[extropy-chat] Taiwan (was: US will cease to exist in 2007)

[Dan Clemmensen]

J. Andrew Rogers wrote:

>
>You do know that Taiwan is an island quite a distance off the continent,
>right?  China maintains a littoral Navy with a tiny and third-rate
>"green water" force (Taiwan would be a "green water" operation) and no
>history of competent naval operations in modern times.  And their
>anti-submarine capability is simply obsolete, leaving those ships
>vulnerable as they cross the channel.
>
>I'd love to know how they'll mount an "invasion" with that kind of force
>projection capability.  China can't project more than a few divisions,
>and with such a meager and obsolete force that they would lose most of
>these assets to first-line Taiwanese defenses (which are comparable to
>what most European countries can field, technology-wise).  
>
>
>  
>
I must agree. Back in the '90s I suggested that China might invade Taiwan
on the Tom Clancy usenet group. I was promptly handed my head in a basket.

Taiwan is a long way from the Chinese mainland, and the eastern coast of
Taiwan is rugged. There is essentially no way that a seaborne invasion can
succeed given any seagoing opposition at all. In spite of all you may think,
there is no way that an airborne invasion is feasible: you just cannot 
air-drop
enough tonnage. A single modest-sized ship carries more tonnage than 1000
large airplanes. The only other option is nuclear. As long as the US is 
committed
to nuclear retaliation against the PRC, this is not a viable option.

China cannot even manage to re-occupy Quemoy and Matsu. these islands are
Taiwanese territory, but they are within artilliary range of mainland china.

A single US attack submarine in the Formosa Strait would probably suffice to
crush any Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

HOWEVER:

Taiwan is the home of several very large Semiconductor Fab companies.
Each company runs several leading-edge wafer Fabs, in total comprising a
substantial percentage of the world's modern semiconductor fabrication
capability.  Any disruption of the output of these fabs will have a bigger
effect on the world economy than a a major disruption in a major 
oil-producing
country. A major new fab costs about $4B. An earthquake that shakes a 
fab can
destroy all work in progress even if no capital equipment is damaged. 
Work in
progress can amount to $250M per fab. A slightly more severe earthquake 
can disrupt
power, causing loss of work in progress plus loss of certain expensive 
capital
equipment ( what are "quartz tubes" and why do they die when power is lost?)
Conclusion: an invasion of Taiwan is a lot more serious than it at first 
appears.
a single nuke in the wrong place will disrupt the world economy.

Why is this Extropian? The Taiwanese fabs are at the leading edge of 
Moore's law.
Even if we don't make a nanotech breakthrough, Moore's law will take us to
the singularity within 15 years (a factor of 1000.) Yes, Moore's Law is 
nothing more
than a 30-year-old observation of an empirical data set, but it has in 
fact held during those
ensuing 30 years.