Living in Taiwan, I have given this question a great deal of thought. People like to bring up the Chinese Civil War or talk about historically why Taiwan belong to China. These factors may contribute to why China is adamant about unification, but given the extremely limited extent that Taiwan is able to really “threaten” China, I think a lot of it is blown out of proportion and mostly propaganda. Make no mistake, Taiwan is crucial to China but the real reason has more to do with geography than ideology.

Take a look at China’s coastline. Look how close South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Philippines are. These are all countries that the US either sell weapons to or have a military presence in. Which emerging superpower is willing to have Her whole coastline pretty much “covered” by a potential enemy?

Look at the Cuban Missile Crisis and how the US reacted? And that was just Cuba, one country. China’s military effectiveness is at a huge disadvantage if the situation is left unchanged. This also explains why China is so aggressive in the South China Sea area. China has a legitimate claim on Taiwan, one which is more or less accepted by the rest of the world. So, yes Taiwan is of crucial importance to China. It has to do with China’s national security and China’s ability to take Her place as a major superpower. Unfortunately for us living in Taiwan, it has less to do with the people, our beliefs or our values and more to do with the land we live on.

• China including Taiwan province.
• Mainland China is capable of producing chips.
• In the field of civil products, according to the free market mechanism, chips produced in Taiwan participate in the bidding, as one of the suppliers is no problem, Bidding is fair, price factors, and quality factors are all considered, but in the aerospace, military and other high-tech areas, mainland China will not enable the chips produced in Taiwan.
• The chip field is market-oriented, and the goal of chip manufacturing companies is to make profits. If it cannot make a profit, investors cannot recoup their costs.
• Chip production must be on a large scale, with enough orders to make a profit. A mobile phone chip with a shipment of more than 10 million pieces will have a slight loss, shipments of more than 20 million pieces can be profitable, and shipments of more than 30 million pieces are enough to affect the market price. Taiwan's chip industry is widely known in the market because it did it early and captured the market first.
• Chip is actually a miniature integrated circuit board, it is not as mysterious as the Western and Taiwanese media boast. For chip manufacturers, the manufacturing process is almost the same, and what determines success or failure is the brand. Any industry is the first input, after the output, the output before the market, there is a market before the profit, there is a profit before the development of research and development, and then there are more markets. Without a brand name, unless backed by strong capital, a newly established chip maker cannot compete with well-known brands in the market even if it possesses the most advanced production technology in the world, and it needs a long incubation period. However, the U.S.-China chip war has created an opportunity for mainland Chinese chipmakers to expand their markets. China produces the world's largest number of mobile phones, and which chipmaker a Chinese handset maker decides to use often determines that chipmaker's future fate.

They don’t realy want control of Taiwan, they don’t want the USA to have control of Taiwan, that is the red line, that can never be crossed, China is quite happy with the status quo. They have said that often enough. As far as markets stop? Are you dreaming? China is Taiwans biggest trading partner. If Taiwan was governed by the mainland their trade would almost double, AND Taiwan would be far FAR richer, because they wouldn’t need to buy a single out of date weapon from the U.S., they would save BILLIONS. That much is obvious. Also there would be no need for Taiwan to have its own military, that would be another huge saving. Just that the poor DPP would be no more, that’s why they are so set against it.

As on date China is one of the largest consumers of Chips.

From Washing Machines to Airconditioners to Electric Vehicles to Cars to Laptops to Phones - everything made in China for Global and Domestic supply needs Chips.

And the smaller the chips, the better and the smaller they are - the tougher they are to make

There are 2 Aspects to Chips

Design

Fabrication

Now Design is more or less an Area where China can reach the top. US and Germany and S Korea were miles ahead of China in 2010 and now they are maybe 200m-300m or so ahead.

China is investing massively and Chip Design companies are mushrooming by the day.

So Design is not a problem

Fabrication is!!!

Fabrication needs an EUV Lithograph which as on date only Germans and Dutch manufacture commercially.

China has its own EUV for 45 nm , 28 nm Chips and is believed to be capable of manufacturing Lithographs to make 14 nm chips commercially by 2022

However EUVs for 7 nm, 5 nm Chips are still out of their capability.

These EUVs are used efficiently by Taiwan and S.Korea and TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung (S.Korea) are the only two foundries that manufacture bulk of these Chips.

China is a huge customer to TSMC. In fact Chinas demand is larger than any other Country on earth

TSMC slowly began throttling Chip supply (7 nm) only to Huawei due to US Pressure but it was enough for China to accelarate its own Chip making prowess.

Likewise Netherlands throttled 7nm EUV deliveries to China under US Pressure and China decided to accelarate its own EUV design and development.

That is the Chinese way. To develop its own designs and reduce outside dependance.

And once China begins making 14/7 nm commercially - Taiwan is finished. They can be undercut in seconds.

So why should China want to invade Taiwan for Chips??? China is Taiwans biggest customer and Taiwan would lose a lot if they lose their Chinese markets.

China wants Taiwan because Taiwan is China, was China for 4000 years. Thats all

Crucial!

Semiconductors are used in almost everything today - From Smartphones, Refrigerators, Washing Machines, Air Conditioners all the way to Precision Missiles and Advanced Computing.

Smaller the Chips, more closely packed are the Transistors and thus faster speed of electrons (Signals) and thus faster ability to process.

Smaller the Chip, larger the Logic Area

Thus wherever you eed Optimization, Routine Allocation, Decision Making Choices etc - You need Semiconductors and the assortment of switches

China has 845 Million Consumers who are hungry for more Phones, Cars, more Refrigerators, Televisions and many more things that require semi conductors

Things like Self Driven Cars require smaller and better chips for full functionality

Does China have the Necessary Raw Materials?

Of course.

Grade AA Fine Sand & Natura Si-Ge YIeld Base - Sure. China has its own supply and Taiwan imports around 95%of its AA Fine Sand and Si-Ge Yield Base from China.

Wafer Manufacturing Technology - Sure. SMIC holds 202 Patents and entirely controls Wafer Fabrication and Manufacturing

Inert Gases and Grade IV- XIV TL Tubes - Sure. China makes 98% of the Tubes in the World today and Inert Gases are also 79% Locally Made and 21% is imported from Russia

Does China have the Necessary Design Competence?

Yes.

Globally Ackowledged that China can design any SC Chip upto 5 nm on a Commercial Design or Model with maximum efficiency and Logic Area and Lesser Power Consumption.

China can design any SC Chip upto 3 nm on a Protocol Design

Does China have the Necessary End Stage Manufacturing Equipment

No.

China has Fully Indigenous End Stage Manufacturing Equipment using MOSFET Piezoelectric X Ray NG Lithography only for Chips upto 45 nm or higher. This is made all over China.

China has Patented ESM Equipment for Chips of 28 nm now commercially manufactured and is expected to be fully indigenous by 2025–2026.

Now China also has Patented ESM Equipment for Chips of 14 nm & 7 nm but Commercial Manufacture is still 2 years and 5–6 Years away respectively.

China has no Patented ESM Equipment for China of less than 7 nm

Thanks to US Collaboration - Taiwan has equipment for everything and thus can commercially churn of 10 Million Stacks of 7 nm Chips with 95% yield

China presently can churn out maybe 200,000 Stacks of 7 nm Chips with 55% Yield

China can churn out maybe 1.5–2 Million Stacks of 14 nm Chips with 90% Yield against say 18 Million Stacks of 14 nm Chips with 98% Yield by Taiwan

China has demand for High Quality 14 nm and 7 nm Chips and Taiwan fulfils that demand

Without these Chips, Digital Chinas Leapfrogging will be curtailed amd they will be next to US until 2035 at least

With these Chips in Uninterrupted Supply - China could Technologically leapfrog ahead of most countries by 2027–2030 due to Sheer Scale.

China is building Ford Taurus Models while Taiwan thanks to US Collaboration is getting Ferraris and Audis

Its why China needs Taiwan and those Millions of Stacks of Chips for its Market

Its required to Leapfrog China at its present rate

Taiwan started much earlier than China did in semiconductor and electronics business.

TSMC was started way way back in 1987 before China even entered the WTO. Morris Chang tried to start TSMC in the US. He went up and down Silicon Valley talking to all the VCs. They told him they were not interested.

Finally, the government of Taiwan invested in his company and TSMC came to be. Strange isn’t it? Morris Chang worked for TI, one of the biggest manufacturer of chips at the time. He had decades of experience and no one was interested. Even TI wasn’t interested. They all told him that there was no future for such a business…lol.

China is catching up now though. With a hiccup caused by Trump.

SMIC is able to print 7nm chips using the exact same process as TSMC. And I mean the exact same process. SMIC hired the engineers who were retired who invented the process at TSMC and they are doing the same thing at SMIC.

With the lack of Steppers (latest lithography machines), China hasn’t been able to move forward for the last year or so. But this year, Shanghai Semi came out with their 24 nm Stepper. This can print down to 7nm using the multi-patterning process TSMC invented. It just takes longer because you have to run the wafer through the machine multiple times.

But the good news is the machine is cheaper than ASML so you can buy multiple machines for one ASML one. So it’s a wash.

Next year Shanghai micro will release 12nm Steppers which can print down to 5nm using multiple patterning. So while China is still behind, they’re only a year or so behind Taiwan.

In 2 years they will catch up and the US ban on importing machines will be nullified. ASML is going to see a massive hit in their revenue because Taiwan can’t use their machines either if they want to sell to China.

Everyone will move away from any technology that has even a smell of US tech in it in order to sell to China. The only nation’s chip industry that is going to get hammered is the US.

Loss of $300 BILLION per year in chips and $117 Billion in equipment. All thanks to Trump’s ultra short term thinking. China, on the other hand, will gain the market share lost by the US. This will add several Trillion to China’s GDP in several years time. China thanks Trump for making China’s semi-conductor industry grow like mad.

I won’t bother how much GDP this is going to cost the US and will increase for China. Look up Velocity of Money.

By China do you mean mainland China otherwise known as the PRC? The thing about China is that it used to be ruled by the Republic of China. Following the Chinese civil war in which the Kuomintang lost, they retreated to Taiwan and that became the new Republic of China. The communists won and they now control the mainland of China and all 22 provinces there.

Their claim to ‘own’ Taiwan is about as valid as South Korea claiming to own North Korea. They are two separate governments that used to be one country. We should be talking about China-Taiwan ‘reunification’ rather than just asserting as fact that Taiwan is part of ‘China’. Taiwan is not controlled by the PRC. That is a fact.

You kind of get obsessive over these sorts of things when you’ve spend the last 200 years trying (and often failing) to keep the country in one piece, and keeping foreigners from ripping your country into shreds.

If Chinese didn’t care about national unity, it would have gotten carved up into a dozen different countries by the Europeans and would look like the Arab world. The fact that it survived in more or less one piece (bye, bye Mongolia) is not a small thing.

The other thing is that do you really believe that if China were to let go of Taiwan, that this would be the end? I don’t. You have to draw the line somewhere, and where ever you draw the line, that’s were the fight is going to be.

Taiwan is not superior to China in semiconductor. China has caught up.

Taiwan is indeed globally dominant in the semiconductor sector, but only in the manufacturing - accounting for around 64 per cent of the global semiconductor foundry market, with TSMC as the world’s leading manufacturer of high-specification microchips.

And the reason why Taiwan is ahead is because of one man - TSMC’s founder Morris Chang who pioneered and established the semiconductor fabs in Taiwan as a specialized and separate business concept. This is how Taiwan got it’s head start.

Chang’s whole career in the U.S. was in semiconductor and knew manufacturing has its own set of challenges that he could do more efficiently and had the credibility to have leading electronic companies entrust their design and have Chang’s TSMC do the manufacturing. Thus the evolution of the fabless U.S. semiconductor companies.

Intel is now the only non-fabless U.S. firm and they too are having manufacturing difficulties keeping up with the sub 7mn chips that TSMC is doing.

Huawei is now doing its own chip design, just as Apple and other American tech companies are. However, China’s SMIC doing 7 mn chip proved that Chinese fab capability is getting to be at par with TSMC. The critical difference is that TSMC has ASML’s EUV machines and China is banned from getting it.

Once China can make its own EUV machine, they can accommodate the 4% of the semiconductor market that requires these and be fully independent in semiconductor manifacturing.

The U.S. can and does, but like many other manufacturing businesses it became cheaper to do chip manufacturing overseas and so much of the capacity moved. Lower cost of labor. Lower cost of capital. A looser regulatory environment. Etc. But that is not all.

The semiconductor industry grew up in the U.S. using what is sometimes referred to as the Captive business model. Texas Instruments designed chips and built manufacturing plants to make them. Motorola designed chips and built manufacturing plants to make them. Intel designed chips and built manufacturing plants to make them. National Semi, IBM, DEC, the list goes on and on. If you designed chips then you made the chips. It was very unusual for someone to design chips and have someone else make them, and no one was really in that business.

Then the business model changed. Tools for designing chips became widely available so many more companies could design them, but they couldn’t justify building factories to make them. Companies, particularly Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), arose to manufacture chips for all those companies newly designing them. This is the Foundry business model. Over time the Captive business model gave way to the Foundry business model for most chip manufacturing.

Captive factories had largely been in the U.S., but the Foundry companies were largely created in Asia and thus their factories were built in Asia. Thus over time much of chip manufacturing moved, particularly to Taiwan. Now there is a push to build more capacity in the U.S., both by Foundry companies and by the few companies such as Intel who still largely rely on the Captive model.

There are several reasons why, but for myself, the most important reason was Dr. Morris Chang.

Dr. Chang as born in 1931 in Ningbo, China. His family fled to Hong Kong after the communist victory. In 1949, Dr. Chang moved to the US after having been accepted by Harvard University. In his sophomore year he switched to MIT to study mechanical engineering. Dr. Chang first joined Sylvania Semiconductors but then joined Texas Instruments (TI) in 1958. This was a very important move. Prior to 1958, semiconductors were huge bulky tubes. In 1958, Jack Kilby newly employed by TI, produced the first working Integrated Circuit (chip). For the first time, a room full of tubes could be compressed into a processor that could sit on a table top. Despite being the first to create a breakthrough, Kilby could not get his hybrid chip factory-ready. Kilby’s hybrid chip required many chips using micro wires and slices of germanium to work. On the other hand, Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor suggested a single slice of silicon on which various transistors are mounted (planar approach) and connected by thin lines of copper poured on. By 1962 or 1963, TI accepted that Kilby’s hybrid was not going to work and thus despite having a first mover advantage, TI was behind in the game. In the meantime, TI impressed by Dr. Chang sent him to Stamford where he completed a PhD in electrical engineering specializing in electronics. Dr. Chang therefore had a ring side seat seeing the rise and fall of Kilby and TI without having being tainted by the politics of failure. He later noted that the experience taught him to put the customer and practical issues on par with the science. This business savvy engineer rose rapidly at TI. By 1985, Dr. Chang was both President and CEO of all TI’s chip business.

Something then happened which caused Dr. Chang to accept the personal invitation of the then President of Taiwan to come to Taiwan to head the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) of Taiwan. Taiwan had started investing in chips in the 1970s by persuading the then RCA to manufacture on the island. Dr. Chang joined in 1986 and immediately started making changes to reposition the manufacturing arm of ITRI. As part of this restructuring, he created TSMC in 1987. Dr. Chang was 56 at that time. Rather than produce generic chips for sale, Dr. Chang proposed the fabless foundry approach. Meaning that chip designers did not have to have a foundry, they could work with TSMC. This allowed many established professionals and emerging companies to collaborate with TSMC. These collaborations took TSMC to the cutting edge of what chips were being used for. TSMC was also lucky as this coincided with globalization and willing to outsource. Dr. Chang become the CEO of TSMC until his first retirement in 2005 but resumed the CEO position in 2009 until his final retirement in 2018. During this time, TSMC had come to control more than 50% of global production of chips.

Thanks for the A2A. To keep this objective we, should understand that Taiwan and China are controlled by two separate governments that were created during the same period of the same nation, The Century of Humiliation. This can be summarized as invasion from external powers, impoverished living standards, and endemic corruption throughout China. After many failed uprisings, the Xinhai Rebellion was able to overthrow the Qing Dynasty which had severely crippled China through bad governance. While this didn’t end the century of humiliation, it did bring a new perspective on how to end it. From this time until World War two, both the modern versions of the Chinese Communist Party and Kuomintang would be born. After fighting each other for control and eventually the CCP winning mainland China, the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan. From there, they were able to fend off future attacks by the CCP.

To finally answer your question, China views Taiwan as an inseparable part of itself. Legislation, such as the anti-succession law further illustrate China’s determination to reunite Taiwan with the mainland. However, China is not relying on military prowess alone to do this; it has taken a long-term approach and not interested in armed conflict unless provoked by Taiwan declaring independence. Time, specifically waiting for the right moment, is not an issue in Chinese civilization. Furthermore, many models on how to reunify have been suggested, some even going as far as “one country, two governments” or “one country, two systems”.

Taiwan is an incredibly successful nation/province (depending on your view) in terms of economic power and technology. Having one of largest economies in Asia while simultaneously having a strong Chinese influence, coupled with historically being ruled by China makes it a critical piece to any puzzle.

There are multi aspects to this question.

1. History and politics: given that the entire narrative of Chinese history in modern times is one where a proud ancient civilization was put down and humiliated by foreign aggressors who want to carve it up and exploit / enslave it. The formal ending of civil war and unification of China is of huge political importance if only just for the symbolic aspect. Meanwhile, the opposite is also true, as the CCP more or less abandoned Communism (especially the more globalist version ). They have increasingly fell back toward nationalism (which is deeply ironic obviously.) and traditional Chinese imperial legacy. Then if going by that logic totally losing Taiwan would be a huge and very likely fatal blow to their legitimacy and credibility as a government.
2. The geographic / geo strategic aspect.

As we’re too use to seeing the world from a purely north south Axis we often forget this is what it looks like if we look from a East / West axis of the situation, it doesn’t take a military expert to see the critical key position Taiwan plays in this outlook, especially when you consider that the chinese coast outlined here is the heart of their economy. If you think about it from a more WW2 logic if the enemy holds Taiwan then chances are your coastal region is doomed because they can hit almost anywhere from Hong Kong to Qingdao by sea while the cost you need to spend to defend against it is extremely disproportional, this isn’t just some unfounded paranoia given that this was basically the source of China’s defeat in both the Opium wars and the initial Japanese thrust in the 2nd Sino-Japan war (which eventually became part of WW2. The reason why the British was able to win was not just because of the technology, indeed especially in 1830s if they need to march anywhere deep into China for any sustained period of time the odds were they were going to get annihilated . but with ships and ocean they can almost always hit where the Qing army wasn’t prepared and just destroy the heart of China’s economy. This was the geo-strategic fundamental on why Chang Kai Sheik had little choice but to abandon most of the coastal area and try to defend in space. despite the fact that the source of his support is almost entirely in said area.

The one key island that is right in the middle of all this is Taiwan, if the Chinese have it then it is both a major shield for it’s economic heartland and a potential tip of the spear as it opens up on the east side directly into the deep waters of the Pacific.

Why does China want to control Taiwan? I don't want to discuss this issue, it is a controversial political topic.

Will China's economic benefits diminish after it controls Taiwan?

No, I don't agree

Let’s take a look at the situation in Hong Kong and Macau

This is Hong Kong’s GDP growth since 1997 

Hong Kong's GDP rose from US$172.8 billion in 1997 to US$311.6 billion in 2020, an increase of more than 80%; Hong Kong's per capita GDP rose from US$26,600 in 1997 (2015 constant US dollars) to US$41,600 in 2020

This is the change in Hong Kong’s trade after 1997 

From 1997 to 2021, the trade volume of Hong Kong average annual growth rate of 8.5%

In 1999, Macau's GDP was 51.9 billion patacas. In 2021, Macau's GDP reached 239.4 billion patacas, an increase of more than 400%;

It can be clearly seen that after China took control of Hong Kong and Macau, the economies of Hong Kong and Macau developed very rapidly, and the scale of trade also expanded rapidly.

I think we cannot ignore this true information because of some political reasons or personal inclinations.

I am Dr Dongye Strange. I can use my time stone to see all the possibilities in the future.

This is Xianos. His goal is to solve the overpopulation problem in China. He proposed the “one-child” policy that demands every Chinese family to have only one child. Now he changed his mind, two children are OK.

Xianos wants to take over Taiwan. This is because people in Taiwan have the “love stone”. It is said that you can use the love stone to generate green electricity. Xianos is very interested in putting this love stone into his glove. He hopes that he can use it to help his planet.

This “love stone” is currently safeguarded by the League of Free Formosa (LFF) in Taiwan. There are quite a few superheroes in LFF with different superhero abilities.

Image credit: 老天鵝娛樂

Currently, the LFF is led by black widow Tsai. She has a Ph.D. degree from London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and she loves to wear Prada. However, her PhD dissertation seems missing in the LSE library. Nobody knows what happened.

Now as the leader of the League of Free Formosa (LFF), what possible strategies can you defend Taiwan against Xianos’s love stone plan?

As Dr Strange, I am telling you, Tsai, your ultimate goal is to let Xianos drop the idea of invading Taiwan for the love stone. You must let Xianos know that the cost of invading Taiwan has to be higher than the price of the love stone.

How to make the cost of invading Taiwan higher the value of love stone in Taiwan? There are two ways: the hard way is to ask the Avengers in the USA to help you. The easy way is to destroy the love stone in Taiwan deliberately.

I can actually tell that Tsai Ing-wen, you are actually a genius. I can see you are heading in the right direction in both ways. There is no way to fight the powerful Xianos and Captain China directly by only relying on the LFF. The only hope is to somehow make the Captain America and Captain Marvel sign up the “Mutual Defense Act” with LFF.

The current “Taiwan Relations Act” and “Taiwan Assurance Act” signed by the Avengers’ Congress is nothing concrete but consolation to push Tsai to buy more weapons from the Avengers. The law is merely an insult to Xianos, in order to gain trade talk bargains.

From the Taiwan Relation Act 3.c:

Taiwan Relations Act (Public Law 96-8, 22 U.S.C. 3301 et seq.) | American Institute in Taiwan:

The President is directed to inform the Congress promptly of any threat to the security or the social or economic system of the people on Taiwan and any danger to the interests of the United States arising therefrom. The President and the Congress shall determine, in accordance with constitutional processes, appropriate action by the United States in response to any such danger.

This is a non-binding act. Here is the literal translation of the above sentences to simple words: “In case of Xianos’ invasion, we the Avengers, shall determine whether we will respond on whether we should help Taiwan”.

In the case of Xinaos invasion, Captain America Trump does not have the authority to declare war directly. He has to wait for the Avengers Council to grant it. The Avenger Council has to spend at least 10 working days to decide the actual actions. Sorry, they don’t work on weekends and Christmas holidays. Sorry, they don’t work if the government is shut down too. If Xianos attacks Taiwan at Christmas, Thanksgiving, or the Super Bowl Night, the process might take longer.

That’s why you want your Taiwan LFF to hold Taiwan for at least two weeks including the weekends. This is already confirmed according to the Taiwan army: Taiwan Can Win a War With China.

However, given the current superpower capability of LFF. It is impossible for LFF to hold Taiwan for more than two weeks because Xianos have been planning this invasion for 70 years. Even fans can find all the military installations in Taiwan from Google Earth:

And everyone knows that Xianos got their most effective weapon: the cheap guided rocket launchers with a range of 300km.

The rockets can be produced massively and cheaply. They don’t have to use expensive missiles, aircraft carriers or J20.

Xianos even respect the feeling of Taiwan people. In the recent weapon expo, they removed the island of Taiwan in recent weapon demonstrations. But everyone knows that this is the coast of Fujian.

This is an indirect proof that Xianos has placed hundreds and thousands of rockets pointing to Taiwan.

Now, as Dr Strange, I am telling you, Tsai, don’t be afraid of Xianos’ massive army and rocket launchers. All you need to do is to lobby the US Avengers to sign a “Mutual Defense Act” to grant you as the “official ally” of the Avengers. So Captitan America Trump can declare war on Xianos immediately without asking the Avengers Council. So you don’t have to wait for the two weeks period.

You must push them to change the mutual defence law to “In case of Xianos invasion, I shall protect Taiwan with force immediately. An attack to Taiwan is the same as an attack to the USA”. With this mutual defence pact signed, LFF officially becomes the military ally of the Avengers.

If the pact were signed, Xianos would re-evaluate the cost of taking over Taiwan. The attack to Taiwan would become the attack to both Taiwan and the USA. If the cost is too high, then Xianos has a 75% chance that he would postpone the invasion indefinitely. But in this case, Xianos would have a 50% chance of being overthrown by his own people if he gives up taking over Taiwan. And he has a 25% chance that Xianos would attack Taiwan anyway, pushing his country into WW III.

In total, there is 75/2+25 = 62.5% chance that Captain China and Captain America would engage a fight directly if the Mutual Defence Act is signed.

However, as Dr Strange, I am telling you, Black Widow Tsai, you have only a 0.01% chance to make the Avengers sign the mutual defence pact with you. The Avengers have to spend a few trillion dollars to directly engage with Xianos. That means you have to give them something more valuable in exchange.

Don’t be naive. The common belief in “freedom and democracy” does not cost a penny. The Avengers won’t buy it. We need something practical and persuasive to them.

The only chance to persuade the Avengers to sign the mutual defence pact is to hand over Taiwan’s beloved and most valuable “love stone” to the Avengers. Let the Avengers defend the love stone for Taiwan and they can also enjoy the unlimited green electricity from it.

To hand over the love stone to the Avengers, you need the permission of the people in Taiwan first. However, the current Taiwan people are suffering from the Xiano’s red propaganda on the Internet. You never know what would your people think.

The propaganda said Xianos did nothing wrong, “Xianos is actually right for the benefit of the population”. Unfortunately, some people in Taiwan did believe what the propaganda said.

So Black Widow Tsai, I have already seen you have censored the Internet in Taiwan and start to issue laws to arrest those people who believed this theory. Don’t worry about the freedom of speech. We only allow freedom of speech among people who are anti-Xianos. Yes, I would suggest you to continue to do this. Please issue a new law to prevent people getting touch with anything related to Xianos. 《國家安全法》三讀：涉共諜案最高罰1億，退將必須繳回退休俸 - The News Lens 關鍵評論網

I know, Tsai. You have so much to do and so many enemies around you. You are under so much pressure from everyone else. But praying at temples for 43 times does not help you to earn more chances to win. You need to get to the ground and think about practical plans.

Overall, let’s calculate your chance of being successful: 75%*50%*0.01%*20% = 0.0000075.

That is 1 in 133,333 success rate!

Even God has already told you about this in the fortune telling. But there is still hope.

Oh, sorry. I forgot you have a 60% chance of losing the next election in 2020. So you have 40% chance of being re-elected to implement this plan.

That is 1 in 300k success rate!

And also, Black Widow Tsai, you need to be aware of the Skrulls. They were originally living in China but they were beaten by Xianos and escaped to Taiwan in 1949.

These Skrulls can transform into any person and any shape. They can deceive you and make you believe them. They pretended to be neutral and they don’t want any war between Xianos and Taiwan. They also love Taiwan, but not in a popular way.

You never know whether they love Taiwan or not. They might eventually sell the love stone to Xinaos to spare their own lives in case of invasion. But you don’t have to worry about them.

But do watch out a bit for the following two Skrulls.

This specific Skrull called Guo has stolen my secrets, so he knows all the solutions to save Taiwan.

However, I don’t think he will be elected as the president of Taiwan. Normal people in Taiwan don’t want to hear practical solutions, complicated theories and long plans.

Most of them hold TL;DR altitude (too long, didn’t read). All they want is a simple concept, black or white, true or false. They have already labelled him a lapdog of the CCP and Xianos.

So black widow Tsai, don’t worry about him. Guo the Skrull has no ability to express complicated terms in simple words. So he would not get elected. All you need to do is to beat Han the Skrull and Ke-P. Both of them don’t have any solutions to lead Taiwan out of despair. I have used the time stone to look into their futures, and they have zero chance.

So I am counting on you, Tsai.

Only you have the chance to lead Taiwan to a bright future.

All five answers I found here at the present hour either missed the point, or do not answer the question at all.

The fact is that the government in Taiwan have implemented a sophisticated strategy for the last few decades to avoid being integrated/co-opted by the government in Beijing. If you ask any random Taiwanese youth, in Taiwan or abroad, I'd wager it is extremely unlikely that he/she would honestly identify with Beijing, or even identify him/herself as Chinese. This was achieved mainly through the following strategies:

- Political liberalization. It was not long ago when Taiwan ran a tight autocracy, with severe penalties for government dissidents. The KMT led under Lee implemented radical democratic reforms to the point that they even lost presidential power for almost a decade. Once the people tasted the power of democracy, it would be very difficult for them to give up their newly-won power and embrace an autocratic regime like the one in Beijing, or even less autocratic Hong Kong. The CCP of course is unlikely to give up their power to implement similar democratic reforms just to appease the people of Taiwan. This creates an almost permanent gulf between the Taiwanese people and Beijing.

- Development of a new cultural identity. The influence of Chinese culture is very strong, and Taiwan remained the last bastion of traditional Chinese culture given the mass cultural suicide in the mainland known as the cultural revolution. However, in the last few decades the government in Taiwan have tolerated, if not actively encouraged, the development of a new "Formosa" cultural identity. In almost any major university overseas, with a significant presence of Taiwanese students, there is a student organization promoting the "Formosa culture", which consists of elements of legacy from China, Japanese occupation, the indigenous culture, and promotion of Taiwan tourism. Such cultural identity allows the youth of Taiwan to adopt an alternative of the Chinese nationalist identity, which itself was developed in the late Qing dynasty to counter foreign influences at the time. It is the reason that much of the youth in Taiwan can honestly and confidently proclaim themselves as "not Chinese", despite carrying identity papers issued by the government of the ROC.

I personally think the answer should be yes.

I don't believe there is any possibility to reunite Taiwan peacefully.

The reason is simple,the so called the miracle of Asian four tigers is based on a blocked mainland. As long as mainland become more and more open and stable,the decline of the four tigers will be a must,maybe in short term they still can do well.Moreover PRC doesn't that care much about how Taiwanese think but dose care about how mainlanders think.

Furthermore don't overestimate the status and the importance of the four tigers. SG and HK are just two cities,Taiwan and South Korea are just two small provinces comparing to mainland. When we discuss issues like this,please realize their factual strength,then talk about the actual opinions. Politics is based on power rather than the so called moral ground,the moral is just a cheap tool to assert your stance.

Don’t make people identify as Chinese.

[Source: National Chengchi University. I’m not familiar with any political bias associated with this source, but it corroborates the information found in similar polls done by other sources as well as my own observations.]

Of all the strategies that Taiwan relies on to prevent itself from being fully integrated into mainland China (most of which are pretty shit), the strategy of altering Taiwan’s “national identity” from a Pan-Chinese to an exclusively Taiwanese one is probably the most lethal out there.

Think about it: Mainland China can be “paradise on Earth” — it can have free elections, a really high GDP per capita, and be just as likeable among Taiwanese as Japan. But if the Taiwanese naturally don’t identify as Chinese, why would they want to have anything to do with China ever? So long as the Taiwanese think “China” and “Taiwan” are two separate entities and that Chinese and Taiwanese are too different to be the same, they are not going to consent to reunification no matter how beneficial (or even benign) it might be.

That was the mindset of the people in power in Taiwan during the 1990s who set off to desinicize the educational curriculum so that kids were no longer raised to see “China” as their nation, but an alien land on the other side of the strait. Desinicization worsened from 2000 to 2008 when the government embarked upon a program of “name rectification” in which anything that had “China” in its name was renamed to include “Taiwan” instead of “China.” The “Republic of China” was marginalized such that it was seen as just another name for Taiwan.

Today, most people in Taiwan do not recognize themselves as Chinese. While there are some who identify as both Taiwanese and Chinese, even these people identify as Taiwanese first and see their Chinese identity as merely an appendage. Few people in Taiwan identify as Chinese first; almost no one identifies as Chinese only.

If you look at the polls, you’ll notice that the Taiwanese who identify as Chinese the least are people 30 years old and younger. That is no accident: the oldest of these people were born in the late 1980s and went to school in the 1990s when desinicization first began. Most participants in the Sunflower Movement of 2014 were born in the 90s and went to school in the 2000s when desinicization was an official government policy.

And if there is one thing we know about humans, it’s that we rarely change how we think when we are raised to think that way.

Which is why I hold a pessimistic view on the battle of national identities in Taiwan. Desinicization in Taiwan has been in full swing for an entire generation, and while there was an opportunity to grant some respite from desinicization under the last KMT administration, it came too passively and too late.

As older Taiwanese die out and the younger generation continues to be raised in a desinicized environment, it’s hard to see how future leaders can amass enough political capital to turn things back. Policymakers who want to keep Taiwan away from mainland China permanently could not have asked for something better.

Two Main Reason:

Historic: The entity in Taiwan is not called Taiwan but the Republic of China, it is a popular belief that this separation of mainland China is a product of ideology divide between USSR (communist) and US(western world), in a way similar to how Korea, Germany, Vietnam, and Yemen was divided into two nations. When CCP won the civil war, it is on track to take back Taiwan, but then Korea War happened and the U.S. 7th fleet stood in the middle of Taiwan straight, make it impossible for to CCP army to cross. Emotionally, to a lot of Chinese mainlanders, it is an unfinished reunification process.

Militarily: If you look at the U.S. military bases in the Pacific. You would see a chain around the Chinese shore, from Japan to Singapore. If Chinese were maintaining itself as isolated power and economy, it would have not to issue with that, but China is developing into a huge component of the global economy, it needs to make sure it has the access to other regions (Africa, Europe) without possibility of U.S. interference/blockade, because as you have seen in recent trade war, they were not exactly always on friendly terms. That is why China is pushing for one belt initiative (an alternative land base route) and that is why you see this resurgent talk about Tibet and Uighurs(Hint, Hint). Regarding the sea path, If you look at the map. The only weakness lay in Taiwan. It has military ties with U.S. but no U.S. base, it's naval and air strength is relative puny too. Now think what will happen if China were able to control this island, now think what will happen if U.S. were able to put a base on it. Hopefully this help you understand it better

It’s increasingly likely.

Perhaps not everyone sees it, but the world and this region is increasingly veering towards the edge. odds are that sooner or later someone will make a mistake and things would get ugly. and it increasingly feels like sooner.

It could either be because China continues to grow, the pressure makes either the US, or one of Japan / Taiwan or other nearby countries to do stupid things to force the issue. hoping to draw China into a destructive war.

If the US just let China overtakes it without a fight and retreat out of it’s sphere, that would be probably the first time in history something like that happens. it’s very very unlikely unless the US implodes itself (which isn’t that likely either.)

If any of Japan or Taiwan really feel the threat of US leaving the sphere is real enough, they could take a gamble and just bait China into war. both certainly could plausibly do that if they want to.

Or Taiwan itself could implode into instability, which is more likely than people outside seem to understand. increasingly partisan bickering is veering towards violence AND government authority is imploding at a hilarious rate at the same time, that’s a very bad combination.

Or it could be something bad happens in China, and as a desperation act it uses war to redirect the focus of internal problems.

Or it could be North Korea starting a domino situation.

Any one of these things could happen, and it only takes one.

My view is always that if you think each individual events are unlikely, but there’s many of them, and many years, sooner or later one of them will happen. that’s kinda how chance works.

Remember, it just takes one idiot or one bad thing and all this could unravel.

We should remember that this current world order came to be more or less because a hick shot two inbreds.

In the 1970s when I was in college in Taiwan, most of my classmates went into Taiwan university studying double E, after that, they all went to American universities and had PhDs in double E, computer or physics.

All of them worked or working for American tech companies in the US. Through many downsizing and layoffs, some of them were laid off in the US, because they were PhDs and had highest pay. American companies rather get rid of expensive older guys to hire young kids just out of colleges.

Most found other jobs in tech in the US, some went to work in Taiwan and China at high pay. They helped in the development of tech businesses in Taiwan and China, few became very wealthy in their startups.

I hold classmate reunions at my home several times a year, most of the people in my parties work or worked for tech companies, including TSMC, Google, Apple, Facebook, YouTube, Intuit.

The key is the people, the talent pool. Taiwan has endless reservoir of top tier engineers.

Original Question: Why does China want Taiwan to be part of it?

I’m going to let you in on a little secret, but you promise not to tell the bigots. They don’t really understand politics and won’t accept this answer as the truth.

First, I think we need to separate China into two distinct parts. The people and the Government.

Why do the people want Taiwan to be part of China? That’s like asking why do North Koreans worship the Kim family. It’s because that’s all they know. Ever since birth, they’ve been taught of the divine nature of the Kim family. Just like the Chinese people. They’ve been taught that Taiwan is a part of China. I don’t blame the Chinese people for this. That’s like me telling an American that George Washington was African American. All their life they’ve only known one thing, that they hold to be true. Even if George Washington was African American, it wouldn’t matter since public perception is that he was a rich, white, landowner from Virginia. You can see now why many Chinese people think that Taiwan is a part of China. It’s all they’ve been taught. Now who is in charge of school curriculum? If you guessed the Government, you’d be spot on, which leads us to the second part.

Why does the government want Taiwan to be part of China? It’s because of Geography. Just about everything in this world can be tied to geography. Just about everything. Name one historical event involving countries in the comments and I can most likely tie it back to geography. China’s government doesn’t care about the people of Taiwan. They don’t care whether or not the Taiwanese people are ethnically Chinese. They don’t care that the Taiwanese people speak the same dialect, etc. What they do care, is a sovereign nation on their doorstep. They can’t (read really really don’t want) allow Taiwan to be independent.

I’ll put it in terms of a historical event that already happened. The Cuban Missile Crisis. Why do you think the U.S. government objected so strongly to the Russian’s putting missiles on Cuba. Because Cuba is goddamned close to the U.S. If China allows Taiwan to become independent, you better believe that the U.S. will use this to their advantage and use Taiwan as:

a). a Naval port

b). Weapons storage

c). Soldiers

The Chinese Government cannot allow this on their doorstep, so they claim Taiwan as their own. They don’t really care if Taiwan eventually becomes part of them or not. As long as the U.S. doesn’t get to establish a military presence on Taiwan like they did in Japan. Whoever control’s Taiwan wins the strategic war between the U.S. and China, the two global superpowers (sorry Russia!).

If you don’t believe what I’ve written, then look no further than our friendly dictator in North Korea. China “supports” North Korea for one reason and one reason only. If they didn’t, the U.S. would man troops on the border between China and North Korea and that is a threat to China. By propping up a senseless dictatorship in North Korea, China establishes a buffer zone between their borders and possible enemies. It’s that simple. The same concept is in play with China and Taiwan. It’s all a political game, and unfortunately, the people of Taiwan are caught up in it.

TSMC was set up by the KMT government with heavy investment and it took years for it to become the premier fab in the world. TSMC is Taiwan’s crown jewel but DPP has diluted such and is giving TSMC away—succumbing to US pressure to set up its foundries in the US and Japan.

China was able to buy from TSMC rather than make its own under the globalization premise. Now that America has stepped in to stop unrestricted world trade in chips, China has to build its own fabs, and it is going to take a while to ramp up. However, in spite of the false starts, in less than 10 years China should be number one worldwide in semiconductor fabrication and Taiwan would lose its importance.

First, addressing a false premise: China wants Taiwan even without chip manufacturing. It’s a continuation of the 1949 civil war.

The chip manufacturing capabilities are why anyone else cares about Taiwan’s health in the first place. Much has been made of the poor chip supply during COVID-19: it’ll be much worse if China invades Taiwan. Probably orders of magnitude.

Second, Taiwan doesn’t have to threaten: everyone knows that Hsinchu is going to be burning the minute a Chinese invasion force steps foot on the island. Only an idiot leaves assets for enemies to make use of. (Which is why Ukraine being able to recover undamaged Russian tanks and other vehicles is getting facepalms from professional military.)

The US DOES manufacture chips… The most highly specialized ones…

Taiwan produces the chips used in most appliances, small electronics and vehicles because they can do it cheaper.

This is just the “Top Ten” US chip makers and their sales by billions of dollars…

There are three main step in making chips, and which can be done in different places.

First there is design: figuring out where the transistors and wires go on the chip. This is mostly done with computers.

Next is fabrication, commonly called fabbing. This is actually taking silicon wafers and making transistors and wiring them up. Also cutting the wafers up into chips and, usually, testing them.

The final step is packaging, where finished chips are put into people sized packages. (The little black things with wires coming out that you see.)

In the beginning, each company would do all three, though not all in the same place.

As the process shrinks, though (that is, the transistors and wires get smaller), it gets harder to do. In all cases, there is a fairly large economy of scale. Once you get a factory running, (which is expensive), the cost per wafer is not so high. To be profitable, one needs to make a lot of wafers!

So, the Taiwan companies scaled up to high volume and low cost, faster, and especially on the newer processes. (Many older chips stay on the older technology lines.)

The whole list is here, with size (wafers/month) and cost for the factory (in the 10’s of billions of dollars), and country.

It is not always easy to move to a different fabrication plant, once a design is done.

Absolutely yes.

The consensus in the mainland has shifted. They believe that a military occupation is the only possible way to go. And they are preparing for it.

The Taiwan Battle will be a symbol. If they succeed, it means that the US has officially lost its status as a global power. If they fail, the Chinese government will be in a very very very bad position in front of its citizens. Both sides can not afford to lose.

So Taiwan is right in the middle of the structural crash between an established power and a rising power. It is the most dangerous place on earth right now. It could be rained by bombs and missiles at any moment.

Every morning when I wake up, I check the news on my phone: Have they done it?

It will be one of the most significant and historical events in 21 century.

It’s the new Oil!

China isn’t pushing harder, the stance has been the same since USA and China agreed Taiwan is past of China.

1. The Government of the United States of America acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.

The main issue is back in 1979 Taiwan offered nothing to USA. It was inferior with resources and needs.

Starting in 2018, when China declared they want to advance in high end technology. USA needed Taiwan to stay neutral because of the Chip dominance Taiwan would give China. Taiwan produces a huge % of the worlds semiconductor chips.

if Taiwan was to go back to China, this event would escalate the move of China being #2 to #1 faster than anticipated. Hence this is USA primary concern.

If they really care about the people of Taiwan, they wouldn’t of abandon them in 1979. That’s life and cold hard truth. Your only as good, as what can be offered.

Mongolia got out of China as a result of the arrangement of US and Soviet Union to Chiang kai shek’s government. Chiang announced to the world that Mongolia got independence from China. it was based on the vote controled by Soviet Union. It then become a fact that, all countries in UN accept its independence. after the Chiang’s government was driven away to a island, and new government established, all friends and enemys of new government all admit the independence. The new government can only admit it too. And the new government also said to the world, we don't need any land that doesn't belong to them. But the old and defeated government hold the island. the colonists held another island.

The colonists and defeated government killed, robed, raped the new government surpporter to stabilize the government in the two island after the new government established. All hatred get to the new government but not the crimers due to the crimers’ propaganda. Then some cheated people want to leave China. China still think they are part of china. it like a child at the youth rebellion. The parents love its children, and will not abadon them though they are rebellious.

Two big reasons:

1. Political Mission Completion. The PRC will have a sense of completion since the Taiwan issue is something leftover a little before the founding of the People’s Republic… it’s a legacy leftover from the last century. Whoever completes it gets a huge political boost for whatever agenda they have and a leaves a well known legacy for their political careers. Anything regarding history falls into this category, and yes, it is more complex and complicated than it sounds. You could say it’s more about symbolism, if you don’t want to think too hard on it.
2. Geopolitical strategic advantage. The island(s) of Taiwan offers greater reach into the Pacific. It removes many obstacles and creates leverage for the PRC on anyone who gets close stretching from Japan to the South Pacific. It breaks apart any foreign naval strategy against China. You could say, if the PRC gets Taiwan, it’s a de facto shield towards any foreign naval force. The missile and space capabilities of the PLA is already enough but with Taiwan being the “unsinkable” aircraft carrier and launch pad for ships, again goes back to my point about giving the PRC further reach and leverage.

You can agree or disagree.

Just stating my point.