hyper2Tim Cook Warned by CIA That China Could Move on Taiwan by 2027
return2ozmawww.macrumors.com/2026/02/24/tim-cook-warned-by…
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Cause he singlehandedly doubled China’s economy by moving production to China and training local engineers and - possibly - allowing IP to leak.
Because that is Tim Apple, One of the finest presidents this United States has ever seen
and he also invested more money in China and their economy than the US Marshall plan did in Europe.
glassplanetthis may or may not be true. But I am curious whether China feels more tempted to try something given how preoccupied the US military seems like it might be this year
I think rather than China just doing it, Xi will contact Trump and offer him some token concession that Trump can sell as victory on tariffs, in exchange for the US not helping Taiwan. I’ll give myself a bonus point if that “major” concession is something we already have or had prior to Trump’s tariffs.
I don’t think anything will happen that isn’t just a controlled transition from American to Chinese control after some diplomatic deliberations, and in a decade or so not right now. Maybe.
Taiwan is not under American control. Taiwan has a democratically elected government that represents the will of Taiwanese people.
It is certainly beholden to America since they are in theory under their protection. It isn’t quite to the point of being a puppet, but I would probably classify them as something in between a protectorate and a protected state of the US.
Taiwan might be beholden to the US in some sense - but essentially the bargain is for Taiwan not to seek independence and disrupt the “status quo” and in exchange the US will be “strategically ambiguous” about whether it will defend Taiwan against PRC aggression or not.
That’s hardly enough to call Taiwan a “protectorate”
And the only reason Taiwan even needs the US is PRC’s belligerence.
I still maintain that the current Taiwanese government represents the will of Taiwanese people - and would even argue that more so than the American government represents the will of American people for example.
Taiwanese people have been fighting for independence throughout all its history, only to be swept up in larger geopolitical turmoil and ambitions of empires.
Population of Taiwan resisted European colonization, Qing colonization, Japanese colonization.. and when it looked like they might finally get a chance at self-determination after WWII, as many other countries have, they got occupied by the ROC military and suffered another wave of colonization from the mainland (with tacit US support), and decades of brutal dictatorship and martial law. Of course each of these colonial periods contributed to shaping the unique Taiwanese identity and culture of present day.
Taiwanese people managed to survive the Chiang dictatorship and reform their government in 1990 to become a vibrant and free democracy, and became one of the most successful countries in the world. Unfortunately they have inherited the complicated geopolitical situation forged during the cold war period and delicate balance of world powers at the time, combined with gross diplomatic malpractice by Chiang Kai-shek, who then, like Xi now, was too focused on Chinese nationalism and trying to reconstruct the Qing empire, and cared little for the actual population of Taiwan.
mlgYeah just like how Pakistan has a democratically elected government that also represents the will of the Pakistani people lol.
But I mean fair enough, it’s not like they have open political corruption.
That’s a wild comparison. Taiwan is ranked 12th in the world on the latest Economist Democracy Index (US is 28th and rated a “flawed democracy”, Pakistan is 125th and China 145th, both rated “authoritarian regime")
Taiwan is ranked 24th in the Corruption Perception Index (US is 28th, China is 76th and Pakistan 136th)
Taiwan ranks 19th by the Human Development Index - below US which is 17th, but significantly above China at 78th and Pakistan at 168th.
After transitioning to democracy in 1990, Taiwan has been one of the most successful countries in the world by almost any metric you can think of - it has less poverty than China, less income inequality, higher literacy, far more freedoms, better social safety net, better healthcare system, higher life expectancy, higher gender equality, higher per capita GDP … you name it.
According to 2025 polls, only 1.1% of Taiwanese want unification with the PRC. 6.1% support eventual unification with China, but not with the current PRC government. Ironically, these numbers were slowly trending up and reached a high of 3.1% and 12.8% respectively in 2018 - however the crackdown on the democracy movement in Hong Kong in 2019 cut any support for unification with China to half.
There is nothing PRC takeover can offer the Taiwanese - PRC has no carrots, only sticks. And one thing is for damn sure, the PRC government cares about or represents the will of Taiwanese people far less than the Taiwanese government. China promised democracy and universal suffrage to Hong Kong in the 80s, but never delivered after the handover. Xi wants Taiwan for nationalist pride and to rebuild the Qing empire - he doesn’t care about Taiwanese people, he just wants them to be his imperial subjects.
Oh yeah by all means, Taiwan is an excellent example of a great system.
I was just joking that regardless of the underlying democratic system, the US has leverage and interest in Taiwan (and plenty of other countries).
I highly doubt OP’s claim that the US would “sell” Taiwan, but I am concerned that the US is trying to coaxe a conflict with China in which they would throw Taiwan under the bus rather than commiting to a proper war, which would only wreck Taiwan even if they do succeed in defending China.
Well the US seems to be moving on the entire world and aiding in the genocide of the Palestinians, starving the Cubans and threatening everyone except Israel.
How does this change the fact that China attacking Taiwan would be bad? Whataboutism?
I don’t trust anything that the CIA has to say. I think they always have a nefarious agenda that has nothing to do with anything except imperialism. I think that we’re literally breaking international law left and Right we have no room to speak about other nations conflicts especially when we can’t even stop supporting genocide and admit that Epstein was Mossad
Flaming obvious whataboutism. There’s no attempt there to even connect it to the discussion at hand.
It gets upvoted anyway because it’s pandering in the right direction.
they have pining taiwan for decades, the chip factories wont remain intact if they tried.
finallymadeanaccount2023: CIA says China could attack Taiwan by 2027.
Seems kinda vague and pointless as prophecies go.
When there’s human decision makers who can change their mind on the other end, it’s about as good as you can do.
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What? Why? As in, why Tim Cook aka Tim Apple? I’m so confused, why are tech oligarchs getting CIA briefings? And this is normal?
Veiled threats to motivate them to build chip factories in the US maybe?
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Network (1976)
To play into the theory here (China invading)…
Apple makes phones. Lots of people buy the phones. If apple can’t make phones, then they can’t sell phones, then people can’t buy phones, bad for economy.
If China invaded Taiwan and it wasn’t a “peaceful transfer of power”, then China could just level the whole country, which would destroy all the fabs and little Susie down the street can’t upgrade from the iPhone 18 to the iPhone 19. Again, just playing into the theory.
Americans are consumers. I’m assuming they think(CIA/gov) that as long as iPhones, TVs, and porn is available then Americans won’t care about Taiwan getting invaded.
I think it’s pressure to try to get him to pull out of deals with Chinese memory manufacturers.
It isn’t going to work though. The industry is too fucked right now and apple needs to partner with Chinese memory manufacturers if they want to produce hardware this year.
If China’s gonna do it they have a wide open window
China invading Taiwan would unify this world more than any one want, and they definitely don’t want the world unified against them, besides they don’t need Taiwan anymore, they have cracked uv lithography and will be a serious competitor soon enough, after that nobody will care about Taiwan and they can just take it without the US intervention or at least after the UD catches up as well.
You remind me all those people saying that russia is way too powerful to need ukraine and way too smart to attack it before the war started
Fascists will fascist
The difference is of course China is to powerful and smart to attack.
Not saying they are stronger than America (yet) but they do seem to be the only country that has their shit together, at least mostly. All of their major problems don’t look like their problems at all but the problems of the people, which is a problem but won’t affect the outcome of global events unless they collapse and they seem to be less likely to collapse than most others at the moment.
Now admittedly this could all be propaganda straight from the CCP but that is kinda a point in their favor, they are the only ones who can control the narrative anymore, it’s a sign of dysfunction from every other countrie since they all propagate propaganda proportionally to power.
They can move on Taiwan at any point now and in the future. So can nearly any geopolitical power. This headline is meaningless.
Hint hint CIA will be helping to further destabilize Taiwan/China relations.
This is just the “Davidson Window,” which is based on a CIA report that Xi directed the PLA to be ready to take Taiwan by 2027. ADM Davidson took that and used it as a warning to the US military that China is ramping up their capabilities, and other officers, lawmakers, and intelligence folks ran with that until they started saying “China will invade Taiwan in 2027.” Evidently, CEOs were briefed for some (probably stupid or corrupt) reason.
Personally, I think too many senior American leaders read into that report and Davidson’s warning. Plus, most people who really know anything about China don’t think that China will move kinetically against Taiwan around 2027.
Edit: Here’s the Wikipedia article about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davidson_window