The founder of SMIC(Zhang Rujing) was a manager from TSMC. He created SMIC not for money but for patriotism because he see himself as Chinese even he was from Taiwan. You can do some research on this guy, especially try to find some Chinese sources with google translation.

The western media has a narrative with many real evidence to support the narrative so most western people take it for granted. But the reality is more complicated. For many engineer money is an important factor for sure but maybe not all.