I don't know if an adversary would prefer to grab the people of TSMC or the facility, but as a defender that has been thinking about this for a long time, I would imagine that TSMC have contingency plans to get the smart people out and dynamite the facility, no? Somewhat like the story of US soldiers mopping up rocket scientists working for Germany in 1945 and getting them stateside.
granted, there is this "us vs them" mentality, but prior to the whole Xi/nationalist thing, weren't a lot of chip engineers going back and forth, employment-wise, between TSMC, SMIC, and other mainland companies?
> prior to the whole Xi/nationalist thing, weren't a lot of chip engineers going back and forth, employment-wise, between TSMC, SMIC, and other mainland companies
Yes. A free-trade agreement was being negotiated [1]. And the fraction of Taiwanese who identify has both Taiwanese and Chinese has quartered since Xi came to power [2].
Virtually none. (Itβs not something that can easily be seized.)