TSMC faces tough choices amid rumors for Intel foundry collaboration

The husk of the SEC with its brains scooped out is a useful tool to sic upon one's competitors or ideological enemies. I wouldn't be surprised by an SEC investigation into OpenAI in the next few years.

The SEC will probably still exist to punish enemies.

So update your bio with a MAGA photo and something racist.

If they can miniaturize fusion-boosted weapons, they may have a delivery vehicle. Their HF-2E cruise missiles are roughly comparable in size to Tomahawks, which can optionally carry nukes. The listed payload of the Taiwanese missiles is about half the mass, but who knows if that's accurate. Maybe the range would be reduced, but most of its military targets in a conflict wouldn't be far inland anyway.

TW nuclearizing is PRC redline, and they're thoroughly infiltrated by PRC intelligence (half the reason US had to coerce them into ending initial effort was because PRC intelligence knew what was up). Today, any TW nuclear program is 7 minutes from being cratered, they're simply not nuclear turn key capable anymore unless US just positions nukes on TW and give authority in which case we're in WW3 anyway.

US stopped Taiwan's nuclear effort for fear of restarting the civil war, thus dragging US into a potential nuclear WW3 scenario.

If US lets Taiwan (or even Korea/Japan) into the nuclear club, then what is stopping nuclear proliferation to Iran? Venezuela? Cuba? There are negative externalities to US allowing it's allies to have nukes.

Taiwan doesn't want nukes according to the past Presidents.

The roadblock most countries have to nuclear weapons is a lack of a domestic high-tech industrial base… which Taiwan has in spades. I’m surprised they haven’t built a bomb already!

If I were them, I would try the Israel approach of very carefully refusing to admit whether they do or do not actually have 127 bombs that can reach Beijing.

Oh.. why 127? No specific reason… don’t worry about it…

Robert Wright has been making the related observation that chip export controls to China are making the invasion of Taiwan much more likely.

In a world where TSMC supplied China, at least the PRC would suffer economically from the US/ROC bombing the fabs. With the PRC forced to mainland its own fabs, that leverage goes away.

> it is probably in TSMC's best interest to not hand over their IP

Absolutely not. TSMC, ironically, can outlast Trump. Unfortunately, Taipei may not be able to.

> When you could no longer compete under the terms you yourself set. You decided to elect a nationalist leader that would flip the table

This is the mistake. This isn’t industrial strategy. It’s part messaging tantrum part pursuit of autarky.

America could have been winning, and in some domains it is, but that doesn’t matter because the political question is how those gains are divided inside America.

> a framing that doesn't let the American public distance themselves from their own elected officials

Nobody is doing that. The point is America is grabbing irrespective of whether it’s winning, and without any particular coherence.

> You decided to elect a nationalist leader that would flip the table.

Most of us really didn't. Some of us, for the first time in our lives, made substantial personal campaign contributions to the other side because the nationalist leader looked really dangerous for US economics and international relations.

> He is your president.

I didn't vote for him. With the way our electoral college works I didn't really even have a voice in this election.

He's The President the people of PA, MI, and GA wanted tho.

So no, he's not "my President".

> Of all the places to "friendshore," Taiwan is probably the worst due to its location and vulnerability

Perhaps we need to learn the value of strategic depth the hard way. Rome had to be sacked, in the 5th century BCE, to become strong. And this time, most of us can fly out while the violence settles.

They're extremely careful not to state that as their plan.

In general, they make a huge effort not to talk about their plans vis-a-vis Taiwan at all. They just keep repeating that Taiwan is part of China.

The closest they come to stating that they plan to use force is that they'll sometimes say that they won't reject the use of force.

Given that nobody has proposed a scenario where China actually could do something like "take the IP by force" (since the IP would be gone if they ever tried to invade) and we can generally see that the Chinese leaders aren't complete idiots, it seems highly unlikely that they're planning an invasion any time soon.

The US revealing its true face (the fact it was no allies, only vassals) and trying to bully Taiwan into giving up its most precious economic could be something that help China in the long run. I mean, given two bullies, why try to appease the distant and foreign one, instead of the one with cultural and linguistic ties? Seems an incredibly short-sighted move from Taiwan, but it's good that more people see its true colors. Taiwan should try to gain more protection from Japan.

IDK... if a profitable market is up for grabs, $$$s are not a problem. The financial system is quite comfortable fronting cash for factories making in-demand products.

Have people suddenly forgotten that markets and enterprises exist, and are quite good at making products. Chips are not minerals. The state department isn't a tool for this job.

In any case, TSMC is currently within the US sphere. Nvidia makes most of the capital gains. US government gets to deny China. US companies get good chips. Where's the upside in blowing all this up?

Perhaps pulling the security guarantee and greenlighting reunification under PRC is the destination, and onshoaring Taiwan's critical industries is deemed prudent in advance of this.

At some point being assimilated by China starts to look like a good option. Why blow up fabs if you join willingly, and then its China who is blocking US from buying chips made on latest nodes.

[flagged]

It's more prosaic than that. It's just helping local donors and closely aligned businesses.

A lot of the "ministerial advice" story (the uber powerful ITRI, METI, etc) is to a certain extent a rewriting of history. A major reason why these bureaucratic orgs were so successful in Asian countries was explicitly because of the revolving door - after your 20 year stint at ITRI or METI, you'd join as an advisor for one of the affected companies or start your own consultancy.

This isn't to say that they made bad choices (they didn't), but it absolutely was done due to collusion between regulators and businesses.

The Trump-era "politician aligned businessman" model is the norm across Asia - it's a major reason why Morris Chang lobbied against the CHIPS act, Hyundai lobbied against easing automotive tariffs, Tata lobbied for 5% sales tax on EVs but 25% sales tax on Hybrids and 50% on ICE, etc.

The Asian Model of Development is predicated on "Access Money" to use Yuen Yuen Ang's typography of corruption.

Yes it is, it's the PRC(West Taiwan) that is not China.

Realistically, I get your point and you are correct, but also wanted to point out how politically tricky the whole situation is. Hell, depending on how you define successor states. I could make a good argument that neither is actually China. I would be wrong, but could make a good go at it.

GGP referenced US accusations against China

They’re very exposed and the only way Taiwan independence survives is by keeping IP and skills locked up on the island. What you can bet on is if Intel had the goods, Trump would say “meh, let’s deal” to China. Compared to that, what cost is a tariff or two?

If I were Taiwan, I’d say “give us nukes and a couple subs, then you get our best factories”. The US nuclear umbrella is now less of a guarantee and countries need to own their security.

> Intel cannot afford to create a new fab on the newest technology.

Where did the billions they racked-up in the past decades go to..?

Have you looked at their balance sheet?

> "Free market" has disappeared from right wing political discourse for decades now.

"Disappeared for decades" is pushing it, but I'd give you "reduced in prominence for a decade" (e.g. since Trump's rise).

That said, "an uncritical embrace of the free market/free trade" is still a pretty common stance on HN.

That implies DeepSeek waltzed in and stole something resembling (ill-begotten) "trade secrets".

It's more like DeepSeek legally bought OpenAI's public product, tore it apart and successfully RE'd it / used it to bootstrap their own thing. Like many other innovators and tinkerers.

Intel's leadership has been lobbying for this at a bipartisan level for almost half a decade now. This saga has been going on since 2018-19 and Pat Gelsinger is himself Republican leaning.

Chips are too imporant to modern war for any country to be unable to make them. I mean the entire chip not just a part. the entire chain from raw minerals to a complete circuit board needs to be in your county. don't forget to design the above too.

Small countries better join something like the eu and nato because they cannot ro alone.

This is not a comment that correctly describes how these two entities realistically operate and interact. I don't know why people keep repeating this as though it were insightful.

Whatever your own position on this matter may be, it is important that we factually describe the positions of the parties directly involved.

Hopefully we can use this as an opportunity to spread a more accurate description of the dynamics at play.

For reference, here is a speech by William 賴清德 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lai_Ching-te) outlining the position under which he operates. The phrasing he uses is one that is consistent across all of his public remarks; consistent with remarks by Louise 蕭美琴(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsiao_Bi-khim) and other close associates of William 賴清德; consistent with remarks made by 蔡英文 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsai_Ing-wen); and consistent with how the structures in Taiwan have operated over at least the last decade.

《賴清德就職演說：兩岸「互不隸屬」》: https://youtu.be/oLO5bYF8lDs?t=139

The relevant remark is: 「由此可見，中華民國與中華人民共和國『戶不隸屬』」

Here is my (manual) translation: “From this it can be seen that the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China are ‘not subordinate to each other.’”

Here is a Whisper-generated transcript of the entire speech, with an OpenAI generated translation inline. I skimmed the translation, and it adequately conveys the speaker's meaning and intention. (It does fail to convey the delicacy, careful phrasing, and specific rhetorical choices made by the speaker that are extremely clearly visible in the Chinese. However, this aspects are harder to convey if you don't have minimal prior knowledge on this topic.) https://pastebin.com/fGxHUpXN

It is true that there are historical positions, (historical) on-paper claims, and even a variety of differing positions and lively debate on this issue across all of the populations involved. But the conclusion one might draw from the comment above is wholly incorrect. It simply isn't the framing within which William 賴清德 and associated parties are actually navigating this issue.