Hacker News Reader

Comment by kick | Hacker News Reader

Which is exactly why this rumor makes no sense.

This rumor makes perfect sense. Taiwan is looking at US to shield it from Chinese influence. Moving manufacturing to US and building on top of strong American-Taiwanese collaboration (which already exists) only makes sense. The US has strong laws for IP protection, has proper constitutional values and doesn't steal technologies on a whim without due process. Taiwan has benefited greatly from the US and the US has benefited greatly from Taiwan.

I just wish American president was someone like the Taiwanese president. She is a strong, powerful and smart lady.

If the American government believed that TSMC facilities in America would meet America's demand for silicon, then wouldn't America lose that incentive to ensure Taiwan wasn't steamrolled by China? Supposing such a war did take place, TSMC might be unable to continue operating in Taiwan but still able to operate in some capacity in America. Would TSMC scrap the fabs in America just to spite the American government for the betrayal of Taiwan? That doesn't seem likely to me.

I don't doubt that the Taiwanese president is smart, which is why I doubt this story.

> wouldn't America lose that incentive to ensure Taiwan wasn't steamrolled by China

No, the opposite. Real trade enables balanced long-term interdependency, growth and innovation, unlike "free" trade focused on extraction and asymmetrical flows. The most valuable assets brought to the table by Taiwan and the USA are culture and these are complementary in the long term.

Because the US is so famously focused on the long-term and would totally protect a country from getting wiped out because of "shared culture."

Taiwan needs all the leverage it can get, and giving the US the gift of no longer needing it would be the dumbest thing TSMC could do in the long and short term.

Not shared culture, complementary culture.

A real partnership can create more leverage, not less, instead of holding one card until it is overtaken by events.

Moving manufacturing to the US takes away leverage. It makes no sense.

US laws generally only hold for US citizens and US companies.

The US had no issues using the NSA to spy on German IP and even bug the cellphone of Angela Merkel. And well, given that no consequences ever materialized, it won't seem like they'd need to stop at any time.

So given that, thinking that the US has "strong laws" is a tad naive. You know, since literally the opposite already happened.

I implore you to read the US Supreme Court opinions in its full glory: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinion/19

There must be something lacking in this viewpoint, that US law is a liability for non-Americans, when you consider how entities around the world issue financial securities that are subject to US law when they could just not do that. I'm thinking, for example, of reading about Argentina issuing bonds governed by US law, in US currency.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com