self rule and cultural differences, and is in the process of ethnic cleansing without any significant opposition or consequences. He has gained colonial influence all over Africa through economic means. He has taken over Hong Kong. He has significantly modernized and expanded the military, including nuclear weapons. He had made China into a global economic superpower, which other countries, including rivals, depend on for a significant amount of manufactured goods and resources.

So what is left for him? Surely he is not a man who can be content with what he has.

The obvious next step is to make China into a military superpower. For that you need to exert power abroad. What better place to begin with than that small island just off your coast that has been a challenge to Chinese supremacy for decades?

Of course, Taiwan is kind of protected by the US, the dominant superpower of the time. But they are struggling, looking weak. If China manages to take Taiwan, they will not only have removed that thorn in their side, they will also have punched the biggest, meanest kid on the block on the nose and gotten away with it.

One, it completes one of their long standing policy of "one China". They still view Taiwan as a rogue rebellion state to bring back into the fold, not an independent country to conquer.

Two, it would cripple a lot of the west's high end silicon industry. TSMC is the only one that can make the worlds most advanced nodes, as well as Taiwan holds chip packaging infrastructure that any other nodes require on to be useful.

To that end it is a geopolitical chip that China can use to pressure the west, but likely will never act upon until a real hot war breaks out.

Lots of good points, but one aspect that people haven't mentioned yet is that Taiwan is part of the "first island chain"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_chain_strategy

If the PRC conquers Taiwan, then it makes it much harder for the west to blockade the PRC in future conflicts.

Though technically, it is much more important to control the strait of Malacca than Taiwan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacca_dilemma

Land and the sea surrounding Taiwan, which comes with resource that they can exploit, and controling people that they claim is theirs. It's the same reason why europe sail across the sea to colonize others land, and why US doesn't let Puerto Rico become independent. China never acknowledged that Taiwan is an independent country, they always believe that Taiwan is their territory. It's imperialism.

lemmitors: They hate Taiwan for their freedom!

What does China achieve

The typical bully's satisfaction.

Taiwan is a fantastic launching point for an invasion of China and Taiwan has decent relations with the US and other capitalist states who have an interest in opposing China. Yk how people say Israel is an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the middle east? Taiwan could be like that for China if the western powers decided to use it as such. There is already a US military base there. Imagine how the US would react if Cuba had a Chinese military base? This is the main material reason.

Chip manufacturing could also play a role but it is a minor one compared to this.

it's like Spain wanting Catalonia to be under control. Why would Spain want to lose control of a part of their own country?