| It's not and let's refrain from characterizing complex geopolitical issues as simply the "US is continuously poking the Chinese panda" because it does all of us a disservice and lowers the bar. Anyway - the United States places value on Taiwan not just because of TSMC (otherwise why was there value before TSMC even existed) but because Taiwan serves as a key piece in the so-called first island chain of US-allied nations that sit on the eastern coast of China. This includes Taiwan, but also Japan and others. The reason today that America is very interested in Taiwan is because in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan - American commitment to the Pacific comes in to question. Will the US respond to, and go directly to war with China? If it does, can it win? If it does, what other nations will come to the aid of the US (or China), and who will stay out? The key piece here is that it puts the American alliance system to the test and some (not I) question whether the United States is committed to defending other countries in the Pacific theater if it means a "real war" - i.e. Japan, Korea. The US already doesn't need TSMC for any strategic purposes - while the loss of the fabs in Taiwan would be devastating to the world economy, America (and other nations for that matter) still produce semiconductors, just not quite as good. You can still build cars with Intel chips, but you aren't building the iPhone 16 with them. It's not an existential threat, though certainly a very bad thing. Alternatively, if China were to invade Taiwan and the US failed to respond, that would be an existential threat to the United States because it would effectively kick the U.S. out of the Pacific and cause long standing allies such as Japan and Korea to play both sides instead of being firmly in America's camp. Coming back to TSMC building a chip plant in the US - even if they were to (and they probably will) it won't really diminish or change the Taiwan Question and undoubtedly as part of increasing US defense aid to Taiwan the US is going to want to hedge its bets a bit and have an operational fab in the US so that if a war does break it the impacts are lessened. I don't see this as a change to US Pacific strategy because it's not a fundamental concern. |
Hyperbolic? The US not having a wall of ships on China's east coast is not an existential threat for the US.