• Heresy_generator@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    The news media needs to stop using the word “reunify” to refer to the PRC’s threatened imperial conquest of an island they’ve never controlled.

    • KISSmyOS@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The news media needs to report what is true and verifiable, without adding their own interpretation (except for labelled opinion pieces).
      In this case, the true and verifiable fact to report is what Xi told Biden. And without checking primary sources, I’m sure he used a word meaning “reunify”.

      • Heresy_generator@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        If they’re using a false term but quoting someone they should use quotes:

        Xi warned Biden during summit that Beijing will “reunify” Taiwan with China

        • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Iit should always be apparent there is editorialization happening tho. Kinda like [sic] -> that is obviously the author clarifying they are not misquoting or misspelling

        • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          What you’ve written is still editorialising. The way it’s written is also clear who was making the statement, Xi was. In the eyes of China it is reunifying, so no matter one’s opinion, it is their stated opinion, so seems weird to put “reunfiy” in quotations when the rest isn’t.

      • pan_troglodytes@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        report what is true and verifiable

        if they did that there wouldnt be much news, a lot fewer journalists, less jobs overall, and much less advertising revenue.

        never gonna happen

        • KISSmyOS@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          But it’s a good yardstick to measure the news you’re reading. Always ask yourself:
          “Are they reporting on something that happened? If yes, do they say who’s seen it happen?”

          Way too many “news stories” nowadays boil down to “some no-one posted something on X about something they haven’t themselves witnessed”.

    • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Yep, this word is used intentionally by Xi and he knows he means “conquer the nation developed by the people that escaped his predecessors”.

      • brambledog@lemmy.today
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        1 year ago

        The nation wasn’t developed by the people who escaped. That’s an ahistorical way of framing the issue

        Taiwan was developed by the overthrown proto-fascist military junta who just lost the civil war. After taking the island, they didn’t tell the people of Taiwan that the war had been over and they were no longer China until 1991. The first labor laws outlawing slavery were introduced to the people of Taiwan in 2006. The people of Taiwan still consider themselves China (it is afterall the name they go by, not Taiwan) and full Taiwanese independence is still a minority held belief on the actual island.

        Just to be clear, I am a supporter of their independence, but this is a very messy situation in which the political party who comrade the country is the same fascist party who lost the war in the first place and still maintains to the UN that they are the legitimate government of the mainland. Full separation is convenient for the West, but neither side actually wants that, they just don’t want to be ruled by either fascists or communists, and I think that is incredibly fair for all people actually involved to want.

        • Staccato@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          full Taiwanese independence is still a minority held belief on the actual island

          Excuse me wut

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      of an island they’ve never controlled.

      Oh boy this might get me downvoted. Saying the Communist Party never controlled it is a tautology. That’s what happens when there’s a civil war that turns into a stalemate: one side does not control the land of the other side. So of course the Communist side never controlled it. This is ducking the nuance of what the actual situation is, that there was a civil war that never ended.

      • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        Even before that Taiwan did not belong to the rest of China.

        There were some settlers from the main land, but the indigenous population always controlled most of the island and the Chinese settlers were careful not to antagonize them.

        This lasted for hundreds of years, pretty much until a brief period at the end of the 19th century when the Chinese government decided to send troops to brutally subjugate the indigenous population, only to shortly after lose control of Taiwan to the Japanese.

      • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        It’s a historical fact but how is it a tautology? Territory can change hands during a civil war as evidenced by the RoC no longer controlling China. Unless I’m misunderstanding something. Either way I don’t think that changes the point, if that’s a tautology then claiming that it can be reunified is a contradiction.

  • FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If they invade, won’t all the chip fabrication places just blow all their shit up and wipe systems? Pretty sure TSMC said that was the plan.

    Doesn’t seem like they’ll be able to capture a whole lot aside from land and that will come at a pretty steep cost I’d imagine.

    • Alivrah@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I heard about that too. The technology produced there is too valuable to be left to invaders.

    • BOMBS@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The chip thing is definitely an issue. However, even if they didn’t get any chip tech or factories, they still get the island. Militarily speaking, the situation is similar to Cuba and US during the Cold War. Taking control of the island will grant them more military security. Additionally, it will grant them control over the shipping lanes in the surroundings waters, which are heavily used for international trade.

      The US needs it for trade/their economy. China needs it to protect itself and gain more economic power. For these reasons, it makes sense for both China and the US to be heavily interested in controlling Taiwan. Personally, I really don’t see a likely solution to avoiding military conflict unless the powers of the two sides figure out how to resolve their antagonism, which I think is unlikely without a change in Chinese leadership.

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Militarily speaking, the situation is similar to Cuba and US during the Cold War. Taking control of the island will grant them more military security.

        I don’t really know if that makes a whole bunch of sense… The only country with the capabilities of attacking China is the US. The only real provocation that may spark that military conflict is an attack on Taiwan or South Korea.

        Taiwan isn’t even that advantageous of a location for an invasion either way, the strait of Formosa would be a death trap for any amphibious landing. The most militarily important region for China is and always has been the Korean peninsula.

        I think Chinas main motivation is that Taiwan disrupts their plans to completely control trade routes in the South China sea. Once the 9 dash line is under control and expanded to include the territorial waters of Taiwan, China will have a defacto monopoly on trade for most of eastern Asia.

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The land is most of what they want. Taiwan is militarily strategic land, it essentially blocks all access to the Pacific.

    • Endorkend@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Thing is, that would only bring them to parity for the current gen, which they would instantly fall behind on having to start everything up again and train or force people into running the modern nodes.

      These fabs (and pretty much ALL fabs) depend on tech to run their processes and make their chips, which isn’t made in Taiwan.

      If they do it for the silicon, they’ll also need to take a good chunk of West Europe.

      Would it set the West back a bit? Yes, but not all that much. There are non Eastern fabs up to date and the people in Taiwan trained to operate bulk fabs are probably on a shortlist for extraction targets too.

      • Cinner@lemmy.worldB
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        1 year ago

        They didn’t move them, they’re just building new fabrication plants here so we don’t have to depend on threatened foreign land for the production. https://pr.tsmc.com/english/news/2977

        Also SMIC (China’s chip manufacturer) is now also producing 7nm chips, even though they were sanctioned in 2020. That means they either had a breakthrough in the process or they obtained and were able to repair and operate/reverse engineer the incredibly complex TSMC fabs.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          7nm doesn’t need EUV, as things get smaller it doesn’t suddenly become impossible to do things with traditional lithography it just becomes harder and at some point incredibly uneconomical. They certainly ripped off the node from TSMC in some way (whether spionage or reverse-engineering), that is, the shape of the transistors and stuff but that doesn’t mean that they’re producing them in the same way.

        • VentraSqwal@links.dartboard.social
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          1 year ago

          Thank God they’re finally building some chip plants here. The fact that our whole economy depends on some foreign island next to a huge country that has always hustorically threatened to take it back is insane to me. Although I think we should have more manufacturing in the homeland in general. Thanks capitalism, for off shoring manufacturing for the last many decades -_-

          • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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            1 year ago

            TSMC is just the end of a long supply chain of one-of-a-kind suppliers, all conveniently aligned with the West. TSMC does not make the lithography machines, the Dutch ASML is the only company that does (though they have some plants in the US now I think). Even so, ASML would be dead in the water without Swiss Zeiss optics.

            The US’ strength was never autarky, but global trade. The reason the US economy is so resilient is because most US dollars are not in the US, but in reserves across the world. That means even the US currency is intertwined with global trade. If the US attempted autarky, it would collapse both the US and the world economy. That’s why Trump’s policies were beyond stupid by the way.

          • Rolder@reddthat.com
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            1 year ago

            It’s a pretty interesting story where Taiwan decided to invest enormously into chip production so they could use the economic benefits to shield themselves from China. Worked pretty well eh

      • Potatisen@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Except they have problems finding workers. 3rd world Americans aren’t cut out for the jobs it seems like.

        • TechAnon@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I think it’s mostly because it’s in Arizona… Not exactly the tech capital of the U.S…

          • LaLiLuLuCo@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            They wanted somewhere where land and labor was cheap and neglected to consider educated engineers and water are vital for a semiconductor fab to operate.

            It was a fucking stupid decision, and TSMC has been flying in Taiwanese engineers and workers in general to make up for the short comings.

    • _edge
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      1 year ago

      That’s a good threat if plausible.

      That’s probably not a good plan, however. What you gonna do after the blowing up the plant? Emigrate, maybe, but for those who’ll stay: Congratulations, you have just blown up your job, your life and any bargaining chip you ever had.

  • S3verin@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    “Reunify”. Just like Putin tries to reunify Ukraine with Russland… Strange how one is called Invasion and the other Reunifying

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      This is xi calling it reunification. It’s just your average land grab invasion based off “but 300 years ago we successfully conquered if and had it for almost a century so we have the right to conquer it again!”

      • hark@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        But if you’re israel and say GOD gave you that land thousands of years ago, then here’s $100+ billion in addition to the billions already given annually to you to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing.

  • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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    1 year ago

    “Re-unify” is dipshit-speak for invade, pillage and crush… for anyone wondering.

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Yeah but they actually both wanted it.

        Taiwan, judging from the enormous amounts of military material it has invested in, doesn’t really want to be friends with china, let alone be conquered by it

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            There is currently one China. It just goes by the name Taiwan. The CCP is as Chinese as my local takeout.

            • Filthmontane@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              You must be one of those people that can’t accept when civil wars are lost. I’m assuming you’re also waiting for the South to rise again.

              • SCB@lemmy.world
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                Yes Lost Causers are famously aware of world history. That must be it.

                • Filthmontane@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  If you’re aware of history, then how exactly is China not China? I must’ve missed a century somewhere

      • piecat@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        And Russia is trying reunification with Ukraine. What’s your point?

      • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Right, you’re saying that in hindsight.

        When a tyrannous dictator preaches reunification as a descriptor when outlining their future plans the context changes a bit. Hope that helps :)

        • Filthmontane@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That’s pure speculation on your part. Xi specifically stated the goal is peaceful reunification.

          • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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            1 year ago

            speculation

            Well when all the direct quotes I read don’t match the history I have to speculate on what XI really means.

            He said he wants to reunify Taiwan, he didn’t send me a PDF of his specific strategy.

            You’re speculating that it will be peaceful with the same logic.

            I still remember what was happening in Taiwan just a few days before COVID hit. Do you?

            • Filthmontane@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              The entire idea of reunification is that it is supported by the will of the people. I’m not speculating that it will be peaceful, I’m just pointing out what Xi said. You claiming that he’s lying is speculation.

              • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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                1 year ago

                You claiming I’m speculating is also speculation. Take your semantic garbage and share it with someone who can respect your thoughts.

                • Filthmontane@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Your speculating that I’m speculating is also speculation! You are the one whomst engages in frantic semantic antics!

                  Don’t be mad cuz you’re wrong. Xi Jinping stated that he has plans to peacefully reunify Taiwan and China. How you want to interpret that is up to you, but the media wants you to interpret “peaceful reunification” as “violent invasion.” If you want to believe that, that’s on you.

                  I think China is more than capable of reunification of Taiwan peacefully and invading would be a real dumb idea. Also, according to their own news, only 48.9% of the Taiwanese people support national Independence. So there’s definitely a possibility of China winning the people over.

                  https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/09/02/2003805648

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            If you believe that then I have a bridge I’d like to sell you. In fact it’s 2 for 1, but only if you buy by midnight!

          • dvoraqs@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Did they say how? Peace would be preferred, but the Taiwanese need to be willing to cooperate.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    A. Xi said they would prefer to do it peacefully.

    B. Autocratic regimes routinely define “peacefully” as a coup or overnight invasion.

    C. Xi specifically set an atmosphere of strategic uncertainty by saying a time “hadn’t been decided”.

    That tells me they’ve given up on winning elections in Taiwan. If they’re scheduling it then it’s not on Taiwan’s election schedule. Ergo, definitely not peacefully in democratic terms.

    Well it will be interesting at least.

  • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Someone said after Russia’s military was shown to be a farce, that if they were China they’d be shitting their pants and immediately launch an investigation into how good their military actually is.

    • Endorkend@kbin.social
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      China has the advantage of actually having enough people to do the meat for the grinder approach though.

        • ares35@kbin.social
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          eventually the bodies will pile-up enough that the next batch can just walk over.

              • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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                It would take around 400 million bodies to fill in a one metre wide corridor across the strait based on some napkin math. So yeah I guess it’s actually possible technically

      • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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        China’s big problem is what they offer internationally is cheap labor and they’re going through a population collapse now, like other countries that ascend economically, people have fewer kids and younger workers want better salaries and conditions, (understandably so!) This combined with the US’s trade war with them has caused international companies to move a lot of production to other impoverished nations like Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Mexico, among others instead of to China. China’s economic miracle was because of this large pool of population that is vanishing. Sacrificing soldiers of reproductive age would accelerate this problem.

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
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        Chinese central command wouldn’t have the power to push such an approach, their army has a very decentralised structure due to its partisan roots.

  • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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    It’s wild how they’re still obsessed with Taiwan, despite CCP being recognized as China for many decades now. I wonder how much of this is elderly people who still consider the civil war unfinished and how much is strategic. It seems like invading would not be in China’s interest. Perhaps they want to do it before their demographic population collapse occurs.

    • hddsx@lemmy.ca
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      It’s a Chinese thing. PRC and ROC (officially) both see “China” as including the “province” of Taiwan.

      Part of it is brainwashing on the PRC side - they are taught from elementary school that Taiwan is a part of China. Part of it is ROC stubborness. It’s even a political issue within Taiwan. While the younger generation generally sees Taiwan as an independent country, the KMT and the older generation refuses to let go of mainland China.

      Chinese culture also has the famous line that translates roughly to “after having been united for a while, it must split. After having been split for a while, it must unite” that refers to China in general. Taiwan, HK, and “China” have been split for a bit and the PRC wants to see it reunited.

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      It’s that “saving face” stuff which makes you lose even more face by looking silly.

  • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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    China is hostage state that nurtures Stockholm Syndrome in it’s population (similar to DPRK and others). You can only “leave” if it’s deemed useful and safe for China (i.e. you have Stockholm Syndrome strongly enough). And those that leave are still under control, i.e. their (edited) behavior can be coerced by using carrot and stick methods on their family and loved ones.

    • Illiterate Domine@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      It could happen. In China, among many other places, same-sex hand holding isn’t uncommon among friends and doesn’t indicate a romantic attachment. I dont imagine Biden and Xi have that kind of relationship, though.

  • O_i@lemmy.world
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    I thought I read like 3 weeks ago they had no interest anytime soon