[HN Gopher] Sony to join TSMC on new $7B chip plant in Japan
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Sony to join TSMC on new $7B chip plant in Japan
Author : thedday
Score : 371 points
Date : 2021-10-11 17:47 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (asia.nikkei.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (asia.nikkei.com)
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Let me know when they actually break ground and start building
| one :-).
|
| I fully support TSMC's efforts to diversify the jurisdictions
| that have semi-conductor fabs though. That is a huge win for them
| and makes the Chinese mainland threat to assimilate Taiwan less?
| More fab capacity is a win.
| jonplackett wrote:
| So what actually happens to fabs outside of Taiwan if China do
| take Taiwan and presumably also TSMC the company.
| deaddodo wrote:
| Theoretically; something similar to what happened to the
| Cuban cigar producers after the revolution. They spin off
| into their own company/companies no longer recognizing the
| "invalidated" company charter.
|
| But, realistically, China will press their global influence
| to keep them under Sino-TSMC's control under a new Chinese
| corporate charter.
| i21QMgplhRJs2OL wrote:
| Something like what happened with Arm China.
|
| https://www.extremetech.com/computing/326447-arm-china-
| seize...
| mianos wrote:
| p.sm this was retracted. The new company is specifically
| specialising in extensions and add-ons. Or that was what
| they were told to re-write.
| ksec wrote:
| >Or that was what they were told to re-write.
|
| Especially when they are in the middle of going thought
| M&A. Along with trying not to anger China which could
| retaliate.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Well one possibility is that those fabs will simply be
| nationalized by the country that they are in.
|
| That would be an effective economic retaliation against a
| country that invades someone else like that.
| protomyth wrote:
| I think the going in position is that the fabs in Taiwan are
| not going to exist if China takes the island, so the only fab
| business will be outside fabs. I assume they have a
| continuity plan for one of the other offices to become the
| new HQ
| https://www.tsmc.com/english/aboutTSMC/business_contacts
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Really good question. I don't know.
|
| What I would do if I were leading TSMC is create a wholly
| owned subsidiary which held all of the non-Chinese assets and
| headquarter it in a tax neutral country like the Netherlands.
| Let's call it TSMC International. Then in the event of an
| assimilation by China, sell all of the assets that TSMC the
| parent company owns, to TSMC-i for $1 or something. And in
| fact have the paper work at the TSMC-i headquarters all
| filled out just waiting for being dated and executed by
| TSMC-i executives.
|
| It is a variation on a poison pill defense.
| taf2 wrote:
| I'm a little bit confused why it has to be so expensive and so
| hard to produce chips... Is it because of the scale required to
| sell them at a low enough price to be competitive? If so, is
| there maybe a market for smaller fabs that only produce small
| scale batches of specialized chips?
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| foundry is a capital intensives business.
|
| the processing steps that is involved is like 300+. that's why
| you hear the term "yield" in the semis foundry business. each
| step that went wrong is going to affect your yield.
|
| here is a short video that show the semis fab process.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9arR8T0Qts
| hinkley wrote:
| The more times you have to fiddle with something, the more
| opportunities you have to break it. It's compound interest
| essentially, and that can add up real fast. If you have 300
| steps and by some freak coincidence, each step had exactly
| the same error rate, so that you lose N% at each step, then
| here are the overall yields:
|
| 1% loss: 4.9% yield
|
| 0.5% loss: 22.2% yield
|
| 0.1% loss: 74% yield
|
| 0.01% loss: 97% yield
|
| You have to have an error rate in the range of X failures per
| thousand per step to get above 50% yield, and X/10000 for a
| really good yield. And all of these things are so small that
| a spec of dust causes failures.
| ksec wrote:
| >I'm a little bit confused why it has to be so expensive and so
| hard to produce chips.
|
| You are talking about something that is forever edging towards
| atomic size manufacturing. $7B is hardly expensive in today's
| terms. Not to mention the scale. Annual Smartphone sales is
| 1.2B unit. You have multiple silicons within a single
| smartphone.
|
| >If so, is there maybe a market for smaller fabs that only
| produce small scale batches of specialized chips?
|
| Smaller Fabs will just be as expensive. You built larger fabs (
| as you have noted ) to try and amortised over larger volume. (
| Lower Unit Cost ) Which is the problem why NAND and DRAM
| capacity planning are hard, their Fab size have grown to a
| scale that it is hard to build additional one without some
| careful consideration. ( High Cost, High Risk )
| akvadrako wrote:
| The machines that can make modern chips are extremely
| expensive. On one hand they are sensitive enough that shipping
| them costs millions of dollars since they need to stay in a
| vacuum. On another hand they need a room-sized laser installed
| nearby.
| thedday wrote:
| And water. They need lots and lots of water. And everything
| has to be ultra clean and to start that way in creation,
| shipping and in use.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| A new fab would be competing with old fabs that are already
| amortized/depreciated, and thus have lower capital costs.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| A few reasons:
|
| 1. Extremely expensive equipment, both directly related to IC
| fabrication (e.g., lithography) and indirectly related (e.g.,
| air filtration, water processing, stabilization).
|
| 2. A large amount of skilled labor onsite to operate and
| maintain the complex equipment.
|
| 3. Constant supply of resources, including power, water, and
| sand.
| zinekeller wrote:
| So, on reading this I imagine that this is purely for "mature"
| process nodes, and not definitely for cutting-edge nodes, plus
| the fact that some of the semiconductor infrastructure is already
| there, so 7 billion US dollars might be in the correct ballpark.
|
| Well, at least Japanese manufacturers (probably more of
| automobile suppliers like Denso rather than Sony's mobile
| division) will have a domestic source.
| deaddodo wrote:
| By mature, they _probably_ mean 7nm or even 5nm. Semiconductor
| manufacturers are always keeping old nodes spun up for
| technology that doesn't require (or wouldn't even function
| properly) on smaller nodes. Spinning up a 7nm /5nm fab allows
| them to free up their flagship fab for 3nm.
| Zigurd wrote:
| There are levels of "mature." Many chip plants, some of which
| were built to nurture home grown tech, have fallen far short of
| what is old hat to TSMC.
| hinkley wrote:
| With the rise of Tata, India, the US and Japan all have
| substantial automotive concerns that might be very interested
| in their suppliers having shorter supply chains. Especially
| after the black eye they've already gotten. Expect automotive
| lobbyists to be smoothing the way for these agreements to get
| approval from the respective State Departments.
| hinkley wrote:
| It's very likely at this point that the next 'mature' process
| from TSMC will still be interesting from a competitive
| landscape sense. If the timeline works out so that the current
| node gets built in a few years in Japan or India, that won't be
| 'cutting edge' but it'll still be pretty sharp, if some other
| fabs don't get their shit together and soon.
| simonh wrote:
| Wikipedia lists about a hundred fabs in Japan already.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat...
|
| This might not achieve the very latest cutting edge nodes, but
| there are diminishing returns for going very far down-node.
| troymc wrote:
| The article says, "Japanese chipmakers had dropped out of the
| race for large-scale chip development by the 2010s and
| instead contracted out the production of cutting-edge
| semiconductors to companies like TSMC." and the new plant
| "would be TSMC's first chip production operation in Japan".
| simonh wrote:
| Sure, but the basic infrastructure needed to support fabs
| is still there.
| zinekeller wrote:
| Yes, I knew that, but the chip crunch also affected mature
| nodes, so the capacity for mature nodes is also clearly not
| enough.
| wavefunction wrote:
| Somebody needs to build cutting-edge node fabs given the
| rhetoric from China in the past few days regarding forced
| "reunification" with China.
| theteapot wrote:
| Past few days? Where have you been for the last 70 odd years?
| Difference lately is it's become more credible for bunch of
| reasons around politics and capability.
| dragonelite wrote:
| Taking over Taiwan will not give China cutting edge node
| fabs. TSMC is working on a western equipment plus chemical
| stack. So it will give China absolutely nothing, China is
| rich enough to make Taiwanese talent offers they can't
| resist. So much so that Taiwan had to shut down Chinese
| recruitment bureaus and certain Taiwanese talent are not
| allowed travel or exit the country.
|
| China can just bide its time they will be the biggest economy
| at the end of the decade that will psychologically change the
| world so much regarding the West and Asia. You can already
| see a disconnect between western and Asian elites/diplomats
| view on China and the Region. Why Western ASEAN anti-china
| recruitment the last few years failed really hard.
| cronix wrote:
| > So it will give China absolutely nothing
|
| It essentially gives them tremendous power over the world.
| All they have to do is threaten to shut it down, or ban
| exports to the west, or put very high tariffs on them. In
| addition to gaining all IP from customers. What do you
| think that will do to all companies that rely on cutting
| edge TSMC nodes such as Apple? Tesla? Nvidia? These new
| plants won't likely be putting out M1 chips, etc., the
| cutting edge fabrication is held physically in Taiwan. It
| would be a great way to collapse the economies of the world
| as you are rising, if one were aiming at doing such a
| thing.
| [deleted]
| wavefunction wrote:
| China must obviously gain cutting edge node fabs or
| associated knowledge and processes from seizing Taiwan
| given the claims you've made about Taiwanese being
| prevented from being hired by the Chinese Government.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _China can just bide its time they will be the biggest
| economy at the end of the decade that will psychologically
| change the world so much regarding the West and Asia._
|
| Does this take into account China's demographics? Will be
| to able to 'grow rich before it grows old'?
| dragonelite wrote:
| I'm not a demographer, so only time will tell how big of
| a problem it will become. The Chinese government is
| worried about it, already was couple of years ago. But I
| don't see it becoming a roadblock that will prevent China
| from becoming the biggest economy in the world, hell I
| wouldn't be surprised that the Chinese market will be
| twice that of the combined western market.
|
| China can always play the Asian immigration card. To
| soften the blow of a graying demographic.
| DOsinga wrote:
| The headline and the first line of the article are not all that
| much in sync. Joining or considering to join:
|
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's largest
| contract chipmaker, and Sony Group are _considering_ joint
| construction of a semiconductor factory in western Japan amid a
| global chip shortage, Nikkei has learned.
| HenryKissinger wrote:
| I thought semiconductor factories couldn't work in places with
| lots of seismic activity.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Intel has multiple fabs in Oregon. They have seismic
| requirements for buildings and tools.
| alliao wrote:
| Taiwan have loads of earthquakes too, people just work harder.
| renerthr wrote:
| Article in the original language:
|
| [0]: https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUC10E680Q1A910C2000000/
| encoderer wrote:
| So when Xi invades Taiwan and forces unification, who owns these
| fabs? Will there be a new tsmc-jp and tsmc-us?
| Shadonototra wrote:
| > So when Xi invades Taiwan
|
| 'invades' is the wrong word, it's used by the propaganda
| machine from the UK/US
|
| please don't be politically brainwashed and use the right word;
| China will reclaim Taiwan on the date everyone signed
| neltnerb wrote:
| Your complaint is whether the word "reclaim" or "invade" is
| used? Why do you think your word choice is right when the
| leader of Taiwan seems to disagree?
|
| Reclaiming something against the wishes of the local
| population is still invading, it just denies agency to the
| human beings that live there as if they agreed to that
| outcome. It's like the US saying they are going to liberate
| Iraqis when, no, it still involved an invasion...
|
| Are you arguing that the population of Taiwan actually is
| super into being part of the PRC and that the media makes it
| seem otherwise? I don't think that polling agrees with you,
| their actions don't seem to agree with you, my friends in
| Taiwan definitely don't agree with you, but obviously the
| media is adept at influencing public opinion.
|
| I believe it's theoretically possible, but knowing people in
| Taiwan and knowing their opinion makes me skeptical. I know
| there's sampling bias in that they are fluent in English and
| highly educated people who I know personally, of course.
| Shadonototra wrote:
| for debates to be healthy, one must use the right words to
| describe a situation
|
| once proper description of the situation is done, one can
| argument whether something is good/bad fair/unfair
| legal/illegal an atrocity or something wonderful
|
| burning steps is the best way to not think properly
|
| and i'm not arguing anything, i state facts and i use the
| right words for it
|
| i don't care about what's gonna happen in the pacific,
| whether china gonna nuke the west coast first or it's gonna
| escalate with one of the US's paws aka australia, who
| cares?
|
| i also find it funny that you extrapolate what i may think,
| based on what? what did i say about the Taiwanese? i'm not
| qualified to have an opinion about it, but i'm qualified to
| state historical facts
| encoderer wrote:
| > whether china gonna nuke the west coast first or it's
| gonna escalate with one of the US's paws aka australia,
| who cares?
|
| Oh good lord. Go away shill. At least you make yourself
| obvious.
| Shadonototra wrote:
| exactly, not thinking properly makes people forget what
| WAR is, and its effect on the people
|
| are you ready for war?
|
| i am not, therefore i stay honest and i use the right
| words to describe situations
| bumbada wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
|
| All people in China mainland is taught that Taiwan is part
| of China and it is so ingrained on them that it is
| impossible to discuss this with them.
|
| And now that things are getting sour in China the CCP
| always uses the external enemy card to redirect the anger
| against others and not become beheaded themselves.
| encoderer wrote:
| You are likely replying to a paid communist shill, or
| somebody who has been educated by one. Still, you are
| right.
| Shadonototra wrote:
| i got paid by the Chinese communist party yes, and so
| what? that's what the western society is all about?
| making profit, no matter how, it's called an
| advertisement campaign :)
|
| /s
|
| also your comment is against hackernews rules, let's see
| if they are enforced, or only when it goes against their
| political beliefs
| neltnerb wrote:
| I agree, but do try to keep an open mind.
|
| This "reclaim" stuff seems like it really doesn't
| recognize the reality of the civil war at all, it just
| comes off as a way to make invading peaceful neighbors
| whose stuff you want seem like it's the status quo rather
| than an extreme step opposed in force by the local
| population.
|
| It makes no sense. I'm sure the media is biased towards
| prioritizing reporting about the India/China border
| conflict, the China/Taiwan conflict, the China/Vietnam
| conflict, the China/Indonesia conflict... but still,
| those are all significant conflicts. I buy that they're
| being more heavily reported on, but not that the facts
| are literally incorrect. It's not like I'm getting news
| from NPR, and the publisher definitely has no great
| attachement to US hegemony.
| Factorium wrote:
| Hypersonic missiles should be raining down onto the Three
| Gorges Dam before that's allowed to happen.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| What if Xi has faster hypersonic missiles?
| neltnerb wrote:
| Depends on whether the launch sites get hit before
| launching, this part of MAD is well understood. You just
| need survivability enough for a second strike (or early
| warning enough to render it moot).
| xster wrote:
| "I don't hate the Chinese people, I just hate the Chinese
| government"
| jrockway wrote:
| Possession is nine tenths of the law.
|
| (I almost worry about Taiwan; if they are the sole source of
| iPhone and PC chips, then they will receive a lot of protection
| from other countries in the event that China invades. If we
| have TSMC factories in Japan and the US, then people won't
| care. Good for buying GPUs, bad for democracy.)
| yyyk wrote:
| The decision whether the West will fight for Taiwan will not
| be affected by TSMC.
|
| HN crowd absurdly overestimates the need for the smallest
| node. At worst, the West will have a mildly smaller amount of
| slower chips for a few years until sufficient investment
| allows catching up.
| speedybird wrote:
| I also worry for Taiwan. If China chose to invade and the
| first invasion wave were not successfully repelled by the
| military assets already in the immediate area, other nations
| might try to intervene but few would be in a position to act
| immediately. "Defending Taiwan" is a tricky prospect if the
| PRC already invaded it yesterday; and as you say, possession
| is nine tenths of the law.
| stefan_ wrote:
| I'm not sure what would be left in Taiwan after an invasion
| but I'm sure it doesn't include the hyper-sensitive latest-
| node semiconductor factory.
| namelessoracle wrote:
| I thought the way the island is set up is that is that it
| was very difficult to make an initial amphibious push on
| the island with a few chokepoints that made defending it
| much easier for Taiwan that one might expect. And if China
| DID manage to break through one of those points the Island
| was effectively lost.
| tomthe wrote:
| TSMC is a better defense than owning nuclear weapons. But
| also way more expensive to develop (so not really a good
| option for North Korea or Iran...). But for Taiwan it is
| vital to keep the smallest proccess on their land.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| From the legal perspective, the shareholders still own TSMC (by
| definition) and therefore still own the fabs, same as before,
| and the shareholders are spread out across the entire globe.
| neltnerb wrote:
| Under which legal system? I thought that China was generally
| able to influence who owns domestic companies pretty much at
| a whim by nationalizing them, and that chip manufacturing
| seems like something that many countries might consider
| nationalizing based on how expensive they are and how
| critical they are.
|
| Although it seems convoluted enough that if it's not truly
| critical things get left alone. But chip fabs are probably
| critical enough that they won't get left alone.
| encoderer wrote:
| But non-Chinese can't own a Chinese company. All the Chinese
| companies on American stock markets are basically just shell
| companies with a "profit sharing agreement" with the
| underlying Chinese controlled asset.
|
| That's why this is an interesting question to me.
|
| It doesn't feel like we can trust the CCP to maintain the
| status quo any longer.
| unixhero wrote:
| Sony?? This is very promising.
| the-dude wrote:
| Not an insider : isn't $7bn relatively cheap? Could it be this
| plant is for image sensors?
|
| I couldn't read the article.
| forty wrote:
| No idea for your question, but you should be able to read the
| archived article here https://archive.is/TM8fk
| kube-system wrote:
| The article mentions:
|
| > Sony will also help prepare the factory site. Its aim is the
| stable procurement of semiconductors for its image sensors.
|
| > The company controls half of the world's market share for
| sensors used in smartphones and cameras, with manufacturing
| bases in Kumamoto and Nagasaki prefectures. The sensors are
| manufactured in-house, but the semiconductors that process
| images are procured from third parties, including TSMC.
|
| > Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida previously said that the ability
| to steadily procure semiconductors is important for maintaining
| Japan's international competitiveness.
| gimmeThaBeet wrote:
| I was interested to see it was in Western Japan, and after
| looking it up in context, it isn't surprising when almost all
| of Sony's foundries are all over Kyushu.
|
| Always interested to understand why things are where they are
| (e.g. proximity to Korea/China, sheer expense of Tokyo or
| somewhere like Osaka for a large industrial operation).
| [deleted]
| zinekeller wrote:
| So, on reading this I imagine that this is purely for "mature"
| process nodes, and not definitely for cutting-edge nodes, plus
| the fact that some of the semiconductor infrastructure is
| already there (for use in image sensors), so 7 billion US
| dollars might be in the correct ballpark.
| crate_barre wrote:
| Sounds cheap but they made a couple of billion on the ps4
| alone. Sounds like a reasonable investment.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| "Bloomberg noted that India is currently studying possible
| locations with adequate land, water, and manpower resources.
| India reportedly said it would provide financial support by
| fronting half of the capital expenditure needed from 2023, along
| with tax breaks and other incentives."
|
| India is going to put up half of the capex up front w/tax breaks
| and incentives. India govt. also going to scout out land for
| Taiwan.
|
| TSMC will be in Taiwan, China, Japan, US, and India.
|
| https://techhq.com/2021/10/heres-why-a-mega-chip-deal-betwee...
| maldeh wrote:
| India's first forays into semiconductor fabrication in the 80s
| and 90s were likewise enthusiastically supported by the
| government (land, incentives, tax breaks and so on), but were
| ultimately hamstrung by more fundamental infrastructure issues
| that couldn't just be magicked away - water shortages and
| unstable power grids - each of which could grind manufacturing
| to a halt for months on end and delayed production cycles. (I
| think there was also a major fire in a leading SC plant that
| caused delays by years.) If anything these shortcomings could
| be exacerbated in 2021-22. The government would need a much
| more comprehensive infrastructural solution this time around.
| beloch wrote:
| Even so, it's not hard to see why India remains alluring for
| tech companies. Wages are low and there's a massive number of
| young workers with more on the way. In these respects, India
| is, now, what China was a few decades ago. Plus, it's right
| next door to existing supply chains and less encumbered by
| international politics.
|
| If the problems can be solved, the returns will be great.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| i was thinking how come India didn't take China's approach to
| prop up their own foundry like SMIC. since India seem to have
| a need for semis. from the article:
|
| "India's semiconductor demand is said to be valued at around
| US$24 billion and is expected to reach US$100 billion by
| 2025. The country's semiconductor demand currently is
| entirely met through imports."
| baybal2 wrote:
| >India's first forays into semiconductor fabrication in the
| 80s and 90s were likewise enthusiastically supported by the
| government
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isBYV6QWDIo
| downrightmike wrote:
| Agreed. They were absolutely hamstrung because their
| facilities burned down and were only restored to s shadow of
| their former selves. They are still generations behind
| everyone else, and not able to use their anywhere near their
| full capacity. Plus their competitors took the opportunity to
| hire the best people that India away from the state fabs.
| Shame really, if they could increase their output, this
| shortage would be the time to regain some footing.
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| Wait, China uses TSMC? I'm surprised PRC govt allows that.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| So obviously some chips fabricated by TSMC go to China for
| further manufacturing into consumer devices or whatever. But
| I was also surprised by the grandparent comment to this one.
| Does TAMC have fabs in mainland China. I would have thought
| that would make the US (and Taiwanese) government nervous as
| Chinese manufacturing being so reliant on external fabs
| discourages them from doing anything silly with Taiwan.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Wait, China uses TSMC? I'm surprised PRC govt allows that.
|
| They have any other alternative? China imports more
| microchips than OIL in trade value.
|
| TSMC going black is an instant lights out for their industry.
| yitianjian wrote:
| China and Taiwan are very very closely economically and
| culturally linked. The PRC and ROC governments do work
| together, it's no longer the 1970's.
| [deleted]
| pvarangot wrote:
| The PRC is not a monad like most hit piece journalism and
| armchair geopoliticians would like to make you believe to
| sell you their easy to implant ideas. The ROC does behave
| more like a monad if that's a thing, but on the PRC side
| the military and the banks don't even share the same plan
| for dealing with Taiwan.
|
| I agree on the cultural and economical aspects both
| governments work together but I am not sure that on other
| aspects tensions are not as high as in the 1970s or worse.
| I wish they were not, I just don't know.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| I thought I knew what a monad was and the only problem
| was all the tutorials and other people clearly struggling
| to understand it. But now I'm not so sure.
| skissane wrote:
| That made me chuckle. But I think the GP is using the
| term "monad" more in the sense of Leibniz's philosophy
| than that of functional programming or category theory -
| "monad" as meaning ultimately simple and indivisible, as
| "atoms" were in the original ancient Greek atomic theory
| (as opposed to modern atomic theory in which the so-
| called "atoms" turned out to not actually be atomic after
| all). Of course, even in that sense the GP is using the
| term figuratively - nobody literally believes that China
| is a single indivisible entity, a hive-mind or Borg, but
| the GP is claiming that Chinese society (and even the
| Chinese government) contains more divisions of opinion
| and interest and attitude than many outside observers
| assume. And I'm sure there is some truth in that - but, I
| think the GP is wrong in suggesting Taiwanese society is
| different - that is just as true of Taiwanese society,
| and Taiwan being a democracy puts these differences more
| out in the open (DPP vs KMT etc), China's more closed
| system means many of these differences exist behind
| closed doors; and even if sometimes people within China
| get away with speaking of some of them openly, they have
| to be careful what they say and how they say it, to much
| greater extent than people in Taiwan have to
| PedroBatista wrote:
| It's no longer the 70's as it appears we are heading to the
| 50's or worse.
| nodata wrote:
| > it's no longer the 1970's.
|
| Oh? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58854081
| deaddodo wrote:
| To be fair, the RoC agrees completely with Xi Jinping.
|
| They just disagree on who should run the reunified
| nation.
| tyrfing wrote:
| That's not accurate. My understanding is the KMT agrees,
| and DDP doesn't (specifically: 1992 consensus), and the
| fact that the population opinion has been shifting
| towards independence is the primary tension currently.
|
| At any rate, summing it up as "the RoC agrees" would seem
| to simplify a cultural argument along the lines of "the
| US agrees completely that guns are good".
|
| For example: https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article
| /3151551/tsai-in...
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| That's only their official position and they can't change
| it because that's one of the PRC red lines. They consider
| Taiwan dropping their claim on the mainland as a change
| in the status quo and a casus belli. Everyone know the
| RoC doesn't aspire to a reunited China anymore.
| deaddodo wrote:
| So, officially, they agree with Xi Jinping.
| stale2002 wrote:
| No, its not. If I point a gun to your head, and tell you
| that I am going to shoot you, if you do not "agree" that
| the moon is made of cheese, you are not actually
| "agreeing".
|
| We both know, that you do not agree that the moon is made
| of cheese, in this situation. I have just made words come
| out of your mouth, to something that you do not agree
| with.
|
| To say that they "agree" is just a silly word game, that
| does not reflect the truth of the matter, and instead is
| playing into propaganda that denies the reality that
| Taiwan is already a country, and is already independent
| of china, and that Taiwan is not interesting in being
| taken over, or taking over china.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| They say what the PRC forces them to say but de facto
| don't believe in it. It's a complete misrepresentation to
| argue that Taiwan agree with China regarding
| reunification but with reversed roles.
|
| Taiwan is a democracy and a majority of Taiwanese want
| independence but argue for keeping the status quo in
| order to avoid a war (both the KMT and the DDP - their
| disagreement is more technical than that). Some wanted
| Taiwan to declare it in the 90s to force the hand of the
| USA and win a decisive war but this position seems more
| precarious nowadays.
| monocasa wrote:
| From their viewpoint, TSMC is theirs anyway.
| connicpu wrote:
| China's official position is that Taiwan is a province in
| rebellion, but economics mean they can't treat it exactly
| like an ongoing civil war so... It's complicated
| TooSmugToFail wrote:
| TSMC is good at this subtle diplomatic tightrope dance.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| China tried to subsidize a national semiconductor
| manufacturer to rival TSMC but after billions wasted they
| gave up.
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(page generated 2021-10-11 23:00 UTC)