TSMC to make advanced AI semiconductors in Japan
apnews.com
apnews.com
Meanwhile Europe only got 40k WSPMs of 12+ nm capacity: https://overclock3d.net/news/software/bringing_advanced_semi...
We get what we deserve.
While capitalism is a good model, it needs to be kept balanced, restricted..
Shareholder primacy is ruining everything, too much influence in politics from too many external sources.
The problem is that unlike Airbus, which (highly inefficiently) can be made in multiple countries, you can't really spread out parts of a fab that way. The most you can do is fab machines + chips + chip packaging. Netherlands already has fab machines and in packaging there isn't a high margin.
That leaves chips, and you can be sure that whoever gets the fabs, the other EU countries will throw a shit fit and demand counter investments to compensate. And on top of that there is also regional animosity. So even if it makes logical sense to pop the fab down in the middle of the blue banana, it won't make political sense because France and all of South and East EU will be angry about "the rich getting richer".
And how are we gonna do that exactly? EU runs on national interests of those footing the bill, mainly France and Germany as the largest net contributors.
When you're relying on national subsidies to build and run a factory and adjacent infrastructure in a country, you're tied to national interests and demands of those countries footing the bill for all that infrastructure.
So the likes of France and Germany aren't gonna give billions in subsidies from their taxpayers' money to semiconductor companies so that they can incorporate in Netherlands to dodge taxes and then create jobs in low-cost Poland and Romania instead of at home, even though that's already been happening to an extent in other industries over the last 20+ years.
It's the same with arms purchases now. France blocked Ukraine from using its money to buy British made weapons that are already available, since it expects that money to go back into the French economy, not to the economy of a competitor, even if the much needed weapons will arrive much later.
Yeah I know, UK isn't EU anymore, but the point still stands, as EU nations are still economically competitors to each other and they're not gonna spend their tax money to fund competing economies even in the EU block.
Uh, no the point doesn't stand anymore if your example isn't actually a reflection of it - at least not anymore then any other unfounded opinion pieces with no collaborating evidence
What part of my original statement you quoted
"EU nations are still economically competitors to each other and they're not gonna spend their tax money to fund competing economies even in the EU block"
>unfounded opinion pieces with no collaborating evidence
Maybe reading comprehension or understanding of international politics within the EU is not your strength, but I gave you the evidence and arguments in the comment you quoted. Maybe you don't like to hear what I said, but that's another thing entirely.
> It's the same with arms purchases now. France blocked Ukraine from using its money to buy British made weapons that are already available, since it expects that money to go back into the French economy, not to the economy of a competitor, even if the much needed weapons will arrive much later.
Which you the followed up with
> Yeah I know, UK isn't EU anymore, but the point still stands, as EU nations are still economically competitors to each other and they're not gonna spend their tax money to fund competing economies even in the EU block.
To which I responded with (just in case your ability to recall that fails you again) with
> Uh, no the point doesn't stand anymore if your example isn't actually a reflection of it - at least not anymore then any other unfounded opinion pieces with no collaborating evidence
My evidence was (as you typed it yourself) that with the war in Ukraine and arms demand flourishing, France only spends money on subsidies with the guarantee that money is going back towards its own economy, as does every other major EU economy, not just for arms, but for semiconductors too.
If you were too thick to get that, or you refuse to belive it on some ideology, or want to die on a hill over a technicality, then I'm sorry, but nothing more I will do or say will convince you, when you've already made up your mind otherwise.
How is this not communist tyranny with extra steps?
How do you expect those people footing most of the bill to give up their status quo and voluntarily sign up for something like this? Oh wait, I remember, that's why they're pushing chat control and digital-ID on us.
Isn’t this exactly how the United States and every other country works?
Secondly, even if the US as a country is tighter integrated and more financially successful than the EU as a union, the US is not a successful model example of a well functioning society that people in the EU would aspire to emulate, on the contrary, they'd rather preserve the status quo than turning into something resembling what the US has become.
But something tells me that's not what Europeans generally want...
EU citizens understood and recognize that economic supremacy of some private sector industries is pointless if the gains all go to the hands of a few tax dodging trillionaires with sex trafficking private islands, while the externalities get outsourced to the environment and the public sector to deal with leading to increased wealth inequality, homelessness, crime, drug addiction, etc
That's why they want to see policies that will first address the environment and quality of life, before shareholder returns, even if that makes them less economically dominant.
EU people don't want to live in a world of fent zombies on the streets, cars with smashed windows from petty crime, food deserts, homeless people, all in the name of economic superiority.
It has zero to do with communism.
Do you see the perfectly exemplified contradiction here? Centralized government power always tends to want more and more control, more and more power over time, while shedding any and all forms accountability. It never stops and says "ok, we have just the right amount of control now, we can start back off and leave everyone be". That never happened in history of humanity.
The evolution of the US central government you gave is the perfect example of this overreach that grew with time and the best argument why we shouldn't try to emulate that. Because so is the EU compared to how it was 30 years ago, and it will just keep growing and swallowing more control and influence over its members, with less and less accountability, and it won't just stop when you think the right balance has been achieved. It will only stop when IT decides it wants to, but by that point it will be too late for you to have a choice in this.
Plus, even ignoring all that, what worked in the US 200-300 years ago, can't simply be applied to Europe now. You can't simply copy-paste policies across continents, cultures and time, and imagine it will simply Just-Work™.
EU is not a country. It's a political and economic union. And I think it can't become a country since peoples of member states desire to keep a degree of national sovereignty.
There indeed won't be equal benefits, but instead France, Germany etc are going to benefit a lot more in this kind of situation than without the integration. We've already seen the massive benefits of the single market integration for example for the German economy and industry. It'd be strange to think that further erosion of barriers and better integration wouldn't bring further benefits to the economies involved.
> How is this not communist tyranny with extra steps?
Um, by the fact that the EU wouldn't be taking over the means of production when it'd be integrating? Like come on, this is just silly, to call a block dedicated to free market principles and social capitalism "communist tyranny".
I swear, this kind of economic illiteracy is going to be the end of us all.
> How do you expect those people footing most of the bill to give up their status quo and voluntarily sign up for something like this? Oh wait, I remember, that's why they're pushing chat control and digital-ID on us.
The EU isn't pushing for the Chat Control and whatever, it's only certain member countries like Denmark doing that. They should absolutely be reprimanded for that, but nevertheless the difference is important.
Also, the people "footing most of the bill" would also be benefiting massively, for example by making sure that we would no longer have a situation like the Greek debt crisis messing everything up for the entire currency block.
If you do not see how someone like US or China can play 27 individual countries and divide Europe by propping one nation and discrediting another, for example recent Trump admin meddling with Poland, or Musk fiddling with German and Spanish government, then it's going to be difficult having this discussion with you.
Another aspect... Spain stopped being a dictatorship 51 years ago, half of the continent was under Soviet influence until something like 35 years ago, communist for that matter. The continent has been consolidated over the last half a century. Painting EU as the root of all evil is not a way forward.
Since when is the quality of arguments and the understanding of economics and politics tied to the age of your account? Is this how arguments are won here? Age discrimination goes against HN rules. Your opinion on global events is not automatically more correct than others just because you've been on HN 10 years longer than others.
>posting doubious takes like this
Universally recognized and factually proven facts = dubious to you?
What (counter-)arguments do you actually bring to this discussion, other than throwing ageism and baseless accusations at people as your strategy to discredit their opinions you dislike?
That's exactly the opposite of the HN rules.
I agree, its a rather shady approach. But here you go, we'll get more and more of this, its a conveneient method to discredit discussion partners with unwanted opinions.
Calling people whose opinions you dislike but can't refute as "bots" is the lowest of the low copes of losing arguments.
Not accusing you of this, just pointing out the hypocrisy of those doing it.
You’re asserting that account age shouldn’t matter, and that any scrutiny is morally illegitimate.
Nobody is discriminating against you. It’s just that account age is one of the few signals that an online platform has to go by.
HN absolutely recognizes this in their policy, considering that they give new accounts an entirely different color to make them stand out from the rest, and that they don’t allow downvotes unless your account has achieved a certain karma level.
How do you react towards ageism and discrimination?
>It’s just that account age is one of the few signals that an online platform has to go by.
None of that invalidates or even addresses my arguments. It's still about exclusion of people based on account date rather than WHAT they say.
>HN absolutely recognizes this in their policy, considering that they give new accounts an entirely different color to make them stand out from the rest, and that they don’t allow downvotes unless your account has achieved a certain karma level.
Except that my account is not green, and I AM allowed to downvote.
Look across the Atlantic for what will eventually happen once you concentrate the power.
I say the power should remain close to the people, decentralized and democratic, not centralised and concentrated.
Even the extremely Eurosceptic Orban seems much happier in the EU than out.
As for the EU, you have the Commission who are unelected and the Parliament who are elected. The Parliament has to confirm laws like chat control.
If a majority of Parliament votes in chat control (they haven't and probably won't), that means a majority of the people want chat control. Or think they want it, anyway.
I'm also not sure why you think the EU is the pinnacle of central government. It carries vastly less power over its constituent countries than the US does over its constituent states.
The Eurobarometer and other surveys clearly show the majority of EU citizens want further integration in lots of fields including defence, foreign policy, fiscal matters, etc. Further integration, such as the adoption of the Euro, is legally mandated and pretty much inevitable.
So when you say "we", you should clarify who you're claiming to represent, because it's not most of us.
Where, when and how were the samples for that barometer taken?
If they're really so confident those number being accurate, why don't we have referendum and we can decided there and ink it to make it official.
This is all publicly-available information, I trust you can find it.
> why don't we have referendum
Referendums are the prerogative of member states, the EU doesn't have the legal powers to organise a referendum. If you want one, speak to your MP.
The top net contributors are countries like Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands, etc., I'm not sure where you get the idea that France and Germany are.
I will say you point out another big problem with the EU: its budget is tiny compared to the member states themselves. I do think as time goes on and millenials get in real positions of power, the idea of a more unified EU will get much broader support. So more of an EU army, much more of a single market, etc., but this will be a 25-50y timescale. I would have said it might have taken much longer, but the US and China bullying single EU countries has really displayed how exposed the current situation is.
> It's the same with arms purchases now. France blocked Ukraine from using its money to buy British made weapons that are already available, since it expects that money to go back into the French economy, not to the economy of a competitor, even if the much needed weapons will arrive much later.
> Yeah I know, UK isn't EU anymore, but the point still stands, as EU nations are still economically competitors to each other and they're not gonna spend their tax money to fund competing economies even in the EU block.
No, that is just reasonable. Theoretically I am all for open trade in the name of efficiency, but in the coming multi-polar world, there is real advantage to having more onshored production. This also really makes me want to integrate Ukraine into the EU. Their troops are very battle-hardened at this point, and would bring ample experience to EU armies. Especially in the field of drone warfare.
Not by raw amount of euros no. By % of GDP or per capita maybe.
If "per country" is the logical way to compare it, then the Dutch (and all other small countries) are severely lacking. If you compare it per capita, then the citizens of those countries I named are already carrying a ridiculously undue burden.
Wow, how convenient that millenials who age out of military conscription , become more pro-military conscription.
Also, check the stats, majority of EU youth don't want to fight to even protect their own country, let alone other EU countries. For example Only 16% of Germans would "definitely" take up arms to defend Germany if attacked. Let that sink in.
Because why would they? What's to fight for when you can't afford to own a house and people aren't starting families anymore? Go fight and die to protect your landlord's, Blackrock's and Vanguard's wealth? N'ah bro, I'm packing my bags and fleeing across the border any way I can.
So no, the "EU army" fantasy is not happening no matter the propaganda, unless you put a gun to their head.
> I would have said it might have taken much longer, but the US and China bullying single EU countries has really displayed how exposed the current situation is.
You didn't have to wait for US and Chian to bully, you just had to watch the EU's share of global GDP completely slide into oblivion over the last 20 years compared to US and CHian to figure that when you're economically weak you become more exploitable. More EU military will not change that balance unless the EU military can somehow surpass US and CHina combined to dictate world politics and trade in their favor, which let's be real, is not happening.
> Wow, how convenient that millenials who age out of military conscription , become more pro-military conscription.
The youngest millenials are still ±30 now, they would still be eligible for conscription until 45.
> Also, check the stats, majority of EU youth don't want to fight to even protect their own country, let alone other EU countries. For example Only 16% of Germans would "definitely" take up arms to defend Germany if attacked.
First of all, you decided to be cute and pick the country that is the most reluctant about war, due to having an uneasy past. Like Japan. But let's roll with it. That poll says 16% "definitely", but also an additional 22% "probably". 59% would "probably not" fight. But of those who would not fight, 72% are women who would be unlikely to be in conscripted combat roles, so the real percentage of refusals would more likely be 17% (59% - 42%). And there's also the factor that a people gets incensed when their homeland is actually attacked, so the actual willingness is likely to be higher under pressure.
> Go fight and die to protect your landlord's, Blackrock's and Vanguard's wealth?
You're so unknowledgeable you confused BlackRock with Blackstone. Anyway, all three of those own minimal percentages of EU (or US, for that matter) housing stock.
Landlords are another matter, a huge amount of stock is in the hand of small 1-5 domicile owners. They are mostly boomers.
You are right to be irate at how millenials, gen z and gen alpha are getting the shaft right now. But that has nothing to do with war or the EU's economic situation, and everything with policy choices of the past 30-40 years that coddle boomers (housing stock, pensions, healthcare) at the cost of everyone else.
> N'ah bro, I'm packing my bags and fleeing across the border any way I can.
Good riddance, no one in the EU wants to host a seditious clown.
> So no, the "EU army" fantasy is not happening
The train of progress steams ahead unbothered. A couple of decades ago the EU or the euro "fantasy wasn't happening". And the current population is more pro-EU than ever, and the like has only been trending up since the EU's inception.
> you just had to watch the EU's share of global GDP completely slide into oblivion over the last 20 years
The EU actually had the biggest economy from 2008-2015, although that was more an artifact of exchange prices. The last decade has indeed been mismanaged but we have certainly not "slid into oblivion".
The US has had an economically amazing decade, and China was always going to become number 2 considering the population it has. And then on top of that, lots of countries in SEA, South America and some in Africa have grown to be a much larger slice of the global economic pie. And that's good! A rising tide raises all ships.
In general, the economic center of gravity was always slowly going to shift to Asia, and thus the Pacific seaboard.
> More EU military will not change that balance unless the EU military can somehow surpass US and CHina combined
The US military doesn't surpass the combined militaries of China and the EU either.. nor has it used its hegemon power to "dictate world politics", even if it has meddled in other's affairs sometimes. The main mission of the US military is (was?) security for itself and global stability & free shipping lanes to allow as much trade for the US as possible.
No, I was talking about Blackrock specifically, don't put words in my mouth. BlackRock is a significant shareholder in many of the EU's biggest corporations, who are the ones lobbying and dictating policies you have to live by.
> people gets incensed when their homeland is actually attacked
That's why the whole EU if full of military aged Ukrainian males, because they all love defending their homeland ... from their apartment in Berlin.
>Good riddance, no one in the EU wants to host a seditious clown
I'd rather be called a clown by losers on the internet and survive, than be a virtue signaling "patriot" online dying in someone else's war.
> And the current population is more pro-EU than ever,
Yeah, the EU population is so pro-EU, that the EU has to constantly buy propaganda ads on radio, TV and social media to remind us to be pro-EU, and then ban/censor/arrest those saying mean things about the EU in public.
∗<:o)
China didn't become the manufacturing giant it is because of a single product, they did because the whole supply chain was moving there while the EU and US were only concerned about higher-margin products and activities.
I'm sure some town in Italy wishes it was still the world's #1 diode manufacturer or something.
Funding an enormously complicated semiconductor facility from a blank sheet of paper somewhere in Europe is a very expensive way to accomplish little, if the rest of the supply chain from materials to products is in non-friendly nations.
The way to bring in an industry the same way you do anything complicated: You start small. Get the specialized diode factory up and running again, and then build out supporting industries and value chains as needed. Complex lithography equipment can wait until last.
It wasn't long ago we built mobile phones in Europe. Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens, Alcatel and Bosch all had production and most if not all components were sourced from Europe or the US. Two decades ago is the blink of an eye in the larger scheme of things, not even a generation, and many who worked on this are still in their working years.
Without being directly related, it would also be a good opportunity to chisel out a crack in the Android/Apple monopoly. Then maybe in a decade or so you could actually live as a functioning citizen without giving remote root to the oligarchs and self proclaimed supranational kingmakers.
Except that's exactly what happened. EU semi fabs like the ones in Italy mostly make diodes, mosfets, microcontrollers and other such low margin products. Nobody here tapes out GPUs and CPUs, that's all Korea, Taiwan and US.
Airbus currently has two factories finalizing the airplane assembly: one in Toulouse and one in Hamburg. You could copy this model and just open different fab in different countries to spread production.
Also, another model is one country making wafers, one country making EUV-lithography machines and parts, one country mining and refining silicon, etc.
"a fab" or "the fabs"? We are commenting on news about TSMC building fabs in 3 countries across 2 continents, multiple fabs in each - I counted 23 of them here [1].
Surely, the EU can commit to a few fabs and research labs in different countries, semis are equipment and labor intensive, there's work for more than the EU. There's no need to build all of them at once, a clear commitment will suffice.
[0] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/...
If you just do nothing within half a decade or so you'll be far behind the cutting edge and at that point the decline gains its own momentum
It seems much more likely they had a suite of environmental, social and trade policies carefully calibrated to move semiconductor manufacturing somewhere else.
It's a super simple strategy with profound effects but somehow still very underappreciated
That's not at all how it works. You're talking as if you're buying a plug-and-play Xerox copy machine that you can just unbox and start printing copies of your work and make money.
Buying the latest EUV machines doesn't get you the latest nodes and economically viable yields.
Intel, Samsung also have the latest ASML machines that TSMC has and yet they haven't caught up to TSMC because there's a lot more to semi manufacturing that just the machine itself.
If Germany just buys an ASML machine it would be an expensive paperweight without the process know-how that engineers at TSMC have amassed over the decades in order to get the most economically competitive yields.
Even if this fab is 3 times more expensive then other ones, the result of not having one will tank the entire economy and GDP of a nation if things go bad.
We speak here about trillions of damage while a fab costs only a few billions.
This is like a complete non brainer.
What are you talking about? There's a lot of fabs in Europe, just on much older nodes than Taiwan, US and Japan or even China have.
>We speak here about trillions of damage
Where did you get the trillions from?
>a fab costs only a few billions
Billions just to build, but then who's gonna foot the bill for running it, if the fab is not economically competitive to those from Taiwan and Japan, at EU domestic wages, EU environmental regulations and lacking knowhow supply chains that needs to be built up in the EU? The taxpayers again?
The German government (meaning the taxpayers) are still subsidizing energy costs to keep manufacturing from collapsing or leaving the country altogether because it's not internationally competitive anymore.
So how much more of the private sector should the taxpayers subsidize before we take a look at ourselves in the mirror that everything is FUBAR and that endless taxpayer funded subsidies(aka corporate welfare) are just disguising the endemic rot while not actually fixing the problem?
That's hogwash. Sorry. Human society won't simply stop working just due to the lack of 2nm chips.
There are plenty of chip manufacturers around the world, including EU ones. Taiwan only has the quasi-monopoly over the cutting edge process.
Not really. Taiwan has commanding market share in legacy process nodes (28nm and above) as well.
EU leaders and VCs gave up on the electronics industry 20+ years ago and just kept offshoring it to the cheapest suppliers to lower costs and increase shareholder value.
You can validate this by looking at which sectors pay the highest EU wages and you'll see that hardware and electronics are not in the top.
And working in the electronics industry requires highly skilled knowhow and academic specialization, and you're not gonna attract people there if you don't pay them top wages if they can get more money and an easier job somewhere else like writing CRUD SW or pushing pencils in a bank.
Good enough can be good enough and then aim for fun/interesting/challenging/fulfilling work instead of a fatter check.
THis idealism always goes away once you have to buy a home, and realize you're working more hours and getting less money than your mates in other industries that are easier to get into, so you start to switch really quick.
People aren't selfless when it comes to being exploited by private sector entities, they'll always go towards the ones with the best wage/hour ratios.
People aren';t stupid. Why would they voluntarily choose to work harder and be less well off? It's not like this is working for the public good like medicine, firefighters, EMT, education, etc.
But once you have a home, enough to raise your family and save for later, when is enough enough?
And is the work fun? Fulfilling?
Money is a mean to an end.
Sure you can aim to earn enough to get FIRE asap. In my case, I aim for FIRE in the next 40y while maxing my fun in the meantime :)
Europe is already a great place to build your life and despite the narrative about "EU killing businesses with over regulations", Europe is an exporter, that is EU makes physical things in large quantities(that's why USA is able to blackmail EU with tariffs). EU produces and exports so much, more than it consumes. Its closer to China than USA in this regard, you can check out the recent stats here: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-euro-indicators/w...
The infrastructure is in place and there are both many nuclear reactors that were decommissioned early or not yet commissioned but canceled/put on hold as well as regions with plenty of sunshine or hydro power opportunities and also has all the expertise to re-work those quickly.
It's really a political decision to push for something like that or not. Geopolitics may eventually make it happen, who knows? At this time it makes more economical sense to make the tools and send them close to the larger supply chain of electronic products production.
Agreed. Its countries' long-standing equivalents of America First policies mean that they spend far more on their own citizens, import far fewer people, and leave most of the charitable, defence, and research spending to the US taxpayer. Good for them.
Europe is great in many ways but lacks the dynamism exactly because of its highly controlled immigration policies instead of free market ones. Bureaucrats actually are terrible at picking who should come. A major example are the Turkish immigrants to Germany, where they imported huge numbers of Turkish immigrants for their booming car industry in the 60s and instead of just treating them like normal people they did this "guest worker" thing and as a result those Turks failed to integrate and remained in the low socioeconomic status with exception for some high profile cases like the inventors of the mRNA vaccine or the Crysis founders. In other places like UK or USA, Turkish immigrants tend to have much higher socioeconomic status.
If EU end up doing its chip and energy industry push, better be following the pre-Trump era immigration policies because that's how USA got is all the workforce that make USA leap ahead in many industries. Some French or Swedish immigration officer would not be picking people better than industrialists or startup founders. Immigration and its integration are not Europe's strong traits.
Immigration and benefits are in opposition - the more immigration you allow (unless it's careful, skills-based) then there's a strong risk of costs of living rises (e.g. housing becomes more expensive with immigration) and benefits systems requiring higher taxes to pay for them. European countries can sometimes be very strong on immigration (e.g. Denmark) likely because of this reason.
Entrepreneurialism and benefits are in opposition - the more benefits you offer, the higher the taxes need to be, and so the less worth it it is to take risks with money or with time. It's just a tradeoff between risk and safety, and Europe in general (or Western Europe, at least) is more tuned for safety. And why not, if the US is willing to take the risks?
This keeps ppl locked in to the TSMC universe. The Japan and US fabs produce just a fraction of what these countries need.
The past is of no value in predicting the future right now.
That was before the current administration wiped out the very idea of "soft power" and put everything including NATO up for disposal.
There is, frankly, no way for anyone to trust the US again until the US undergoes steps similar to post-1945 Germany.
So the time of military US protection is behind us.
In an interview reported by Reuters, he said he’d impose 150%–200% tariffs if China “went into Taiwan,” and when asked about using military force against a blockade he said it “would not come to that” because Xi “respects me” and knows he’s “crazy.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-says-he-would-impose-tar...
The U.S and Japan indeed will have less incentive to defend the sovereignty of Taiwan, but other reasons remain to ensure the statu quo remains. Purely geopolitical, not just industrial.
There is an established playbook that the Chinese have used for decades when taking over an industrial sector from other countries. They funnel vast amounts of state funding into it, sell at or below cost for decades, win the low end market, and then slowly and gradually move up the technology chain. It's worked for almost everything, but it's this last part that just isn't working for them with semiconductors and aviation. They aren't capable of catching up fast enough in these two fields. These are sectors that are both too large for any one country to do well on their own. Even for someone as large as China. It requires a global supply chain.
Aviation is functionally caught up, as in if PRC wants to throw together a narrow or wide body on domestic components short term, they can at scale and service domestic market with less fuel efficiently. The primary reason COMAC uses western components is for faster global certification.
PRC Semi progress beating western analysts of catchup, instead of 10 years to EUV they're looking ~7/8 years. Again global semi supply chain is just a handful of countries with fraction population as PRC. And all western semi players projected to have talent shortage in the 100,000s, so that moving goal post likely going to move slower and slower vs PRC convergence.
Semi easier medium/long term problem since PRC _only_ country projected without semi talent shortage, i.e. current trends and forces point to inevitable convergence and PRC.
Ironically aviation harder problem because exporting outside of PRC market is matter of geopolitics vs pure technical/state capacity.
Looking at trend lines, west simply not capable of staying ahead.
> What are you going to do when none of the Taiwanese workers turn up for work, or worse they do turn up and sabotage the fab.
You’re going to offer them a lot of money, citizenship, and exfiltration of their family to turn up at work, and threaten them with lifetime in supermax if they sabotage anything.
What US judge isn’t going to allow you to do what the hell you want under national security provisions if it comes to that?
The current US security apparatus is led by highly incompetent and corrupt people willing to sell the country down the river, so I would not count on them coming up with a plan, much less a reasonable plan, for anything.
Have you seen the US security apparatus's track record at coming up with reasonable plans for what happens after the military victory? See Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
This is exactly the attitude I'm talking about. You can't operate a fab based on coercion. It requires positive relationships. There are simply too many people involved doing things that the would-be coercers don't understand.
The idea that an entire TSMC fab is going to commit treason en mass is about as believable as thinking that NASA faked the moon landings and covered it up en mass. Large groups of people don't behave the same way as small groups of people.
If the US wants a fab, just give Intel money to build one. Trying to steal one from TSMC is a nonsensical plan. At least Intel would know how to operate their own fab.
As soon as we get the right semiconductor supply chain stateside can switch up on that island and reach parity with the rest of the world’s contribution to that issue: none.
But it will happen one way or another. Taiwan's Sovereignty is completely depending on one single country, the US. It's not like that Taiwan can just say no if the US demands more diversified chip production.
Or defending taiwan can be PR'd into a self-defending message.
She just won a super majority in the legislature that allows her to change the constitution.
Japan can't even sell arms to Taiwan right now. Even starting selling arms would be a huge change, let alone a mutual defensive pact.
It's extremely hard to change the constitution of Japan. It's the only constitution that has never been revised since WWII. LDP has been pushing this agenda for decades and nothing really happened.
The process to amend the constitution of Japan [0]:
1. two thirds of the house
2. two thirds of the senate
3. referendum
LDP just won the house. IF all LDP house representatives agreed with Takaichi then she could pass the first stage. Only two left!
[0]: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E5%9B%BD%E6...
It’s easy to ignore or work around it though, just like it routinely happens for every other constitution in the world.
In reality no such thing happened and one YouTube video of a handful of protestors doesn’t make it so.
What she did say is that a Chinese attack on Taiwan _could_ clearly become an existential threat to Japan. Note that key word _could_
Which… of course it could!
Japan hosts multiple US military bases. If it developed into an armed conflict between the US and China then it’s exceedingly likely that Japan would be attacked. Think Chinese missiles aimed At Yokosuka, just south of Tokyo.
Not only that but Japan and China have multiple territorial disputes. It’s not hard to imagine China deciding to go all in and settle those as well.
Also, not sure why everyone forgets about it. People should have learned from the experience of the pandemic that the cutting-edge foundry nodes are not really the crucial ones, as being the bottleneck of industrial infrastructure. A delay of the next-gen iPhone or RTX gaming card isn't that catastrophic. But a shortage of embedded MCUs, which are actually fabricated by mature nodes, could stall the entire industrial base of a country.
They’ve become the trolls under the bridge and will squeeze every passerby for every dollar they’ve got.
The days of cheap computing have been in decline and are now dead, replaced with giga profits for this companies who managed to the the indispensable links in a chain with no or minimal competition.
Realistically it's probably just that Japan is politically stable and safer than the other options in the area, while remaining fairly close to the rest of the supply chain.
China has a highly authoritarian government that affords its citizens no political freedom (economic freedom, yes, so long as it aligns with the CCP), and is very dangerous (much more so than Russia even); but when it comes to _foreign policy_ despite the sabre-rattling over the 9 dash line, it has so far performed much better (or smarter, one might say) than the US
Reunification with Taiwan has been a major policy goal of the CCP since the civil war and is one of Xi’s explicit policy goals. He just reaffirmed this commitment as part of his New Year’s speech.
Historically China has lacked force projection capability. However it has had a multi-decade modernisation and military build-up which has drastically changed this situation.
Further we’ve seen significant tightening of CCP control over society and in particular the military in Xi’s term.
A straight forward analysis of these events, in line with Xi’s public statements and past Chinese actions, is that the ground work is being laid for encirclement of Taiwan followed by China taking over, by force if necessary.
This was after 13 years of friendship between India and China, where India had supported China in many ways including supporting the Communists getting the UN Security Council seat reserved for China. China and India had signed a friendship pact just a few years before.
> Perhaps there are not many instances in history where one country has gone out of her way to be friendly and cooperative with the government and people of another country and to plead their cause in the councils of the world, and then that country returns evil for good
That’s how India’s PM described this barbarous act of betrayal.
This was a good demonstration of how China views its neighbours. As vassals to be brought to heel from time to time, rather than equals. And China will use violence to achieve these aims. That’s the Mao doctrine, followed by every Chinese leader since.
And before you try any nonsense of “oh that’s old news”, China is annexing Bhutan today to put pressure on India to make territorial concessions. (https://youtu.be/io8iaj0WYNI). China is annexing international waters in the South China Sea. China is attempting to annex islands controlled by Japan. China also has border disputes with Russia.
Educate yourself instead of uncritically spreading Chinese propaganda.
Like, the centre of the world would be Asia today if Mao hadn’t needlessly (and profitlessly) trashed that goodwill.
The 1962 war secured the road route between Tibet and Xinjiang. Very strategically valuable.
It also had the effect of uniting India, killing some budding separatist movements. It also made the Indian government prioritise strengthening the army for the first time, which meant the army was ready to fight Pakistan to a draw in 1965 and a victory in 1971.
So the war strengthened both China and India, and poisoned relations between them. Which was fine with Mao, he didn’t really care about good foreign relations.
From Wikipedia: "There had been a series of border skirmishes between the two countries after the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when India granted asylum to the Dalai Lama. Chinese military action grew increasingly aggressive after India rejected proposed Chinese diplomatic settlements throughout 1960–1962, with China resuming previously banned "forward patrols" in Ladakh after 30 April 1962."
The border was guarded about as well as the US-Canada border on the Indian side.
The surprise war caught India completely off guard. The surprise was so effective that China captured all the territory they wanted, killed thousands of Indian troops and declared a unilateral ceasefire before India could marshal a response.
Prime Minister Nehru was badly shocked by this betrayal. He never recovered from it. His health deteriorated rapidly and he died a little over a year later.
Consider that maybe a 2 minute skim of Wikipedia teaches you very little. Certainly not as much as reading many books on this subject, which I have.
This is the Chinese way since at least Zheng He and treasure ship voyages.
Literally have ongoing border disputes with practically all of their neighbors, a few of which they’ve been shooting at (India) and ramming at sea (the Philippines) in the last few years.