Chinese man crosses Taiwan Strait in rubber dinghy

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Originally published at: Chinese man crosses Taiwan Strait in rubber dinghy | Boing Boing

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Zhou was spotted off of China’s eastern coast late on April 30 after crossing the nearly-50-mile span from Fujian province.

That’s one hell of a spotter.

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if Taiwan is taken by China, I think the consequences will be global.

He might LIKE to think that, but even if there are heavy sanctions, China will be in control of Taiwan, and the Taiwanese will be sacrificed (just like the Uighers) as the rest of the world says “meh, China, again”.

Be in no doubt. China has live Taiwan invasion plans that are, no doubt, in a constant state of revision. One day a Chinese leader will say “go”. Not even a lunatic US President (like the last one) would go to war over it.

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I’m not so sure, and I’m not so sure what I would even want to have happen in that circumstance.

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Yep. And when we catch wind of them, we park some warships over there. It’s an ongoing game of chess.

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Hah, back in the Korean War, there were like… 14000 Chinese POWs that prefer to go to Taiwan instead. Also, there were many defectors that flew their planes to Taiwan during the 70’s and 80’s. A guy who flew a MiG-21 to South Korea eventually got to Taiwan and got a LOT of gold as his reward. China had to install security shutoff devices to prevent defections.

But a civilian coming over? Not worth anything.

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And one day they WILL call your bluff. Your warships will look on as it happens.

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I wonder how much of the world’s semiconductor manufacturing is in Taiwan - TSMC etc? Google says >60%. That’s astounding. It would be the start of a global war for sure. Bad business for China and Taiwan.

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Not sure if is still accurate but a dozen or so years ago the biggest single investor in China was Taiwan. Also yeah most of the worlds chips are made in Taiwan and they do high end stuff so the loss of that would have a dramatic effect globally. They should at least look at diversifying their production bases.

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Yep. Not with US big biz being able to buy a shipping container’s worth of China-made goods for $ then selling it here for $$$$. The God of Wall Street rules.

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You forget the thing that China has also forgotten.

There’s always a new lower down on the place to go. Vietnam, Somalia, Palestine… there is always someplace where there are a lot of desperate people willing to work for peanuts in order to fuel our cheap plastic desires. When they get more wealth and start working their way up the ladder, they will become too expensive, then it’s on to the next. Just make sure to invest in infrastructure during that bootup period so you can get some international trade maintained, or else it will be your turn again 20 years from now.

The chip foundries in Taiwan, on the other hand, are too expensive to loose access to. They might be defended. On the other hand, they are building chip foundries in the USA…

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