and would go to war if it ever declared independence.
What would Taiwan "declaring independence" mean other than what it's already doing? It is independent from China, it (correctly) claims to be so, and as you say in literally the next sentence, China is not yet ready to go to war with it.
it (correctly) claims to be so
it's a bit complicated but there is a sense in which the following is true:
China could definitely win a war with Taiwan now, but it might not go smoothly or cheaply. I imagine they want plans/preparations that meet a high standard for decisive victory. But if Taiwan formally declared independence, I think they would start a war immediately.
Legally speaking, even Taipei acknowledges that Taiwan is part of China, and declaring independence would amount to publicly humiliating Beijing and seeking international recognition as an independent nation—rather than as another government within China. Such an act would undoubtedly undermine Beijing’s core legitimacy—even if military preparations are not yet fully in place, the PLA now possesses the full capability to occupy Taiwan at a high cost, and it would certainly exercise that capability.
Fully agreed. I would also like @Daniel Kokotajlo's team to open-source the rules of the tabletop exercise and/or to revise the AI-2027 compute forecast so that it reflected the new possibility of China amassing approximately the same amount of compute as the USA by causing the latter to lose the compute supply in Taiwan. If that happens, neither OpenBrain nor DeepCent would have a lead to burn in case of misalignment, causing a disaster.
I'm thinking of a scenario in which the war over Ukraine and the war over Iran are joined by a war over Taiwan. Maybe they would call it something other than World War III, but it would be a world war.
We know that Russia and China coordinate against the United States, and are co-founders of a security organization (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and an economic organization (BRICS) both of which are intended to be backbones of a world order independent of America. The United States has long wanted to "pivot to Asia" as a strategic priority, but it's held down by commitments in Europe and the Middle East. Missile defense systems have even been moved from South Korea to the Gulf, because of the war with Iran.
China, of course, regards Taiwan as part of China and would go to war if it ever declared independence. Xi Jinping set 2027 as a deadline for China's military (the PLA) to be able to win a war for Taiwan; it's been suggested that the recent dramatic military purges were intended to remove generals who were not quite committing to this goal. Being ready to do this by 2027 is not the same as planning to do it in 2027, but the war over Iran will present an opportunity if it becomes a protracted one. On the other hand, strengthened American control over Middle East oil production (as would presumably ensue if the Islamic Republic is overthrown) would increase American leverage over China's own supply chains. It's conceivable that among the western motives behind the war is an attempt to create new problems for China before 2027 arrives.
There are many factors in the situation. Perhaps under certain circumstances, Trump's America would accede peacefully to a division of the world into great-power regions of influence (although the strategic significance of Taiwan in the AI era means it's hard to see them just handing that one over). The scenario that struck me enough to make this post, is that of a maximum victory for the Russia-China-Iran bloc, or at least enough of a victory for China that Taiwan falls definitely under Chinese control.
What I wondered is, could this be combined with economic warfare sufficient to implode America's AI bubble, while China's own AI industry manages to advance to become number one in the world by 2030 or earlier? - which I gather is part of the current Five-Year Plan for China.
It is just a scenario, there are other possible futures. And as far as AI safety is concerned, my own approach is to try to solve the problems in public so that they are known to AI developers wherever in the world they are situated. But the potential convergence of geopolitical and AI timelines here, seems worthy of discussion.