Yes, it is. The unfortunate reality is that western societies care more about TSMC than Taiwan, and they’re hedging their bets this way.

The world won’t allow a dependence on a single geopolitically threatened entity in the long run, so either they defuse that risk themselves or risk a competitor filling that role. This move is better for TSMC itself.

Who would protect Taiwan anymore? I have my doubts that any prior defense agreement would be upheld today.

No. To get to Taiwan, Mainland Taiwan first has to go through China, the ocean, and Taiwan. They’ll be fine without anyone else’s help.

America doesn't defend taiwan for its semiconductors - it's all american IP anyways. They defend it for the same reason they defend japan and Phillipines - to control the pacific "frontier" these three countries form before guam. Typically against China, but they would do the same nonetheless.

But why should the world depend on a single country or entity? Everything should be diversified.

Yes.

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.

Disagree. Making the world less centralized to TSMC chips makes less incentive to invade at the near future. There is no strategic upside to do it right now. If nothing else, to me it seems china is a strategic mover, and will not sacrifice anything for no strategic value.

Seems likely that Takaichi has given Taiwan a Japanese security guarantee. [1] This may be a quid pro quo.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/p-4nFgs9fRE

The silicon shield became a slogan that has only been popularized in recent years. The potential crisis of war has been there for more than half a century (even before semiconductors became a thing). The real value proposition of the status quo is the freedom of navigation between the northeastern Asian countries and the SEA (the Strait of Malacca, aka the lifeline of energy imports), and the consequential domino effect of the entire western Pacific.

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.

Not necessarily. If TSMC doesn’t build these fabs in Japan or USA, these governments might just mandate that chips are manufactured elsewhere. Intel could have a big comeback.

This keeps ppl locked in to the TSMC universe. The Japan and US fabs produce just a fraction of what these countries need.

The US protected Taiwanese sovereignty for decades before they even had a single semiconductor fab. This idea of "the silicon shield" just shows a complete ignorance of the history of Taiwan and its place in the geopolitical order.

Germany squandered so much money on nonsense, when they could have simply driven the few kilometers over to Eindhoven and bought an ASML machine for "Silicon Saxony". Sure, it would have taken years and years and serious commitment by the government and private sector to make that a successful move. But instead of putting in the hard work with a clear vision for the future, we mostly spend our time whining and wailing. It's a shame.

ASML and its mostly European suppliers is still the key chokepoint that prevents highend semiconductor fabrication from moving to China.

Have you ever heard of Tibet?

If this was just about semiconductors then this would be a reasonable take but I doubt semi-conductors are anything more than a minor footnote in China’s strategic calculus vis-a-vis Taiwan.

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.