As soon as the US is within a sufficient distance from self-sufficiency (and that might mean being at the leading node but at 5x the price) that shield’s as good as gone.

Silicon Shield

So, let’s pretend the end goal of the Chinese state is a full scale amphibious invasion of Taiwan (it’s not, as evidenced by the soft economic takeovers in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, and assorted border nations, but lets pretend).

Now, let’s consider that Xiaomi has already designed a 3nm chip and Huawei is close behind with an expected 2026 release. Economically speaking, who benefits if TMSC blows up its own facilities and hands 70% of the global market share to these two companies (plus Samsung and maybe Intel if they ever get their shit together)?

This feels like Nancy Kerrigan putting a baseball bat to her own knee and threatening to ruin Tonya Harding’s career.

Countries shouldnt onshore important tech manufacturing so Taiwan has this bizarre silicon shield?

That doesn’t sound like a sustainable situation lmao

When US fabs are suitably advanced, it’ll be economically advantageous for Taiwan to lose its facilities. With competition eliminated the US may be able to seize a major share of the world’s advanced microchip fabrication

so the US is shifting capacity. got it