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The semiconductor factories can be seen as a point against invasion. They are very easy to destroy, either purposefully or accidentally.
It'd make sense for Taiwan to blow them up itself. Would China have the stomach for an extended occupation and suppression if they weren't getting any value out of it?
I think this could go either way depending on how worried China is about AGI. I'm sure it'd rather have the foundries for it's own use, but Taiwan is something like 60-70? percent of advanced chip manufacturing. If China ends up destroying them it could allow them to catch up in production as it'd just be their own domestic production vs US + korea, japan, bit in Germany. And Korea would be vulnerable similar to Taiwan + China might feel it would have less red tape and corruption to deal with in revving up it's own domestic production compared to the US in the potential AGI arms race.
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Indeed, TSMC has a kill-switch.
Um, yes? Remember, this is a totalitarian state that's been putting irredentist messages about Taiwan in all the media and textbooks for literally a lifetime, and a decent chunk of whose current territory is very much an "extended occupation" (Xinjiang and Tibet; literally over 10% of the male population is interned in Xinjiang). They wanted Taiwan before the semiconductor factories were there, and they would get quite a legitimacy bump from holding Taiwan (the primary clause of the devil's bargain the CPC's made with the Chinese population is "we will get back everything that was lost in the Century of Humiliation", and Taiwan was one of those things).
(Also, do remember that occupations are significantly easier when you don't actually care about things like "human rights" and "rule of law". I have zero doubt that if it came down to "exterminate all 24 million Taiwanese and import mainlanders to replace them" or "abandon the occupation of Taiwan" the CPC would do the former, although I suspect their current plan is more along the lines of "kill everyone who was ever part of the DPP, stick the rest in re-education camps".)
Retroactive citation here.
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