Chapter 3: Who Is Selling Out Taiwan? The Bargains and Appropriation Behind TSMC’s Move to America
“How did Taiwan’s pride become America’s wealth?” — A comment from Taiwan’s public debate
On March 3, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump and TSMC Chairman and CEO C. C. Wei announced at the White House an additional US$100 billion investment plan. TSMC’s March 4 statement explained that, added to its existing US$65 billion plan, the expected total would reach US$165 billion. In Taipei, the administration responded with its customary composure, describing it simply as an independent corporate decision.
More strikingly, on April 2, 2025, the U.S. government separately announced “reciprocal tariff” arrangements that included Taiwan. These should not be conflated with other tariffs previously imposed on certain Chinese goods. In principle, this offered Taiwan bargaining leverage: dependence on TSMC could have been exchanged for substantive security commitments or protections for technological sovereignty.
Instead, Taiwan failed to press its position through the opening created by U.S.–China rivalry, continuing to accept the transfer of core production overseas. This is not negotiation. It is sacrifice.
A model political bargain
TSMC’s U.S. factories did not materialize overnight. They emerged from years of political positioning.
U.S. semiconductor legislative initiatives were already advancing around 2020, but the CHIPS and Science Act became law on August 9, 2022, providing support for semiconductor manufacturing and research. Taiwan was publicly identified as a point of concentrated risk. The U.S. objective was clear: move advanced chip manufacturing out of a geopolitically sensitive region.
TSMC’s Arizona investment plan grew from US$12 billion in 2020 to US$40 billion in 2022 and US$65 billion in 2024. In 2025, an additional US$100 billion brought the expected total to US$165 billion. This involves more than constructing factories: it means disassembling and replanting an ecosystem around advanced processes.
My question is whether investment review, staffing arrangements and subsidy conditions have been adequately explained in public. Proving that the government abandoned its limits would require specific decisions and terms. An unverified phrase such as “a matter for corporate coordination” is not enough.
The cost: technology and talent becoming less rooted in Taiwan
TSMC’s American investment is more than a deployment of capital. It represents a deep relocation of a strategically important industry.
Deploying advanced processes overseas involves equipment, training and organizational knowledge. The key question is not only where factories stand, but who controls processes, research decisions and trade secrets. Overseas construction alone does not prove those powers have passed to the U.S. government.
What I want publicly explained is the scale of long-term overseas assignments, plans for talent development and return, and the boundary between subsidy oversight and core trade secrets. Transparency does not mean revealing every commercial secret. It means allowing people in Taiwan to judge which capabilities are leaving and which can remain and continue to grow locally.
Appropriation and positioning: America’s overt strategy
For the United States, TSMC is more than a partner; it is a strategic prize. In an intensifying technological cold war, it offers a way to reduce dependence on China and secure chip supplies for AI, defense and energy.
Alstom is often cited as a warning about shifts in industrial control. In 2014, the company pleaded guilty in a foreign-bribery case; in 2015, General Electric completed its acquisition of Alstom’s power and grid businesses. Their timing alone does not prove that prosecution was intended to force a sale. TSMC’s U.S. investment is not an equivalent equity acquisition. We can compare how external pressure shapes choices, but analogy cannot replace evidence about particular transactions and control.
More troubling is Taiwan’s apparent reluctance to set limits on this gradual transfer. How much corporate needs, subsidy conditions and political pressure each shape core processes, future capacity and research staffing requires closer examination. This is not simply the relocation of a company; I see it as a betrayal of a technological society’s identity.
Who represents Taiwan—and who is selling on its behalf?
After TSMC expanded overseas investment, the quality of scrutiny became the central question. Can the public understand the trade-offs between industry and security? Can legislators investigate talent, research and long-term production plans? Can the government explain its limits? Even where review and debate already exist, “corporate autonomy” should not end the discussion.
TSMC is not an ordinary private food manufacturer. It is a semiconductor lifeline, crucial to defense, communications and AI. If the government sets no basic limits around industrial strategy and sovereignty, it is doing more than acquiescing: it is participating.
People increasingly express a fear: “We are being deprived of TSMC without putting up resistance.” To me, this is colonial logic taking a new form in the twenty-first century.
Conclusion: Taiwan’s protective mountain—or an imperial quarry?
TSMC embodies the work and talent of generations across Taiwan: strategic planning during Chiang Ching-kuo’s era, Morris Chang’s entrepreneurial vision, and decades of industrial policy and labor. Yet under the language of “risk diversification,” it appears to be gradually handed over and brought under new influence.
As the United States announces new tariffs and strengthens domestic manufacturing, it already treats TSMC as part of its sovereign economic strategy. Taiwan’s political establishment remains caught in an illusion of trust in America, without adequate defenses, bargaining or refusal.
What we are witnessing is a concession of resources without gunfire, a transfer of core assets without a colonial army.
TSMC may remain listed in Taipei, but its spirit, networks and future may no longer belong to this island.
Who, exactly, handed them over?