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I can't understand why China would care about Taiwan. It's not like it's 1950 and Chaing has a good chance of retaking the mainland. Wouldn't it make more sense for them to save their money and use it to buy friends? What would they win if they invaded?
Taiwan is the closest part of the first island chain. The first island chain consists of Japanese, Taiwanese, and Filipino islands that are all western-aligned and could be used to blockade the entire Chinese coast. China sees this as a strategic vulnerability. Taiwan also used to be part of China. Combine all that with the "century of humiliation" narrative and you create the political conditions for an unwavering determination to take Taiwan as a way of reclaiming their spot on top. I doubt it has anything to do with industry, economy, or resources. It's just political narrative. Taiwan could be a barren desert. As long as their flag looks different and they're cozy with the west, China would still want to conquer them.
It's not entirely correct to say "Taiwan used to be part of China" without context.
The current ruling party has never had any strong claims on it. The old ruling party of mainland China escaped to the Taiwan island after losing a civil war to the other party. The current ruling party of mainland China has adopted imperialistic and nationalistic ideals and has decided the Taiwanese people have no right to be independent of the rest of China and see themselves as the only valid ruler for all Chinese people. All claims on the island itself are just cover for trying to quash independent groups.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis
Quemoy and Matsu are two tiny islands, utterly worthless in the grand scheme, that almost caused WW3.
Because that's how fascists work. China's built up this image of a victim of these great crimes, and that they must work to bring justice to them. One of those is the perceived loss of territory.
To stop at least pretending to work towards that would be a large cultural disillusionment moment and challenge to their core identity.
Idk man if I was China I wouldn't want a western aligned aircraft carrier of an island right on my doorstep. The US has been sabre rattling in that direction for a while.
It's not only about Taiwan itself and their tech business there as others already have said, but about the entire South China Sea - and the sea’s estimated 11 billion barrels of untapped oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. China competes with other claimants in the region such as Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
China has been steadily increasing its assertiveness in the South China Sea since the 1970s, resulting in heightened tensions with Southeast Asian states, particularly the Philippines, at the Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands, which possesses rich natural resources and fishing areas.
In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled against China regarding the Spratly Islands after a claim brought to the court by the Philippines on the basis of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Although China is a signatory to the treaty establishing the The Hague tribunal, Beijing refuses to accept the court’s authority to this day.
Over the years, China has even increased its efforts to claim land in the South China Sea by physically increasing the islands’ size and even creating new ones altogether, e.g., by piling sand onto existing reefs. In addition, China constructed ports, military posts, in Spratly Islands and the surrounding area. China has also been deploying military jets, cruise missiles, and a radar system.
This is about money and colonial power at a much larger scale than "only" Taiwan and semiconductors.
That makes a lot more sense, but in the end I still have to think that they'd do better to step back the military and try to increase their soft power.
Trump and his backers will never let America be pushed down militarily when they can go nuclear.
Chip fabs. TSMC is leaps and bounds ahead of Chinese production.
Probably a bunch of other tech stuff too, but that's the big one.
I'm pretty sure that the Taiwanese government would rather burn their own plants to the ground than let China take them.
The 0.01% of Taiwan will be living in Switzerland or Brazil while the rest of the folks are cleaning up the rubble.
Rumor is they have contingency plans in place to destroy the important stuff.
Even if they didn't, they'd make sure the rumor was out there.