[cesarb]

Suppose the actors were different: wouldn't this be like, for instance, Germany forbidding a Brazilian company from exporting a widget it manufactured to the USA, just because the Brazilian company had used a German-made lathe in its Brazilian factory to make the widget?

[Traster]

I don't think you can talk about this in terms of just rules. What is happening here is one world superpower is using all the leverage it can to attack another world power. Germany isn't going to do this firstly because it doesn't have the leverage and secondly because they're not interested in playing that sort of raw power politics. This is how cold wars are conducted, the belligerents pour resources into strategically important partners. In this case the US is applying pressure on TSMC to damage Chinese technology companies, which they need to do because their local strategic manufacturer(Intel) is falling behind. You're going to continue to see the US find reasons to pour money into partnerships with everyone on China's front door. Meanwhile China will pour resources into partnerships with Europe, Russia and Australia to try and pry US partners away.

There's no "Fair" in this situation, there's only "Winning" by forcing China into compliance with US demands.

[Udik]

> forcing China into compliance with US demands.

Except that, as it's clear from the rest of your comment (with which I agree fully) there are no real demands from the US to China except a demand for subalternity. In other words, the only reason behind this moralising and chest-beating is simply that the US wants to keep its power by obstructing a competitor.