National security doesn't just extend to direct military applications. Pretty much every industry and piece of critical infrastructure comes into play here. It won't matter if western fabs can produce something "good enough" if every piece of technological infrastructure from the past 5 years was built with something better.

As for moves again at Taiwan, China hasn't given up that prize. Brain drain would be moot if China simply prevented emigration. I view Hong Kong right now as China testing the waters for future actions of that sort.

Happily though I also view TSMC's pending build of a fab in Arizona as exactly that sort of geographical diversification of industrial and human resources necessary. We just need more of it.

>As for moves again at Taiwan, China hasn't given up that prize.

CCP hasn't give up since KMT high-tailed to Taiwan. for more than 40+ yrs American cozy up with the Chinese govrt and doing business with China.

American told Taiwan govrt not to "make trouble" but we all know China is the one who make all the troubles with military threat and flying aircraft over Taiwan, day in and day out.

Taiwan have build up a impressive defensives from buying weapon (US) to develop its own. yes, China can take Taiwan. that's 100% but at what price.

that's what Taiwanese is betting on, China will think twice about invading.

I bet TSMC has a number of bombs planted around the most critical machines, much like Switzerland has bombs planted around most critical tunnels and bridges.

Trying to grab Taiwan with force alone, even if formally successful, would mean losing its crown jewels forever.

The bombs have been removed some years ago in Switzerland as the risk of them going off was deemed greater than the risk of sudden invasion.

Just to nitpick, your point absolutely stands

TSMC is not really that important. It’s currently only useful for the cutting edge of CPUs, and especially for mobile phones, that can get the battery boost from using a more efficient processor.

Military hardware uses CPU technology that’s 10+ years old, of which the Chinese are capable of fabricating themselves on the mainland. The stuff needs to be rugged, and likely, radiation-proofed.

And besides, isn’t it easier for Switzerland to just launch missiles at the bridges, instead of actively maintaining explosive devices on each bridge?

Maybe TSMC is not that important for making advanced weapons. It is still important for billion-dollar markets like cell phones, cloud servers, desktop and laptop computers, etc. For instance, Apple, which happens to somehow rack in money selling computing devices, is very dependent on TSMC, without a viable replacement available now.

>we all know China is the one who make all the troubles with military threat and flying aircraft over Taiwan, day in and day out.

As they are fully well allowed to as Taiwan is their own territory. You and I might disagree but out of the 195 countries on earth the only ones who recognize Taiwan is a country are these few:

Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Belize, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent And The Grenadines, Marshall Islands, Saint Kitts And Nevis, Palau, Tuvalu, Nauru, Vatican City.

Comparing that to the 139 countries that recognise the State of Palestine (where Israel can still do as they damn well please!) and it is quite easy to see that while some might pretend to care about Taiwan (like the US) all they really care about in the end is the money to be made from trading with/in PRC.

>China will think twice about invading.

PRC doesn't invade. It isn't the US. It gains influence in much more subtle and intelligent ways than bombing people but if they wanted to they could do to Taiwan what Israel does to Palestine and no one would do anything but talk talk talk.

>As they are fully well allowed to as Taiwan is their own territory.

Taiwan is a fully functional country. it doesn't pay taxes to China. its military is not under China. a lot of countries doesn't even have visa requirement for Taiwanese. Taiwanese passport is better than Chinese

>It isn't the US. It gains influence in much more subtle and intelligent ways than bombing people

LOL. China so intelligently gains influences(?). Taiwanese voted DPP's Tsai and gave her the largest votes in the history of Taiwan. Taiwanese have time and time again voted against China "influences"

> out of the 195 countries on earth the only ones who recognize Taiwan is a country are these few:

There would be a lot more if China wasn't so threatening about it.

The moment there is an opening or weakness, much more of the world will jump on board

Taiwan's defenses can hold up against minor probing from China, nothing truly sustained.

The true deterrent to China isn't any treaty agreement to protect Taiwan, which doesn't exist. It's the realpolitik of 30,000 US troops in Taiwan.

Any significant & sustained attack against Taiwan would harm US troops. They'd be little more than a speedbump for China if China acted quickly & in force, but that speedbump would require a significant-- and perhaps disproportionate-- response from the US.

> Taiwan's defenses can hold up against minor probing from China, nothing truly sustained.

It's the same for every small country bordering a potentially hostile much larger neighbor. Nobody excepts the small country to be able to withstand a full-scale invasion. The point is to make that invasion expensive enough to not be worth it.

You're not even wrong. With Taiwan being an island, any prospects of invasion are going to be bloody. Successful marine invasion are surprisingly rare in history. Usually, they are only successful because the defender could not set up a defense, or the attacker committed overwhelming resources. However, Taiwan's strategic position (it guards access to the mainland from the ocean) and the ideological accomplishment of having tied up this loose end might make it worth it. And in the event Taiwanese economy and its importance declines, it could become harder for the US to justify defending it.

The issue isn't just military equipment though. When your entire economy is reliant on electronic chips, it's untenable for all of those chips to come from a geopolitical opponent. That gives them a lot of influence over business and politics without having to impact military equipment.

Yeah, for some reason, I assumed that military equipment mostly used, like, low performance but reliable stuff. In-order processors, real time operating systems, EM-hardening. Probably made by some company like Texas Instruments, who will happily keep selling you the same chip for 30 years.

Well, I doubt the US military is too concerned with chasing the transistor density per cm^2, but there are cutting edge areas of military tech in the form of weapons guidance, fighter jet avionics & weapons systems, etc. that may require more advanced capabilities in components-- I don't know.

(As an aside, when we sell things like fighter jets to other countries, they do not get the same avionics & weapons/targeting systems that we use)