Ask Lemmy

China considers taiwan a part of its country. If china is able to capture and integrate taiwan into it then it will show that china has become a superpower. If china can capture taiwan then it will show USA and west that china is not a paper tiger.

The giant American military base next to China falls.

Also Taiwan claims to be part of China. And America claims Taiwan is part of China.

The premise of your question is all wrong. It centers western control of Taiwan as a natural status quo, and so paints every challenge of that control as a provocation or threat.

Advocating for Taiwan’s sovereignty is not the same as advocating for Taiwan’s continued fealty to the west.

One argument against democracy in China is that it is incompatible with Chinese culture.

Looking at Taiwan having a very successful democracy with Chinese culture is problematic for the Chinese Communist Party for that reason.

Taiwan is a single point of failure for chip manufacturing in the world I don't think annexation would destroy all the chip fabs I think they would still exist and they would be Chinese

Honestly, it's really mainly historical clout.

Failing to conquer Taiwan was seen as the one thing Mao failed to do, and a strong leader managing it could make a claim to have surpassed Mao as great leaders of China.

The PRC is a massive fan of historical determinism and narrative might. Reunification would be a massive win for the pride and honour of the leader who did it. It's also a big thing for the average PRC citizen, they don't want war - but have had a lifetime of propaganda about it and are (somewhat rightly) worried about US aggression.

From China's geopolitical standpoint:

Taiwan lies between China and the Pacific Ocean.

Taiwan is part of the First Island Chain (which includes Japan, Taiwan, Philippines) — many of these are U.S.-aligned or host U.S. bases.

Control over Taiwan would:

Give China greater military and surveillance reach into the Pacific.

Potentially allow it to break out of U.S.-aligned containment.

Give it more control over critical sea lanes and access to deeper waters (vital for its navy).

Evil, Scary China Refuses To Passively Let Us Encircle It: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix – Caitlin Johnstone

That's a pretty good article explaining it. The funny thing is that the US media is always framing China as the aggressor. But one look at that map, like with your real eyes, not the crazy eyes, should show you the US is way out there on someone else's doorstep and who the aggressor is. That's just geography.

Personally I don't think China is going to invade Taiwan unless things escalate further. For example, the Russian perspective on the Ukraine is that the US supported the regime change through the NED, helped far right elements overthrow the democratically elected regime and then supported their stance to ban Russian language, oppress Russian speaking populations in Ukraine and supplied them with massive amounts of arms and intelligence. All of this is true historical fact. And in that situation even the chief of NATO Stoltenberg publicly said that Russia launched a "preemptive war" in response to this quasi-NATO membership right on their doorstep. If the US does the same with Taiwan, China might invade. That particular gabit is rather unlikely to succeed in Taiwan though, and Taiwan is far less dangerous to China than a hostile well supplied Ukraine is to Russia (only like 500 miles from Moskow). The smart play for China if that happens is to play rope-a-dope until the US gets tired. Kinda what Iran is doing about the numerous provocations and acts of war against them.

However, China has since grown significantly, and Taiwan no longer claims to be the government of mainland China, so that reason goes away.

The thing that we call "Taiwan" is an island, not a country, the country is "Republic of China" (ROC). We call it mostly Taiwan, because there is the People's Republic of China (PRC) which is the mainland China. So you still have 2 countries, next to each other, both claiming to have the name "China".

You claim the name, you claim the country.

In 100 years, long after the United States has broken into Baltic states, there will be a reunification movement and people will ask "why do they want to invade Texas?". There will be politicians who's whole political careers will be built on the promise they can make the United States one country again. Understand this and you will understand China and Taiwan.

It's a staging area for the US that's very close to China, so there's that reason strategically. But really, there's not a lot of reason to which is why they haven't done so already. China is, as far as I'm aware, perfectly happy with the traditional US approach towards Taiwan, a policy of "strategic ambiguity" that doesn't officially recognize Taiwan as independent (while informally supporting them) and which has kept the peace for many decades. China does not gain much from provoking a military confrontation with the US, as things stand, China is winning the peace through economic development while the US is going all in on the military. By maintaining the status quo, China can leave the issue open and kick the can down the road, maintaining the possibility that someday in the future they may be in a strong enough position to press the issue.

Even still, China now has its own academia and engineering, and is larger than Taiwan. Hence, even without the corporate espionage mainland China is known for, wouldn’t investing in their burgeoning semiconductor industry make more sense, rather than spending that money on war?

That's exactly what they've been doing. That article mentions that they've actually recruited 3000 engineers from Taiwan's chip industry to help develop their own chips.

Yet while taking Taiwan would mean access to deep-water ports, it’s not as though Taiwan would ever pose a threat to Chinese power projection—their stance is wholly defensive. If China decided to pull an “America” and send a carrier to the Middle East or something, no one would stop them and risk a war.

Taiwan's stance is defensive, but the same isn't necessarily true of the US, which operates in Taiwan. The US has recently started throwing around rhetoric and shifting spending focuses towards treating a hot war with China as a serious possibility, insane as it may be. This is (hopefully) just bluster to justify defense spending, but I'm not at all convinced that if China sent a carrier to the Middle East, the US would not retaliate. If anything, they're looking for a reason.