Genuinely Worried About Taiwan, a Tech Powerhouse That Gave Us EEE PC
Taiwan is one of these precarious places that can be invaded any day; there would not be any signs or notice given in advance (for strategic reasons). As I sometimes tell people, it's probably going to happen, but we just don't know when. It can happen tomorrow or in one hour.
Regardless of whether one believes it would be an invasion or China merely reasserting its control in defiance of the West, Taiwan is a highly developed country and collectively calling Taiwanese people "Chinese" is like calling Canadians "Americans" or "European" when seeking to justify a US invasion of Canada. Recently, around Alaska and around the North Pole, Canada and the US jointly staved off alleged airspace violations by both Russia and China (jointly also).
Taiwan is a beautiful island that maintains some of its nature reserves (the photos here are all from Taiwan) and its manufacturing industries, not just "R & D" are some of the world's best - up there with South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Taiwan is an avid adopter of GNU/Linux and home of the EEE PC, the first netbook of its kind, which also shipped GNU/Linux by default (out of the box).
It seems increasingly probable that, just as we constantly receive updates from the Ukraine war, there will be some sort of flow of news regarding conflict in Taiwan. We just don't know when. It seems the only alternative to that is Taiwan "surrendering" or not putting up any resistance whatsoever, which isn't the same as "peace".
A lot of people seriously underestimate just how much of the world's production happens in Taiwan and how many things are designed there or imported from there. Before the Ukraine invasion many people similarly underestimated Ukraine, too.
If Beijing directly controls Taiwan (through Taipei), it'll be a blow to human rights and - by extension - to tech rights and tech quality.
Finally, we should noted that China is now reportedly committing cultural genocide against Tibet(an) people via TikTok, basically reaffirming our longstanding position/stance/views/opinion [1, 2] about Bytedance/TikTok being an affront to free speech.
When it comes to tech rights, China is totally not an ally and it never was. Whatever you may think of the West abusing technology against the populace (yes, it happens!), China is always a step or two ahead. It goes without saying that things in Taiwan would worsen immediately under Beijing's thumb, as we saw in Hong Kong already. It's not "racist", it's just an objective observation based on observed/observable facts and eyewitness accounts. When Edward Snowden fled to Hong Kong (to avoid persecution/prosecution) it wasn't the same place it has been for the past half a decade. █
