Missing Chip, remote not powering on.

Generally when a chip is removed from a circuit board, it's usually evident that work has been done. I can't see any sign that there ever was a chip on your board. It is not at all unusual for a circuit board to be designed to support functions that may not be included in the final product. They might be test circuits, or capabilities that get deleted or saved for later development; there are any number of reasons why a chip might not be there.

After looking around at pictures of Wii remote circuit boards, it appears yours is somewhat rare; most of them appear to be a significantly different revision of the board. However, after more searching I did find a good picture of another board that looks to be the same rev as yours.

As you can see, that exact same component footprint is unpopulated on this board as well; it was on a discussion about fixing a remote that consistently reported a low battery even on new ones.

So my conclusion is the empty component spot is a red herring; it doesn't have anything to do with your remote not powering on. You might try a more extensive cleaning of the contacts like what's shown in this video.

How to Fix Wii Remote Not Turning on - TikTok

Try that kind of cleaning then come on back and let us know what happens.