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Comment by javajosh | Hacker News Reader

The US should offer to pay for relocation of all TSMC personnel and rebuilding of all fabs here on US soil. I'm not sure there's much of an upper limit to what this would be worth. $2B? $10B? Something like that. Of course the patriots won't want to leave - and rightly so. It's their home, and democracy is worth defending against autocracy. But the offer should be made, IMHO

EDIT: Estimate is off by 100x. I also agree that Taiwan would not like to lose the leverage TSMC gives them. I still think the offer should be made.

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Do you think the Taiwan government would allow that?

TSMC is a key reason why anyone pays attention to that part of the world and only a fool would let that leverage slip away.

Of course US could force their hand, which would be equal to putting out an ad in NYT telling Xi to do whatever he wants to the island.

If only the US military had incredible amounts of armor and defense systems to trade with them to ensure their safety. Right?

You mean... the US could offer military support in exchange for moving away the things that makes military support worthwhile?

Yeah, I don't expect Taiwan to fall for something like this.

TSMC is owned by the state, they can have their cake and eat it too. Send low nm process to the US in exchange for military hardware and continue to own the IP which means they could withhold it from the United States during time of war unless they have the support of the United States. It’s not clear why this can’t work, it’s what they are currently doing…

> Do you think the Taiwan government would allow that?

Neither would China!

A single 3nm fab is ~$20B. In the last decade TSMCs investments in Taiwan capacity (5nm-28nm) exceed $100B. All the other fabs and infrastructure many $100Bs. Not including contractors or support personnel TSMC employs ~50k in Taiwan. It would be an enormous undertaking.

Is it not possible to move existing equipment?

Seems starting with moving the most modern lines out of harms way, and building all new lines not on Taiwan, they would soon reach a state where what is left behind is multiple generations old, so worth far less

Certainly a good idea even if moving nothing, to also build nothing new within China's reach.

Isn't that how a fab gets built? Equipment is moved to the site and assembled? Seems it would be more expensive due to needing to disassemble plus you'd be offline a fab.

Yes, of course moving would be an extra expense and involve downtime. This would be weighed against the risk of losing it all due to CCP invading, either through destruction or just being seized.

[Total Equip Loss Cost] * [Probability of Loss]

[Additional Cost of Moving] + [Additional Cost of Downtime]

You're at least an order of magnitude out. They have 8 fabs in Taiwan, assume $10-20B each, so at least $80-160B, probably significantly more.

Throw in the few they have in China to...

And then the rest of the supply chain that's right there.

Exactly, and scale up the whole supply chain needed to build this all at once. You can quickly convince yourself it's a n trillion dollar exercise.

Perhaps there's an argument to be made about U.S. hegemony when such proposals concerning the strategic assets of another country are considered. What if we Europeans devised a plan to acquire all strategic manufacturing assets from the U.S. - including tech, military, and energy sectors - along with their personnel, and relocated them to the EU? Wouldn't the federal government likely have something to say about that?

We call that Capitalism. If you don't have a plan to stop it, assume it's going to happen. I'd like to refer you back to the documentary idiocracy. There is line in that film that seems to resonate with many humans especially Americans, "I like money, you like money too? We should hang out"

I'm not buying free market capitalism with regards to strategic resources of another country. If 'we call that capitalism' is all it took, the US wouldn't need the military it has. Again, this feels like a simplistic view about a country with its own vision of the future...

You should because that's what these companies or "resources" are actually thinking. If you asked the CEO or shareholders who the company belongs to they'll claim it's theirs and that where it operates from is irrelevant. The US has the military it has because of capitalism, warfare costs tremendous amounts of money and resources and so a lucrative market was birthed.

It's just impossible to get my point across to some people. What happens when a company gets too big and is split by the government? Do the CEO and the shareholders go request this?

What? You think the Taiwanese government couldn't prevent US purchase of TSMC because capitalism?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Foreign_Investmen...

> We call that Capitalism. If you don't have a plan to stop it, assume it's going to happen.

Maybe that still holds true for Europe since the US doesn't want to piss of their strategic allies too much, but unless you're living under a rock, you've seen how that works for other less friendly countries.

Doing so would endanger the rest of Taiwan.

If America pays for this because of fear of Chinese bullying, what is next? If you let the Chinese know America will pay, and people can flee and the Chinese can take what is left behind, what else does America let the Chinese take over? Middle East, Africa, South America?

I don't think being a coward and running away from a bully is the right thing to do.

>Africa

Er, you might consider looking into China's so-called Belt and Road [0] initiatives with regards to Africa. The boomer-era IMF strategy of predatory lending to third-world countries with an eye to controlling export infrastructure via impossible loans has been noted and improved upon by the Chinese. IMO "we" (read: the Pax Americana) have already handed over much of Africa.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_projects_of_the_Belt_a...

$10B isn’t even in the ballpark. We should be willing to pay $1T to fully onshore TSMC, if that were magically an option.

Bro, are you upping the bid on yourself?

That might cover one or two 5nm fabs - at least according to figures provided in this McKinsey report: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/industrials-and-electron...

And maybe buy Greenland while they are add it /s

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