I agree with most of what you are saying here except I would caution you to equivocating Samsung and tsmc. They are not in the same position.
Tsmc dominates the advanced node market and Samsung is losing customer after customer. Tsmc can pick and choose it's customers whereas Samsung really cannot. Tsmc also has far more at stake in America than samsung. It is far more easily swayable by American pressure. Taiwanese govt basically does American govt bidding. Koreans at least have some leg to stand on. As such, Koreans can take on certain project that tsmc would be fearful of doing.
I think it's more likely that Samsung creates a de americanized production line with Chinese tools than tsmc. Which is basically getting cut up to pieces and sent to America as we speak.
Kunlun 3 chip is coming out in 2023/2024 based on previous announcements. Given that Kunlun 2 uses 7 nm process, next gen is likely to use 5 nm process or better. I think it's quite optimistic of them to operate under the assumption that America won't adjust ai chip criteria to be even more stringent but we will see. Unless Samsung can create de americanized production line, I don't see how baidu can trust their next generation ai chip at their hand. They need to work with smic like everyone else.
But one thing I do sense is that Japan and South Korea are going to resist further pressure to decouple from china. As I predicted before, these two countries are too interconnected with china economically. They would definitely suffer if they voluntarily impose new restrictions. As such, Dutch govt have to think about whether or not they are going to put their national champion in a bad position by pushing them to both local Chinese competition and Japanese competition. If Japan doesn't fold, the likelihood of other countries folding is significantly reduced.
