For the US, at least, I don’t think the people care enough about Taiwan to support going to war.
I see what you’re saying, but it is really easy to drum up support, especially with how effective the media has become at manipulating public opinion. I’ve seen the US go to war over much less in my life.
The average citizen probably isnt informed enough to know how critical taiwanese manufacturing is to nearly all Western electronics, but I doubt that level of strategic importance is lost to the politicians who will be making the decision.
The thing is that semi fab are extremely fragile. For example, there was a Samsung memory fab where a few minutes of electricity black out killed months of production.
Basically it is impossible to protect Taiwan’s fab. Those fab, by being the best in the world, are actually Taiwan’s best line of defense. As soon as they lose this advantage, they are doomed.
