> Not really. If you're an engineer in Asia you're in the top 5% - 10% of local purchasing power

Nope. You legitimately are not. The top 5-10% of salaries in both SK/JP/TW and Western Europe are primarily the managerial class.

And CoL is the same in SK and Japan with much of Western Europe.

> you're just average like most other white collar workers, unless you work for a US FANG.

Same in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. There's a reason immigration to Western Europe still remains somewhat attractive to Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese nationals to this day - similar salaries, but a better work culture and a stronger social safety net than in much of Asia.

> This is what you get when for the past 20+ years you outsourced your entire industry to Asia for the sake of shareholder returns with no thought of the future

Europe hasn't been at the forefront of this industry since the 2000s.

Yes Infineon, ASML, IMEC, and STMicro are supposedly European domiciled, but they were heavily dependent on defense R&D due to semiconductor's dual use implications and all of them largely subsumed American subsidiaries whose leadership became their leadership. As such, these companies haven't been "European" for decades.