TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter

Geopolitically this makes a lot of sense. Will be interesting to see how China reacts as it moves forward.

If Intel is serious this time about letting third parties into their fabs then it could be quite the reversal of fortune. However, as I've said in the past Intel is most likely to do this with "alternate" process streams, in order to not expose their full capabilities to competitors.

High hopes but low expectations. Real estate in AZ could be a good investment though.

As a first pass, wouldn't this be good for China? TSMC was strategic for Taiwan, as a military takeover of Taiwan (where the plants will likely be damaged or scuttled) would be economically damaging for the US. That might be a bit different if the US has enough high-the fabs internally.

I'd love to hear better analysis; I'm not confident of my understanding here.

China will do everything it can to keep the factories in a war, it’s likely the US would offer a lot of Taiwanese US visas especially those in tech, it’s likely the Taiwanese people will have a general strike and the whole place will be very unpleasant to live in after probably many hundreds of thousands of Chinese dead due to choke points getting onto the island. It’s likely after an invasion most production for the West will have to move to other cheaper countries. I can’t see how we can do business with a country that invaded a democratic country.

I really don’t get why China care so much or the CCP see their hold over China as so weak they don’t want to be a part of the world system. But it’s their loss and America will have a clear competitor to focus minds and have a Cold War with again.

> after probably many hundreds of thousands of Chinese dead due to choke points getting onto the island

I wouldn't put it past China to simply flatten the entire island or at least everything surrounding these chokepoints with conventional bombs until submission and genocide whoever remains alive afterwards.

China does not want to take over Taiwan other than not having a non-US-ally close at door. Previous government of Taiwan had good relationship with China, although China didn't allow them to join WHO as an independent country, it did permit it to join WHA and WHO as a non-member state. China's trade deficit with Taiwan is tens of billions dollars every year.

It is just that US's strategy of containing China works really well with the pro-independence party in Taiwan. Anyone allowing Taiwan to be fully independent will lose power in China. It is mainly a proxy power fight between US and China. Taiwan is the most important spot in the first pearl chain containing China. China will have to make a decision either to break the chain or be contained forever. It is a interesting year, since we already have three or four wars broke out this year so far.

This is wholly contradicted by decades of Chinese statecraft and diplomacy, and more recently and directly by Xi’s repeated, insistent rhetoric about unification.

They badly want Taiwan. Not at any cost, but certainly at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives —- especially those of the ‘ungrateful’ and ‘unruly’ Taiwanese.

The existence of trade between them in no way contradicts those desires.