Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "Taiwan raises altert level after Ukraine invasion | DW News" video.

@sushilover1356 It's not just the wages. Taiwan has developed a population with more expertise in the area then any other in the world. Yes, other countries can start producing these chips. But it would take years to educate a workforce with the specific knowledge required to take over Taiwans role in the world. No, we in the west have to defend Taiwan, at least for another generation.
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@andrewdempsey6257 No, but they operate the machines, and you can't get some random guy of the streets to do that job. They need to know what they're doing. And that requires a education that's expensive in countries like the US. In Europe the education might be cheap (state funded), but it still takes time to get people with the right education educated. Not to mention that it takes time to get people educated enough to educate others in the field. And it takes time to get enough people within the field in one area for them to start feeding of each other and really get the creativity that you can get from a economy specializing in something. And to get all of the suppliers in place and for those to get the education they need etc. It all adds up. Taiwan can't easily be replaced.
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@rurutuM There's also the expertise, Taiwan got a critical mass of specialists in the field, I don't believe anywhere else really does...
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@mikatu It's harder to help Taiwan. Ukraine has a land border with the west, that gives us other options. Defending Taiwan would involve actively opposing China, a country that does have nukes and anti-ship missiles that can make military operations against them extremely dangerous, and they're also extremely tightly connected to our economy, so that would also hurt us a lot. It's kind of a dilemma for us.
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@himawari651 Honestly at this point most of the west actually wants Japan to change the constitution... We're going to need their help if we're to oppose China. We will without a doubt help defend South Korea or Japan against China. Supply lines, population sizes, long term diplomatic relations etc all points in that direction. With Taiwan it's more difficult. You'd have to get a consensus for intervening despite the nuclear threat and no formal commitment to help Taiwan from most of the western countries. It can be done, but would be difficult.
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@a5cent Exactly. Europe and the US has a lot of knowledge about the chip design phase of semiconductor production. My home city in Norway is involved in producing the designs for the iGPUs used in stock ARM SOC designs. And we can produce some prototypes in small quantity here just fine. But producing chips at scale is something that Taiwan has specialized in. And only South Korea even gets close to them there.
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@themicoism It's more complicated then that. They're nuclear powers. Russia and China that is. If we only had to deal with conventional wars then NATO would easily defeat either Russia or China and would probably come off ahead against both at the same time. But when you add nukes into the picture you have to decide if some millions dying in one limited war is better or worse then literally billions suffering and dying in a world war. I'm not sure where there was more casualties in total (military + civilian all nations etc)during WW2, Europe or Asia. But I'm fairly sure that as a percentage of our total population it was higher here even if it might not have been higher in absolute terms. As a result we're rather reluctant to take part in another world war here in Europe. The US might be more willing, but against China or Russia they still need Europe on board.
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@Shooketh92 I know about those machines. But how to operate them is actually an art form too. Knowing how to build a tool doesn't mean that you know how to use it. The following might be a crude example but: Making a hammer doesn't make you a carpenter. Anyway, I'm not saying that we don't have people capable of making semiconductors in Europe, but producing them at scale with high yields is a totally different matter.
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@Femboy-Fantasia True, there's many considerations. And I honestly don't know where we'll land... I'm just glad I'll never be the one to decide that.
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