How do you deduce that the foundry's will be scuttled? I'm not saying they won't be. But I can foresee a world where too many people who care about these foundry's regardless of which political party is in charge, would prevent them from being scuttled. And also, China might have insiders in Taiwan that might prevent the scuttling and make sure they are preserved.
It doesn't matter how many people don't want the foundries to be "scuttled"; if enough people do, and they have the means to do so, it will happen. It might be the Taiwanese military, or an allied military, that actually does it.
It wouldn't take many disgruntled employees to scuttle it themselves. It's much easier to ruin delicate expensive equipment than to preserve it in working order.
These workers have opinions and their opinions might not be the same as yours. They might not be as pro-western as you may believe. They also have imagination and can imagine a world where they are better off under China with this equipment working then under China without this equipment working. Either way, the point is that its not a sure thing that this equipment would be scuttled.
> better off under China with this equipment working then under China without this equipment working.
This. If an enemy is invading your country and looks likely to succeed, then the important thing for you as a citizen isn't defending your homeland - it is making sure you have a future in the new country under new governance. That might well involve being the guy with all the knowledge to get the chip fab going again.
The US hasn't lost many wars in their homeland, so most citizens haven't really thought of their options...
There aren't any such guys. Running TSMC is a stack of many different levels of sole suppliers from different companies (US, Netherlands, Japan, even sort of Ukraine for neon.)
It wouldn't take any. Military action against Taiwan would lead to sanctions at a level never seen before. Without Western support in the form of raw materials, spare parts, and intellectual property, the hardware at TSMC is fit for nothing but whatever the modern equivalent of Weird Stuff Warehouse is.
I guess they could raise a few yuan by selling the DUV and EUV machines on eBay. "Removed from a working environment." That'd be about all they could do with it.
It would be hard for China to maintain and the whole time they are trying to source parts and find people able to maintain it they wouldn’t be able to get the newest equipment so start falling behind again.
The US could even bomb the factories to deny the resource.
