Why Does China Need Taiwan?

China may not need to invade Taiwan if they can beat the west to a new technology. They are in a rush to build a photon semiconductor chip assembly line. PSC chips are amazing. Instead of electricity that passes through the chip via open and closing transistors, they use light, which is cheaper to make and doesn’t heat up. If they can build this first in quantity, they will force the prices of semiconductors down and start pulling the majority of contracts from the NATO. Both the East and west are focusing on this right now and not war with China because the west’s bluff didn’t work.

Taiwan produces 50% of all CPU’s worldwide. And since chips are now placed in light bulbs, the demand is high and the largest manufacturers can’t keep up. Covid put a huge strain (pun intended) on America’s infrastructure as the cost per Covid per US citizens versus the Chinese was over 3,000%. One could make the argument that Covid helped China become the world’s number one economy soon. And don’t forget they got the approval of the United Nations right before Trump got into office to be the world economic superpower. I can’t find that article at all but I remember it.

Photon Semiconductors vs. Electricity Semiconductors

Electricity Semiconductors

Basis: Utilize the movement of electrons (electricity) to process information and perform computations.
Material: Typically made from silicon or germanium.
Operation: Rely on the control of electron flow through transistors to manipulate data.
Speed: Limited by the speed of electron movement.
Energy Consumption: Prone to heat generation due to electron collisions.

Photon Semiconductors (Photonic Semiconductors)

Basis: Utilize light particles (photons) to process information and perform computations.
Material: Can be various materials, including silicon, but often involve specialized materials for light manipulation.
Operation: Control the flow of light through optical components to manipulate data.
Speed: Significantly faster than electricity semiconductors due to the higher speed of light.
Energy Consumption: Potentially more energy-efficient as light carries information without generating as much heat.

Key Differences

Carrier: Electrons vs. photons
Speed: Electricity semiconductors are slower than photon semiconductors.
Energy efficiency: Photon semiconductors have the potential for higher energy efficiency.

In essence, the primary difference lies in the type of particle used to carry information. Electricity semiconductors use electrons, while photon semiconductors use light particles (photons). This fundamental difference leads to significant variations in speed, energy efficiency, and potential applications.

Photonic semiconductors are a promising area of research as they offer the potential for faster, more energy-efficient computing and communication technologies. However, they are still in their early stages of development compared to electricity semiconductors.

At the end of June, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) marked a technological milestone by launching its first pilot production line for photonic microchips. US sanctions, war threats and blackmail failed. Photonic chips are already in use today in advanced fiber-optic communication systems, and they are being developed for implementation in a broad spectrum of near-future technologies, including light detection and ranging, or LiDAR, for autonomous vehicles; light-based sensors for medical devices; 5G and 6G.

Just so my audience understands hardware and software. It’s important to note that a computer processor chip functions as an on and off switch. A transistor is the mediator between on and off. It is responsible for the switch. 1’s and 0’s. You’ve heard of this right? Code right? 1 represents closed and 0 open. Open and close. 0 and 1. It’s just an on and off switch. Hardware is software but compressed into a microchip that allows many transistors. Millions to billions. The first transistor was made in 1947 by Bell Labs by William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. Its use was for the telephone for American Telephone and Telegraph or AT&T. An electric telephone that can compress data and decompress data from one end to the other. Sending voice and data faster than just using a copper wire. Software is like transistors but 2 dimensional. It sends commands or calculations through the computer processor to solve equations. The more open and close valves the faster you get an answer. About a century before Konrad Zuse designed the first programmable computing machine, in the 1840s, Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer programme in the world. Konrad Zuse created what is considered the first programming language for computers in the early 1940s. It was called Plankalkul, and it could store codes, enabling engineers to carry out routine, repetitive tasks far more efficiently and quickly.

Before code, transistors were placed on a board to switch things on and off using electricity. For example, in a house, you have 4 rooms with light bulbs. In order to have the ability to turn them on and off, the transistor opens and closes the electricity gate. A conductor is the board that waits for your signal to turn the light on. The more transistors, the more things you can do. If you want the light to go off without you physically touching the switch, you create transistors that act like a clock. Each one turns on every second to count until the desired effect of turning off the light after you programmed the transistors to function. In this case you would need a transistor for seconds at 360 transistors and minutes at 60 and hours at 1. The board on the wall with all these switches start to fill up just to make a counting device. By the time the transistors go on and off through 421 transistors, the light shuts off in your room. We just built the first clock transistor for time and a programmable off switch for the room.

Transistors use electricity that passes through the gate or wires. Open and close the current is what a transistor does. A CPU or computer processor acts a mini board of transistors. Code is fed into the billions of transistors on that chip to do a task. The more transistors, the more complex things you can do. The smaller the chip, the harder it is to get electrical current through. A photon is a type of elementary particle which acts as a carrier of energy, but the electron is a subatomic particle which occurs in all the atoms. A photon has no mass. So there is huge potential to turn on and off light versus energy. This means the cpu never gets hot from processing million of commands and it takes less energy. And China just built the first assembly line of them. This means they are the first to mass produce them and that just cut NVIDIA out of the picture for a few years until they can catch up. But NVIDIA has all assembly lines of antiquated technology which is expensive to switch out. They would need to replace all lines and that would cost billions.

Taiwan is an island 100 miles outside of China. The island was annexed in 1683 by the Qing dynasty of China and ceded to the Empire of Japan in 1895. Taiwan appears to be its own nation with a relationship that favors the US. Some Western experts predict that Taiwan could at best aim to slow a Chinese attack, try to prevent a shore landing by amphibious forces, and mount guerrilla strikes while waiting for outside help.

And that help could come from the US.

But for decades Washington has walked a diplomatic tightrope between Beijing and Taipei – and has been deliberately unclear about whether or how it would defend Taiwan in the event of an attack.

US-China ties have, however, soured in recent years. And Beijing often accuses the US of reneging on its “One-China” policy, which recognises only one Chinese government, in Beijing. But Washington denies this, saying the status quo has not changed.

Taiwan’s economy is another factor. Much of the world’s electronics – from phones to electric cars – are powered by computer chips made in Taiwan. By one measure, a single Taiwanese company – the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company or TSMC – has over half of the world’s market.

So if China takes the island, it could be freer to project power in the western Pacific and rival the US. Beijing would also have control over an industry that drive the global economy.

The US needs Taiwan for political pressure. Congress enacted the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for FY 2003 on September 30, 2002, it required that Taiwan be “treated as though it were designated a major non-NATO ally.

There are several reasons why China might want to invade Taiwan:

Unification: China considers Taiwan to be a breakaway province and believes it has the right to reunify the country, even by force if necessary.
Geopolitical Strategy: Taiwan is strategically located in the Taiwan Strait, a vital shipping lane for global trade.Controlling Taiwan would give China greater influence over this critical waterway.
Nationalism: There is a strong sense of nationalism in China, and many people believe that Taiwan rightfully belongs to the mainland.
Economic Interests: Taiwan is a major semiconductor producer, and controlling the island would give China access to this crucial technology.
Military Power Projection: An invasion of Taiwan would demonstrate China’s military strength and its ability to project power in the region.

Several factors deter China from invading Taiwan:

Military Considerations:

Taiwan’s Defenses: Taiwan has significantly invested in its military, including advanced weaponry and a well-trained military force. An invasion would not be a guaranteed victory.
US Involvement: The United States has a longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity towards Taiwan, meaning it doesn’t explicitly promise military intervention but suggests it’s a possibility. This serves as a deterrent.
Logistical Challenges: An invasion would be a massive logistical undertaking, requiring the transportation of hundreds of thousands of troops and equipment across the Taiwan Strait.

Economic Implications:

Global Economic Impact: A conflict in the Taiwan Strait could disrupt global supply chains, particularly in the semiconductor industry where Taiwan is a dominant player. This would have severe economic consequences for China and the world.
Domestic Unrest: Economic hardship resulting from a conflict could lead to domestic unrest in China.

International Relations:

Global Condemnation: An invasion would likely lead to widespread international condemnation and isolation of China.
Regional Instability: A conflict could escalate and involve other regional powers, leading to a wider war.

China’s Semiconductor Dependency and Taiwan

That’s a complex issue.

While it’s true that Taiwan is a global leader in semiconductor manufacturing, particularly in advanced chips, it’s not the only source for these components. China has been making significant investments in its domestic semiconductor industry to reduce its reliance on foreign suppliers, including Taiwan.

However, there are a few key points to consider:

Timeframe: Building a robust domestic semiconductor industry capable of producing the most advanced chips takes substantial time and investment.
Technological Gap: There’s still a significant technological gap between China and Taiwan in terms of advanced chip manufacturing processes.
Dependency on Foreign Equipment: Even if China can develop the technology, it heavily relies on foreign equipment for the chip manufacturing process, many of which come from US companies.
Geopolitical Factors: The broader geopolitical tensions between China and the US, as well as other countries,could hinder China’s efforts to become self-sufficient in semiconductor manufacturing.

Therefore, while reducing dependence on Taiwan-made chips is a strategic goal for China, it’s unlikely to completely eliminate the need for external supply, at least in the near future. This, coupled with other factors mentioned earlier, continues to make Taiwan a strategic asset for China.

Due to an inability to acquire the most cutting-edge chip production equipment, China is still two or three generations behind chipmakers in Taiwan, Korea, and the United States in producing leading-edge logic chips. But this could change. To avoid war, China could be quietly mass producing these and make an announcement cutting out NVIDIA and their dominance. This would make more sense to me because our own military a few years ago asked Congress for 2 trillion for war with China and got 1.2 trillion. It’s obvious that China is a threat to US dominance and are hell bent on removing China from the game. But they have a huge problem. The economy would collapse if war and render the whole point useless. China knows this and are trying to gain patents in AI, which they own more than the west.

Sources

Illuminating the Future: Developments in PRC Photonic Chip Production – Jamestown

Team develops a laser printer for photonic chips

A Timeline of Programming Languages

China and Taiwan: A really simple guide – BBC News

China by numbers: 10 facts to help you understand the superpower today | World Economic Forum

China’s Approach to Global Governance | Council on Foreign Relations

Blockade of Taiwan by China could cost world economy over $2 trillion, report finds | Fox Business

US Congress advances $1.2 trillion spending package to avert shutdown | Reuters