I think the plan is to defend, with allies motivated by the goal of saving TSMC facilities. If you destroy them the moment China declares war, Taiwanese allies might be much less invested

But at the same time everyone understands that the Taiwanese would destroy the facilities before they fall into Chinese hands

If both those are true, then shouldn't we expect China to destroy them as part of first offensive?

Ideally every side would prefer a complete victory... who wouldn't? Reality rarely offers such clear outcomes.

Effectively the semantics are like a game of chicken and hostage combined. Might as well be a Prisoner's Dilemma.

Why would China care if Taiwan blows up its fabs?

The talent is still there, so they could rebuild, or recruit the talent to work for Chinese mainland fabs instead?

wouldn't it be more likely that they'd flee to e.g. the US which would poach them and shower them with money?

maybe easier said than done but still

Can't flee if your island is encircled and shooting down airplanes. China's military drills are executing exactly this.

The US could do this TODAY. Just saying.

The US cannot offer lots of money to chip fab refugees today, because they are not refugees. Trying to headhunt people at a high quality job is very different.

The pay might not be as good but they could also go to Europe. Might depend where they've got family / contacts.

Part of the reason a Chinese invasion of Taiwan seems more realistic is Trump being a sycophant towards any dictator who will give him the time of day, including Xi Jinping.

It's not impossible, but I feel as though if Trump decides that China is friends and Taiwan is enemies (as he seems to have done with North/South Korea lately) then Taiwanese refugees might not be as eager to move to the US as, say, Canada, Australia, or Europe.

> The talent is still there, so they could rebuild, or recruit the talent to work for Chinese mainland fabs instead?

Would you voluntarily work in a country that invaded and taken over yours?

Would you ask the same about Russia recruiting Ukrainians?

Not everyone is affected by propaganda, either US/Taiwanese or Chinese one.

Some are.

Some people also want to feed their families and not be unemployed.

P.S. A large number of Ukrainians moved to Russia. Including the ones who wanted to reunite with their relatives. Taiwanese have a lot of relatives on the mainland as well.

> A large number of Ukrainians moved to Russia

Citation very much needed.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_refugee_crisis

2. https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/117204 - 1.2 million.

> *As of mid-June 2023 an estimated 1.2 million Ukrainians were recorded in the Russian Federation under different legal forms of stay (other than refugee or temporary asylum status)

This means people that have Ukrainian citizenship, which includes lots of families that were on both sides of the border. It does not mean people who were residents of Ukraine before the war, and decided to move to Russia. It does include the kidnapped children, and surviving people in occupied cities.

We are talking about facilities that are extremely complex and expensive to build, to the point that only a very small handful of locations in the world exist today - despite their massive economic value.

TSMC is not something you can rebuild with some brains in front of laptops.

its not official public policy, but there have been people in the US government saying that if there is a war then the US will bomb tsmc facilities in taiwan

Let's say they execute that plan. What then? Would it win them anything?

The whole point of the plan is to remove some of the incentive for an invasion, thus making it less likely.

I think you're missing what I'm getting at. Yes, I understand that part. But do you seriously think that if TSMC was destroyed right now, China would change its decision to invade Taiwan? Can you imagine what the actual consequences of executing that plan would be?