What would be the impact of a Chinese attack on Taiwan?

"The impact of a conflict around Taiwan would be more damaging for the world economy than what we've seen in Ukraine."

Foreign correspondent Ian Williams says that Taiwan is a "linchpin in the global high tech economy," producing 90% of top end semiconductors.

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[DavidGetling]

China does an incredible amount of business with the West. An attack on Taiwan would provoke massive sanctions, which would have a devastating effect on its economy.

[MROJPC]

The big elephant in the room and China’s achilles heel: China’s dependence on energy imports. It is dependent on over 70% of oil consumption and tethered to the world’s longest and most vulnerable supply chain. The Chinese economy is run on over 10 million barrels a day and Russia and other vassal states only have the capacity to feed a fraction of that consumption (I’m not even going to get into the infrastructure time bomb the exodus of western tech expertise has left in the Russian energy industry) . To protect that overextended supply chain the Chinese navy is only just developing its blue water capabilities and has no experience extending itself as an expeditionary force.

Meanwhile the United States still has the most powerful sea and air forces in the world, the Japanese have the 3d strongest navy in Asia behind US and China. Great Britain is no weakling when it comes to sea strength.

China MUST 100% successfully complete an invasion of Taiwan on week 1 (not a sure bet by any means, I would not put my mortgage down on it) and then it has to gird itself for the real struggle because on day 1 of the war the US and allied partners will seal off the straits of hormuz (the fleet is already there) and launch fleets to blockade the malacca strait.

China can TRY to take Taiwan and they will choke trying to swallow the island.

[billb]

6:39 To sharpen this point: Taiwan's TSMC currently has the most technically sophisticated chip manufacturing facilities in the world. The importance cannot be over-emphasized.
Part of the problem with Taiwan is that they never declared independence at the end of the Chinese Civil War.

While Ukraine is a member of the UN, Taiwan never has been. (ROC held the "China" seat at the UN for a few years, but that reverted to the PRC, leaving Taiwan without a seat).

These two factors create a problem for the global community. It is difficult for any country to "support Taiwan independence" when Taiwan itself has made no such declaration.

One very likely impact of a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be for Taiwan to declare their independence. That would then give the international community reason to support them.

The trouble is that international response to such a declaration will take time. If China were to invade, then they would most likely attempt to use overwhelming force; and to do so rapidly enough that allies would not have time to react.

Using Ukraine as a benchmark, it took three months before the USA began to give Ukraine truly serious support, beyond the initial shoulder-fired weapons and a few backpack drones.

So... can Taiwan hold off an attack for three months?

[krakhedd]

Russia has always had Ukraine in their minds too, that is not a dissimilarity but rather another analogous point

[Supercow-vbsc]

I think we could not solely think missiles or weapon means war, sometimes, politician are more dangerous than the weapons.

[ak]

Aren't the military exerices hepful to west, showing their plans and capacities?

[jamesfortune]

Ukraine had eight years to prepare. Taiwan has had decades to prepare.

[ak]

What's with the "diversity" buzzword for Taiwain? It's Chinese. It's not "diverse" and besides, who cares?

[thinvoshao]

Taiwan is officially the Republic of China (ROC). They are Chinese.
The ROC was a founding member of the League of Nations and later the United Nations (including its Security Council seat) where it maintained until 1971 when the People's Republic of China took over its membership (United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758) .

[pit]

Any need to repeat the same thing 3 times

[thomasjamison]

What would be the impact of a Chinese attack on Taiwan? Probably lots of Communist Chinese military bodies washing up on beaches all around the Pacific for months to come. If the Communist government falls, the government of Taiwan still has a claim, however tenuous, to being the government of the mainland. Tenuous indeed, but other very remote possibilities have happened in Chinese history.

[phil_]

It's jhee not she, if Jackie Chan is saying it right, and he's chinese.

[bleachcoughdrops]

China has 1.4 billion people how can you make it costly ? Even if a million people died that’s barely 1.0%

[scottkrater]

Xi is not Mao, Communist China is not North Korea. Even Xi can be removed from power by his political rivals in the Communist party. Wouldn't be the first Communist dictator to suffer that fate

[vivianbond]

The question is if there is a war who else will be called in to help to ???

[willjennings]

Communism and Inflation are euphemisms for the same thing: Human Vampires; that would have to hit the conspiracy reading, at least.

[Brick]

There will be nuclear weapons used in various parts of the world!!!

[robertwilliams]

Who is this fool? 99% of the world says Taiwan is Chinese territory.

[ABCXYZ-jkme]

Enemy's elves are in control until Second Coming.
Meanwhile, Born-again are Raptured. Hope This Year.

[allencameron]

Why do people think we are obliged to shed our blood and treasure for nations thousands of miles away?