I agree it might be a tempting move. I am not certain that this represent the best time to move on Taiwan, for the following reasons,
1. While China should have no problems militarily taking back Taiwan, it would have to pay a price. Sanctions are still possible at this point. There will be a concerted effort to move some of the chips from TSMC to Samsung. A few years down the road, when TSMC annihilates Samsung at the advanced nodes, there would not be a way for Samsung to catch up (all the fab money would have gone to TSMC to 2nm or even blow). In addition, the sanctions would mean even less 5-10 years from now, when China will have 130% economy as the U.S. and no country in their right mind will try to sanction the largest economy in the world.
2. Once the Chinese military surpassed or at least approach the U.S., China can then initiate a series of moves to demonstrate that the U.S. is not coming to the rescue. This would cause Taiwan to surrender without a fight if they feel a fight is imminent. If they go with this strategy, it could take months to playout, with a blockade as the opening shot. This would only be possible once they have a few carrier groups to go toe to toe with the U.S.
3. As their economy surpassed that of the U.S., China can initiate an arms race with the U.S., with Taiwan as a hostage. If the U.S. abandons Taiwan, it could lose other allies like South Korea.
4. At some point, the U.S., may offer to cash in Taiwan for some monetary benefits. It would be much cheaper if China can make a deal with the U.S. on Taiwan.
They can take back Taiwan anytime they want, but 5-10 years from now works better for them.
Sanctions will happen, but right now the west simply cannot survive without Chinese industrial output due to Covid shutting down their own economies, and they will need Chinese industrial might to mass produce any vaccine (India biomedical capacity is rather meaningless since it is lacking core key steps and ingredients that they simply cannot hope to make enough volume of to make much use of their existing production capacity without Chinese inputs). As such, any sanctions in the next year or so will be primarily symbolic with minimal teeth.
As HK and Australia have demonstrated to Beijing in no uncertain terms, western brainwashing is powerful enough to counter Chinese economic pull.
Looking at the rabid anti-China hate on display in HK, and the ensuing economic suicide bomb just to hurt China, you have to be the biggest optimist in the world to still think economic inducements would ever be enough to get Taiwan to reunite peacefully.
And as covid19 has proven in the starkest terms, you cannot bank on the good times lasting forever.
Had China actually screwed up its response to Covid and it turned out to actually be China’s Chernobyl event, as the west wet dreamed, Taiwan would have seized that opportunity to declare formal independence while China was weak and in internal chaos with the full backing of the US military.
Taiwan is a dagger forever pressed to China’s throat by the US. Basically America can go to war with China any time it wants while having enough political cover to blame the war on China by simply telling Taiwan to declare independence behind closed doors. The traitors in power in Taiwan will never pass up such an opportunity, and China will have no choice but to invade and America can have its war and pass itself off as the good guy even though they started it all.
As things stand, China and the US are now in direct competition and a new Cold War, that will not change now until one side wins this new Cold War. Trump has stripped away the economic safety net that was previously in place, which offered China a reasonable degree of assurance that America will not actively seek to start a war this way because of the enormous economic pain it would cause America. Thanks to Trump, America has already taken much of that pain, so there is less for them to loose to start a war.
This means that China cannot afford even a moment of weakness, until it wins this cold war, which in itself is by no means guaranteed. In addition, it is now entirely possible that the US might choose to play the Taiwan card and start a war soon, if it looks like they are loosing the new Cold War and that their existing military and economic lead over China is eroding by the day. That’s a lot of pressure and risk to endure for potentially decades to come.
