Donbas is mostly wheat fields, Taiwan is mostly SOTA semiconductor fabs that currently are the sole pillar holding up the AI (and compute in general) zeitgeist.
The global response would not be the same, even remotely. And what would China get from it? A tiny island of rubble and an ego boost, while losing enormous global favor? The cost of that island may well be a few trillion for China, just so they can say they defeated the nationalists.
I think you need to define what global means. Does it mean the global media opinion of the "major" media news outlets? Yes. Does it mean the world's global population of 8 billion? No. Most of these 8Bn don't know what TSMC is, don't understand the Taiwan issue, don't care and could live happier without AI.
The semiconductors are propping up the AI zietgeist in the US, but is that true globally? Why would Canada/Brazil/Europe care about Taiwan? China will still sell them the chips.
The only one who would really care is the US. So by taking Taiwan, China blows up the US stock market and takes control of the chips.
Every country on Earth benefits from the chips that come from Taiwan, and not just the governments, the people using pretty much anything that does computation. That includes China.
Yes I am aware. Which means that if China takes over political control of Taiwan and says, "We will still sell chips just like normal to everyone except the US".
Would the rest of the world decide to go to war with China for the political freedom of Taiwan?
While I do know this is the plan in the event of an invasion, I don't know what to expect in the event of a blockade.
"Let the food and oil in or we will burn to the ground the only bargaining chip we have"… I just don't know how to model how credible a threat this is to either party.
China is playing the long game. They can go spend a trillion bucks and hire/steal the tech and they could destroy Taiwan's competitive advantage, and they could just economically crush them.
China has a far larger military advantage over Taiwan than Russia had over Ukraine. The sea is a barrier, but that cuts both ways as it means China can blockade Taiwan.
... which nevertheless are very important worldwide. Early in the war, there was a lot of effort to make sure grain exports could run smoothly because otherwise Africa would have been in serious trouble.
> The global response would not be the same, even remotely.
We're already at a stage where Trump doesn't give a single fuck about NATO and some of his advisors would rather have it disbanded yesterday in favor of isolationism, or even outright march into territory to annex it. I have absolutely zero faith that Trump would intervene on Taiwan's favor - an intervention does not fit into Trump's and especially Miller's world view wherein the world is to be divided into areas of influence for the super powers to act with impunity.
> And what would China get from it? A tiny island of rubble and an ego boost, while losing enormous global favor?
Never underestimate nationalist idiocy. Putin invaded Ukraine because of his dream to restore "Great Russia", it is entirely possible that the CCP wants the same for the ego of their leadership to be the ones "bringing the lost areas home". They already did so with Hongkong, and not reacting to China violating the treaty with the UK was the biggest mistake the Western nations have ever done.
The global response would not be the same, even remotely. And what would China get from it? A tiny island of rubble and an ego boost, while losing enormous global favor? The cost of that island may well be a few trillion for China, just so they can say they defeated the nationalists.