> QUESTION?
>
> I understand TSMC produces the most chips in the world, and is located
> in Taiwan . Where did they get that technology and who paid for that
> technology?
Being old enough to be there and experience the start of mass-production of copy/duplicate/counterfeit goods in the late 70's and 80's, I'd say it all started with "Made in Taiwan" goods.
From my perspective from childhood on, it was in the form of knock-off toys, brand name fashions, CD's, tools, you name it, it was everywhere new and used, and it was all "Made in Taiwan". Not sure if it was them simply getting the impetus to clone our stuff, or someone surreptitiously asking them to do so to undercut established brands from here. Either way, it set off the flood into our domestic markets for crapgadgets.
Taiwan goods were always just a bit crappier, sort of mislabled, would always break early if not out of box, would never fit quite right, but hey it was a fraction of the price! In my teens my focus was tools growing up to be a mechanic, and buying second-hand goods would always see a direct clone of a $100 "Snap-On" brand high-end wrench as a $5 "Stack-On" clone from Taiwan. Harbor Freight made a name and business selling knock-off American "Chicago Pneumatic" tools as "Central Pneumatic" (many others too), all Made in Taiwan (now China), and still does.
In the 80's, US orgs began asking Taiwan to actually make these things for us including eventually semiconductors for us, even giving them the plans, when they already had the clone game down pimp tight. That's about the time China took over and now frowns upon mentioning Taiwan as anything other than China, thus generically everything is "Made in China" since then.
As we sent our engineering designs there to get bargains in production, and taught them how to make our things including the machinery. Eventually those copies as part of reverse engineering became prototypes, continued to be made and improved on, if not in quality, in profit margins to make them cheaper, even eventually adapting into new products. As it was always explained to me, it starts with them making "one for me, then one for themselves", and later "one for me, two for themselves", ad nauseam.
Who's to blame indeed...
-mb