TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) on Wednesday (Oct. 12) denied reports that plans are in the works to evacuate Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) engineers and destroy its chip plants if China invades.
Bloomberg on Oct. 7 cited an unnamed U.S. official as saying the White House has an emergency contingency plan for TSMC, which involves the evacuation of its engineers and destroying its facilities to prevent them from falling into the hands of Chinese forces in a worst-case scenario. On the sidelines of a session of the Legislative Yuan on Wednesday, Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said there is no such scenario that would involve the evacuation of TSMC engineers in the war games the military has held.
During a meeting of the Foreign and National Defense Committee of the Legislative Yuan on Wednesday, Kuomintang (KMT) Legislator Wen Yu-hsia (溫玉霞) asked whether Chen could confirm foreign media reports that a plan is in the works for the U.S. military to destroy TSMC's semiconductor plants. Chen said he would not comment on the views of foreign media, but noted that TSCM is heavily integrated into the global supply chain, which includes suppliers such as ASML Holding NV of the Netherlands, which supplies key lithography machines.
Chen said that if those lithography machines are cut off from Taiwan, the Chinese will not be able to make chips, regardless of the state of the TSMC plants. He said the U.S. does not need to destroy the plants because the severing of vital components and machinery by global suppliers would be enough to halt production.
Chen said that an understanding of TSMC's ecosystem would show that those statements are "unrealistic." He pointed out that TSMC must integrate components from across the globe to produce its high-end chips, without which "there is no way TSMC can continue its production."
The NSB director then added, "Even if the other side (China) owns TSMC, this golden hen will not be able to lay a golden egg."
