> If they take it by force, they will take a smoking hole in the ground where all that "critical tech" used to be.

Sure, but first, it's the rest of the world that loses it. With that tech manufacturing base gone, rest of the world might be forced to buy from china. China doesnt buy from Taiwan.

Second, people and documents will still be around similar to germany's rocket scientists, they can be put to work.

> Famous for getting tens of millions of his countrymen killed for no good reason?

Sure, that too. Dictators don't care about pople... (Putin is doing it too and if anything, killing your own people solidifies power...)

I was thinking more how he's perceived like some sort of deity by chinese people and was untouchable power wise.

> Famous for getting tens of millions of his countrymen killed for no good reason?

This is like saying George Washington is only famous for his role in the Native American genocide.

A bag of fine flour tossed into the clean rooms, and using a taser on all the electronics and control boards makes entire fabs more or less worthless. They probably have multiple doomsday options that wipe out any utility the chip plants might have. I'd probably also have a technology and documentation package ready to be shipped to the US by a secret lawyer - if Taiwan gets taken, the fabs get destroyed, and the US gets the technology.

They're not weak or stupid, the level of retaliation and sabotage in store against any attempt by China to take over would go down in history as some of the most ruthless and savage of all time.

Xi is just beating his chest. China is currently simmering - protests, civil unrest, and dissidence in general is up significantly over the last year or so, and they need to make bold public speeches to look powerful and in control. I don't think there's any risk of widespread public revolt, but they play these games and push propaganda because they have to, not because it makes sense.

China's been threatening to "unify" Taiwan for decades, more or less like clockwork. They missed their best opportunity to actually do it during Biden and covid - the US would likely have just let it happen at that point. With new US fabs popping up, we may reach parity with Taiwan chipmaking capabilities within a decade or less, and that makes the utility of Taiwan even less.

Urban resistance fighters and guerilla tactics from a hostile population makes taking over cities and towns like that more or less completely impossible. Any attempt by China to take Taiwan would end up looking like the US trying to "liberate" Iraq, with constant PR hits, human rights violations, way more money than they want to spend, or risking inciting major unrest if they just wipe out the Taiwanese population like monsters.

I don't think there's any real upside to actually taking Taiwan, it's more useful as a perennial jingoistic narrative than anything else at this point.

Most mainland Chinese support merging Taiwan back to China, either through a 1C2S deal or directly with force. Sentiments can be changed as needed through proper guidence of public opinion.

The survival of China and the CCP is the #1 goal, the deaths of a few million people isn't a big deal to achieve that goal.

That's absolutely right. Authoritarians abhore freedom and consider every instance of it to be a threat to their continued existence and control.

The implication of this is that once they're done with Taiwan they'll come for other countries.

This isn't anything new either. The struggle between authoritarians and people who want to be free and autonomous in their day to day activities is eternal. We've made tremendous strides as a species to vanquish many kinds of authoritarians, with the last few centuries seeing the elimination of many monarchs.

With those victories over the old authoritarians we've seen the rise of new kinds of authoritarians -- people who call themselves fascists or communists.

Setting aside the minutiae of how closely their actions match those new labels they're no friends of mine and it is in our best interest to align the people who they intend to oppress be they in Taiwan or Ukraine.

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The EU only works cause there is many countries.

What's so surprising about it? Russia had been smashing their heads against the Ukraine wall for years now.

Defending can be done very efficiently with modern weaponry.

And Taiwan is more powerful than Ukraine potentially and more economically important.

I don’t think Xi is worried about body comparisons anymore given that Trump is president rather than Obama.