[wwtrv]

Why wouldn’t those people just move to different countries? I’m sure that most countries in the west would be very happy to receive large number of highly qualified engineers for free.

China can’t really close them in labour camps and expect them to be very productive...

I’m sure it would paralyze everyone economically, since China would just end up with a bunch of ruined factories with no staff and no way to replace most of the machines needed for fabrication (which are made in other countries).

simple replicating everything TSMC is doing in China would be several magnitudes cheaper (if you factor in the economic outfall of a military invasion)

[lazide]

I’m sure they are already duplicating (or attempting to) everything in China. They’d need to stop new research and development though to not always be a few (or more) steps behind. Blowing up the fab and putting all the engineers in a prison camp would do quite well at accomplishing that, no?

[sudosysgen]

You don't need them to be productive. You just need them to give you some secrets, and then your engineers continue the rest.