[HN Gopher] The Coming Chip Wars
___________________________________________________________________
The Coming Chip Wars
Author : chmaynard
Score : 304 points
Date : 2020-06-18 13:34 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (steveblank.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (steveblank.com)
| hangonhn wrote:
| Tangential to this discussion, what was AMD's original reasoning
| for getting rid of its own fabs and spinning them out into Global
| Foundries? It seems these days that fabs are so strategic. Did
| they realize they can't compete in that space? Thanks!
| m4rtink wrote:
| IIRC sharing the fab capacity with other companies - with
| NVIDIA, Apple, Samsung and many others there is a lot more
| money in the pot. Compare with Intel strugling on their latest
| fab process, which they traditionally did not share with anyone
| else.
| Klinky wrote:
| Maintaining fabs is expensive. AMD got to push debt onto
| Globalfoundries with the deal, and Globalfoundries could focus
| on other opportunities, not just AMD. Globalfoundries has since
| fallen behind in process node, with TSMC and Intel leading the
| way. Given the struggles Intel has had, it is hard to say that
| AMD would have been in a better position to get to 10nm or 7nm
| had they kept their fab facilities.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Even though it's far from over, I'm sick of talking about
| coronavirus. But we can't stop until we've learned everything we
| can from it. Obviously, it's human impact is awful. It has been a
| brutal stress test for so many of our health and economic
| systems: healthcare, food, ppe, school, etc.
|
| So, if there's one good thing that comes out of this, and I'm
| sure there will be many, it has to be that manufacturing returns
| to all advanced countries. No longer should we outsource nearly
| all of our manufacturing to various parts of Asia. Nothing
| against Asia, but we've known for a long time that it is high
| risk to put all of your "eggs", of any kind, in one basket --
| it's very risky for everyone if we concentrate all of those
| abilities into a handful of countries in one part of the world.
| In might be cheaper in the short term, but it could be
| devastating for all of us in the long run.
|
| This time it was a pandemic, but next time it could be something
| that destroys those countries and the timeline to rebuild is
| years. The survival of the planet may depend on our ability to
| manufacture. It already does in some ways, but the timeline is
| rather long at this point. What if the danger is imminent? Do we
| really want most high (and low) tech manufacturing concentrated
| in one part of the world? No, we need to spread it globally for
| the potential benefit of everyone.
|
| The same way you balance your investment portfolio between
| different types of assets, we need to balance our investment in
| the future of the planet across the globe as well. Sure, some
| assets aren't as profitable, but you still hang on to them for
| security, stability and risk reduction.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > The United States just did this to China by limiting Huawei's
| ability to outsource its in-house chip designs for manufacture by
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), a Taiwanese
| chip foundry. If negotiations fail, China may respond and
| escalate, via one of many agile strategic responses short of war,
| perhaps succeeding in coercing the foundry to stop making chips
| for American companies - turning the tables on the United States.
|
| How would the PRC succeed in convincing TSMC to stop producing
| chips for the US, short of military action? The PRC is Taiwan's
| primary military adversary, and the US is Taiwan's primary
| military supplier and ally. IIRC, TSMC even recently agreed to
| build a foundry on US soil (which is kinda surprising, since that
| reduces the incentive of the US to defend Taiwan in a military
| conflict with the PRC).
| pwaivers wrote:
| Please read the rest of the article. It discusses how China
| could force TSMC to stop producing chips. It even covers the US
| foundry, and why it won't make a difference.
| riku_iki wrote:
| Options listed in article:
|
| - direct military invasion
|
| - disinformation campaign
|
| - trade war with Taiwan
|
| - nationalization of old fabs in China
|
| - missile strikes on TSMC facilities in Taiwan
| jariel wrote:
| Those are not really 'options' because they have
| existential consequences.
|
| 'Missiles'? Really? Anyone can theoretically use 'missiles'
| to knock out the production capacity of some competitor's
| fabs.
|
| It would be fatal to China's ambitions in everything
| because the world's reaction would be quite strong.
|
| China has a lot of people upset around the world, but a lot
| of voices are muted because of perceived repercussions, but
| something 'over the top' would encourage all of those
| voices to come out at once.
|
| Even Russia would have to 'think again' about their
| relationship.
| microcolonel wrote:
| > _' Missiles'? Really? Anyone can theoretically use
| 'missiles' to knock out the production capacity of some
| competitor's fabs._
|
| Yeah but PRC would totally do it. They already gave the
| go-ahead to their allies to attack U.S. partners with
| missiles, a first-party strike is really not hard to
| imagine.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Looking at history and the strategic positioning of the
| forces I'd say the US is more likely to strike first.
| akoster wrote:
| You make a point but what I think the author is alluding
| to the fact that the US and allies have countered Chinese
| military actions (building bases in international
| territory) with words. If that track record holds, we may
| also use words to counter a missile strike on a TSMC fab.
| riku_iki wrote:
| Actually Iran used missiles strikes against Saudi Arabia
| oil facilities very recently as an argument in
| negotiation. No strong world reaction.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > Actually Iran used missiles strikes against Saudi
| Arabia oil facilities very recently as an argument in
| negotiation. No strong world reaction.
|
| But didn't they do so through proxies, which gives them
| at least a little deniability?
| riku_iki wrote:
| They said it was proxies, but many signs say they
| executed attack themself.
| selectodude wrote:
| The US executed Iran's top general three months later.
| While it wasn't directly related, I would be stunned if
| it wasn't at all related.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| - Encouraging NK to start the missile rain towards SK (bye
| bye Samsung)
| joshuaissac wrote:
| That does not really help China.
| mywittyname wrote:
| It provides cover. Between that, and racial tensions in
| the US, the US military will have their hands full.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| I wrote that in reply to - missile strikes on TSMC
| facilities in Taiwan
|
| Wouldn't that be all out war? Then why stopping half way?
| If the goal is denial/disruption of chip production.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > Please read the rest of the article. It discusses how China
| could force TSMC to stop producing chips. It even covers the
| US foundry, and why it won't make a difference.
|
| But all of realistic options listed entail the fatal
| political defeat of Taiwan, mostly through military action.
| Existential political threats usually end up as military
| conflicts, one way or another.
|
| The only option that doesn't involve military action is the
| disinformation campaign, but that's pretty far fetched.
| riku_iki wrote:
| Trade war looks most promising: Taiwan has 150B trade with
| China comparing to 100B trade with US.
| bwanab wrote:
| How much of that 150B trade with China is for parts that
| are in turn sold in US? It's very hard to winnow out real
| meaning from raw trade numbers.
| blackrock wrote:
| What will happen to Taiwan, if China stops trading with
| Taiwan.
|
| Like, a full on boycott.
|
| Maybe Taiwan can sell their 150B in products to
| Americans?
| throwanem wrote:
| Sure. Just like farms can switch over from supplying
| restaurants to supplying grocery stores.
| Aperocky wrote:
| If China were go to war with Taiwan, US would be involved in a
| civil war in China de jure if it wants to intervene.
|
| Because US recognize both mainland China and Taiwan as one
| 'China', without specifying which. The internet would like to
| tell you that China and Taiwan are totally different country
| but US policy doesn't recognize that.
|
| And changing that policy one week into the conflict does not
| look good on the optics.
| throwanem wrote:
| Policy optics are secondary here. Even were the US to attempt
| some military intervention, which I think quite unlikely, it
| would not be a war we could win.
| knodi wrote:
| I doubt the current occupants of the whitehouse care about
| optics at this point.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _US recognize both mainland China and Taiwan as one
| 'China'_
|
| This is a 70s era policy that is increasingly paid just lip
| service to.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > Because US recognize both mainland China and Taiwan as one
| 'China', without specifying which. The internet would like to
| tell you that China and Taiwan are totally different country
| but US policy doesn't recognize that.
|
| US policy does _de facto_ recognizes Taiwan. For instance, it
| has an embassy there, it just doesn 't call it one; and it
| sells Taiwan weapons over PRC objections.
|
| The only reason the US doesn't recognize Taiwan de jure is a
| Cold War era compromise with _PRC_ diplomatic policy, and the
| fact that the current ambiguity works reasonably well for all
| parties right now. IIRC, some US political factions advocate
| for formally recognizing Taiwan (for example: https://twitter
| .com/ambjohnbolton/status/1250501579070980099).
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| It should be noted that the US decided to _stop_
| recognising Taiwan (as ROC) when they rightly concluded
| that the PRC could not longer be ignored and they
| recognised it as the government of China.
|
| That's the 'beauty' of geopolitics: Do anything then switch
| and do the opposite as long as it suits your interests.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| "One China" is also ROC ('Taiwan') policy, not just PRC's.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > "One China" is also ROC ('Taiwan') policy, not just
| PRC's.
|
| Maybe not so much. The PRC threatens automatic military
| action if Taiwan repudiates that policy, as it sees it as
| a move for formal independence. So Taiwan has been forced
| to pay lip service to that policy whether it truly
| believes in it or not:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Political_stat
| us_...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taiwan_indepen
| den...
|
| The political situation of Taiwan is very weird, as many
| of the "official" positions are contrary to the actual
| positions.
| microcolonel wrote:
| An agreement under duress is just paper.
| iso-8859-1 wrote:
| ROC president Ma Ying-jeou asserted claims on mainland
| China in 2008. PRC claims Taiwan all the time. So is that
| really equivalent?
| Aperocky wrote:
| You're absolutely correct, but de facto is not de jure.
|
| There's nothing easier to do than for China to point to
| this policy and say America is sending troops to an
| internal conflict in China.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > You're absolutely correct, but de facto is not de jure.
|
| I'd say the existence of the _de facto_ recognition is
| more significant than the lack of _de jure_ recognition.
| There 's no real central authority in international
| relations, so the official statements and pieces of paper
| are pretty meaningless without the _de facto_ actions of
| the countries in question back them up.
|
| > There's nothing easier to do than for China to point to
| this policy and say America is sending troops to an
| internal conflict in China.
|
| It's easy for the PRC to say whatever it likes, who else
| cares is a different matter.
| dnh44 wrote:
| It's a little bit like the story of The Emperors New
| Clothes though. Everyone knows Taiwan is independent but
| officially we all pretend it's not.
| blackrock wrote:
| Well, the two, China and Taiwan, are technically still in
| a state of Civil War.
|
| So, no, this issue is not resolved, regardless of whoever
| says it is.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _de facto is not de jure_
|
| It is an executive communique [1]. There is no treaty.
| "One China" is based on a statement of convenience. It
| could literally be reversed with a tweet.
|
| What _isn 't_ just buttered-up memos are the Taiwan
| Relations Act [2] and Taiwan Travel Act [3]. Unlike the
| joint communique, these are U.S. law.
|
| Lots of Americans live in Taiwan. Taiwan hosts scores of
| American-made military assets defending it from Beijing.
| And high-ranking Americans are almost constantly in
| Taiwan. If Beijing attacked Taiwan, these would be among
| the collateral damage.
|
| > _say America is sending troops to an internal conflict
| in China_
|
| Everyone says everything when war breaks out. If Beijing
| blew up a bunch of Taiwanese assets, taking out a handful
| of Americans in the process, I see no obstacle to strong
| political support in America to intervene.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Communique
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Relations_Act
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Travel_Act
| Aperocky wrote:
| From [2]:
|
| > treating Taiwan as a sub-sovereign foreign state
| equivalent
|
| Also nothing from [2] or [3] guarantees American military
| intervention. Essentially, [2] and [3] solidified the
| status of Taiwan as 'not a full sovereign'.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _nothing from [2] or [3] guarantees American military
| intervention_
|
| This was never the goalpost. The original comment
| contrasted the legal flimsiness of the joint communique
| with the Acts underlying the U.S.-Taiwan relationship.
|
| > _solidified the status of Taiwan as 'not a full
| sovereign'_
|
| Not really. The Acts give deference to the executive
| branch.
|
| Usually, the U.S. can't sell fighter jets to non-
| sovereign customers. The Acts created exceptions for
| Taiwan, so the President could continue paying lip
| service to Beijing while treating Taiwan like a sovereign
| nation.
| pinkfoot wrote:
| After the pathetic avoidance of their obligations to
| Ukraine under the Budapest declaration, the USA and its
| allies wont do anything but more economic sanctions.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| That implies, anyone, including Americans, are going to
| care that china is points to this policy.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Interfering in internal conflicts is a time-honored
| tradition in international relations, though. Remember
| when the U.S. went into Korea? Vietnam? Remember France
| helping the American colonies win their revolution
| against England? Both the U.S. and USSR spent time in
| Afghanistan. Etc.
|
| I'm not saying these examples were right or just, I'm
| just saying I think a statement like that from China
| would have zero impact on the U.S. defending Taiwan.
| Aperocky wrote:
| Well yes, until people started dying, _en masse_.
|
| If you think Vietnam War was bad, try a war in China.
| yongjik wrote:
| ... Which is a great reason to believe that China will in
| fact never do a full-scale invasion of Taiwan, despite
| all the political posturing.
| adventured wrote:
| The US would never invade China, it would attempt to
| stand off and bomb China to degrade their military
| capabilities and economy (manufacturing in particular),
| along with fighting a naval war to try to determine naval
| supremacy around Asia. There would be some island battles
| between the two, to deny/seize territory. The conflict
| would be near-China and would involve China trying to
| deny the US the ability to operate effectively close to
| their territory. Right now the US can project across much
| of Asia, China can't project across the Pacific (or very
| far from their borders), so the conflict would largely
| happen in and around Asia. It would be a question of
| naval battles around Asia (and some limited conflict in
| the Pacific), denying the US Air Force the ability to
| bomb China, intermediate and medium range missiles (ship
| killers etc), and air defenses. The way things would go
| with North Korea, South Korea and Japan, would be of
| particular interest; as well as NATO; North Korea would
| go to war with South Korea if any serious conflict breaks
| out between the US and China. Russia would supply and
| intel-assist China as requested but not get involved
| directly. There is almost no scenario where Germany (and
| probably France as well) would join on to fighting a war
| against China over Taiwan; many NATO countries would
| refuse to get involved, which would end the NATO
| alliance. And if China decided to bomb eg Tokyo, they
| could obviously cause enormous destruction very easily,
| which presents Japan with a very difficult choice. There
| is a good reason nobody wants to see any of this happen.
|
| If China were losing badly enough, they'd throw the
| nuclear card on the table. It presents a difficult
| scenario overall, as China can always draw a stalemate by
| using that whenever convenient: stop or I'll use nukes;
| it's the ultimate homefield advantage. If you're winning
| away from your home turf, and you're under threat of
| being nuked, your population will never support pressing
| forward (it would never be worth it, gain a bit of
| foreign land temporarily and lose your cities).
| snowwrestler wrote:
| This is correct. Recall that President Trump deliberately
| stirred this pot shortly after his election:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Tsai_call
| trasz wrote:
| I guess the question is, who would be more profitable for
| Taiwan as a customer - Chinese, or USA-based companies?
| microcolonel wrote:
| Taiwan also has soul, though. It is not a completely cynical
| actor like PRC.
| jackcosgrove wrote:
| Did Taiwan become a leader in microchip fabrication out of a
| strategic or economic interest?
|
| Because it surely has strategic value.
| 29_29 wrote:
| How did we get in this situation? How did both parties - Democrat
| and Republican fail us so bad?
|
| It's a total institutional failure.
| knowaveragejoe wrote:
| The propaganda that demonized the TPP at every turn and led to
| Trump leaving the table day 1 of taking office seems to have
| worked.
| 29_29 wrote:
| I do not believe this is all Trumps fault. That's too easy an
| explanation
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| You mean trying to create conflict with China? It's been
| ongoing for some time. The US has been threatening China and
| surrounding it militarily.
|
| See John Pilger, "The Coming War on China"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDl9ecICIYg
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| For some time, meaning since 1949 or so.
|
| How does one get in the situation? Kennedy suggested working
| towards a world where it wouldn't matter who had the largest
| economy, all countries could compete peacefully, etc. but at
| least one person in 1963 didn't think that a worthwhile
| project.
| jszymborski wrote:
| This is maybe a dumb question, but how much would it cost for a
| e.g. NATO-country led initiative to create a foundry like TSMC in
| X years. Surely this can't be harder than building the LHC, and
| the diversity would clearly reduce conflicts.
| xxpor wrote:
| TSMC's Fab15 300mm wafer fab cost about $2 billion more than
| the LHC. Not that money == difficulty, but still. It's not a
| completely trivial amount of money.
| bob1029 wrote:
| It is pretty obvious that we will not be able to maintain
| leadership with arbitrary hardware process technology advantages
| for much longer.
|
| The next generation of strategic advantage is in the software
| that runs on this hardware. We really need to start thinking
| harder about how we protect highly-complex and strategically-
| important software IP from theft, because theft of software is
| pretty much immediate and absolute. I have personally started to
| pull some of my experimental projects I would otherwise keep
| public into private repositories because of these sorts of
| concerns. I do not want to enable the CCP in any way whatsoever.
|
| Hypothetically, if your 7nm chip supply was constrained because
| of war, but you were able to optimize the software that runs on
| that hardware by 15-30%, you could theoretically run it on a
| 14-22nm chip with a similar performance envelope. The larger
| process tech is easier to manufacture and you will more likely
| have domestic facilities which can accommodate. Anything that
| does not require EUV is instantly 100x easier to produce.
| Additionally, the more advanced process tech is arguably less
| advantageous in a military setting, as these chips are highly
| vulnerable to electromagnetic warfare relative to older process
| technology.
| [deleted]
| aidenn0 wrote:
| 99% of the software in the US is currently available to the CCP
| if they care enough. Pretty much all private companies could
| have their IP exposed by a nation-state level actor at this
| point.
|
| It's typical for read-only source-code access to be available
| to everyone inside the corporate network, so if any device used
| by anyone with such access is compromised (or if the person is
| themselves compromised), so is the source-code.
| monocasa wrote:
| One very important piece that doesn't get enough time in the
| article is China's in country fab, SMIC.
|
| They've got 14nm in risk production, and are making good progress
| on something equivalent to 10nm TSMC (that they're calling 7nm,
| but feature sizes are made up anyway). And perhaps most
| importantly China is making good progress on in country EUV litho
| steppers to cut ASML out of the picture too.
| ausjke wrote:
| Once China masters all the chip capabilities, the competition
| will be over, the era of USA will fade out quickly in history.
|
| China is working its ass off while we're looting on the street
| because BLM, or we're fighting for LGBTQ to make sure it is
| something you should take PRIDE in.
|
| If you're silent these days then you're as aweful as Trump.
| Nowadays fair treatment for all is the same as discrimination. If
| you're a conservative you're more than evil.
|
| USA is hijacked by the left and socialism and is on its way to
| hell, with China is catching up, our days are numbered.
| non-entity wrote:
| > USA is hijacked by the left and socialism and is on its way
| to hell, with China is catching up, our days are numbered.
|
| Lmaoooooo. Socialism isn't even remotely a thing in america as
| decades after the cold war, propaganda of the red scare is
| effective amongst large swaths of the population. Then again
| you probably think socialism is the the government does stuff.
|
| But ha you're right, Americans should just suck it up, and
| accept extrajudicial educations and power abuses because
| american exceptionalism means we always need to be #1.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. Not cool.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| If you keep posting flamebait to HN, we're going to have to ban
| you. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21672921
| 29_29 wrote:
| > China is working its ass off while we're looting on the
| street because BLM, or we're fighting for LGBTQ
|
| This is not popular, but thats how I feel. As soon as we work
| out our social problems, we will realize the world as
| completely past us by. I'd rather focus on improving our
| standard of living.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > China is working its ass off while we're looting on the
| street because BLM, or we're fighting for LGBTQ to make sure it
| is something you should take PRIDE in.
|
| Yeah, the march of orderly progress in China isn't ever
| obstructed by internal social problems. (And if you disagree,
| you will be reeducated if you aren't first crushed under the
| tank treads of orderly progress.)
|
| But it's interesting how the defenders of the American Right
| are so ready to lavish irrational praise on (even nominally
| "Communist") authoritarian regimes, including those they paint
| (often accurately) as dangerous competitors abroad, just like
| their Dear Leader is.
|
| > USA is hijacked by the left and socialism
|
| Much as I'd like that to be the case, at least if it was
| democratic socialism, it is really just that it _was_ taken
| over by the far right, but the way they 've been running the
| show has managed to alienate much of even the solid-but-not-
| far-right, leaving the far-right isolated without it's less
| extreme erstwhile allies; calling everyone who doesn't support
| them "left" and "socialist" is reflexive, but not accurate.
| phkahler wrote:
| This neglects one critical piece of the foundry business. The
| equipment for EUV lithography and prior generations comes from
| ASML in Europe and another company I cant remember. If eastern
| fabs are damaged in a conflict they will be blocked from
| rebuilding. That is, until China manages to copy that stuff which
| is something they are likely already trying to do.
| RandomWorker wrote:
| Huge gap in this article is ASML. The guys that make the machines
| that make the chips that are designed by intel and the like. They
| have about 80% market share. They could supply/deploy those
| Machines anywhere in the world.
| monocasa wrote:
| China is making huge progress at being able to replace ASML in
| their chip supply chain.
| https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201811/30/WS5c006df2a310eff3...
| tda wrote:
| Yep, and the US gov is pressuring the Dutch gov to not export
| any of the next level chip manufacturing machines to China, so
| this chip war has already hit ASML pretty hard
| the_duke wrote:
| Recent article about US pressure on the Netherlands to prevent
| ASML exports to China: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asml-
| holding-usa-china-in...
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Coming chip wars? I remember stories of vax boxen filled with
| concrete in previous export restriction wars, not to mention
| japan losing chip production to south korea.
|
| 20th century:
| https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html (my
| russian is atrocious, but it's good enough to know the story
| given has obviously been elaborated in the telling before it hit
| this web page)
|
| 21st century: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/04/FP_2020...
|
| (much of Blank's "secret history" of SV is an outline that chips
| have been strategic since before they existed
| https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ )
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Interesting that the article chides the US military for not
| preventing China from militarising their own neighbourhood (South
| China Sea). However there's nothing wrong apparently with the US
| militarising the Caribbean, or the South China Sea for that
| matter.
|
| The same could be said for access to manufacturing for Huawei vs
| US companies.
| jariel wrote:
| There is no equivalence between the two actions.
|
| China is claiming vast regions which are currently regarded as
| 'international waters', or worse 'sovereign waters of other
| nations' as it's own, sovereign territory.
|
| The US is not declaring the Bahamas to be 'US Territory', for
| example.
|
| Not only that, the US Navy ensures that _everyone_ - including
| China, Russia, Iran etc. can have 'safe passage' in
| international waters, and especially Panama Canal, Suez, Gulf
| etc. - which is quite literally the opposite of China's
| intentions in the S. China sea.
| michaelyoshika wrote:
| People can't even trust US police, not to mention US
| military.
| plandis wrote:
| You don't have to, the US navy's role in securing free
| trade on the seas speaks for itself.
| sbmthakur wrote:
| Simultaneously, they are trying to squeeze as much land as
| possible from their neighbors. Recently, Chinese soldiers
| killed 20 Indian soldiers who foiled their land-grabbing
| attempt.
| jariel wrote:
| To be fair, this was a quibble among unarmed soldiers,
| literally fist-fighting on a bridge, in the middle of the
| night. I'm not sure if it counts for anything, and I don't
| think that on the whole, India's sovereignty is threatened.
|
| The issue will be in areas wherein China can claim
| supremacy without much resistance, for example, off the
| coast of weaker neighbours in the region.
|
| It's a pretty bold ploy - at the same time, I actually
| believe that the 'chip wars' will be more important!
| sbmthakur wrote:
| The weapon used by the Chinese troops indicates that it
| was more than a fist-fight[0].
|
| I do agree that coastal waters of certain ASEAN
| countries, which are practically defenseless, are at a
| significantly higher risk.
|
| 0. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53089037
| AWildC182 wrote:
| The important difference here is China has claimed territorial
| waters from other sovereign and non-cooperative countries.
| blackrock wrote:
| Some senator should propose a bill renaming the Caribbean to
| the South American Sea.
|
| That'll show everyone that America means business when it comes
| to territorial possessions!
|
| He might even win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing so. LOL.
| totalZero wrote:
| Meanwhile, American semiconductor and technology hardware
| companies spend exorbitantly on stock buybacks.
|
| Set up factories outside of Asia Pacific with that money.
| staycoolboy wrote:
| Publicly traded US companies are beholden to investor returns.
| This is going to make them less able to respond to
| international competition.
|
| Think about the Fair Trade laws that aim to prevent large
| companies from dropping their prices to below cost to drive
| small plantations out of business. There's no reason china
| needs to make 1,000% profit on their latest CPU when they can
| sell at a very low price, and put US manufacturers out of
| business.
|
| And FTA:
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-10/u-s-lawma...
|
| I just barfed a little in my mouth. This is what is so eff'd up
| about the US. Semicon stock prices drove the creation of
| millions of millionaires over the last 2 decades, and now they
| need a handout.
| bedhead wrote:
| Tell that to Amazon. It's all just company/leadership
| culture.
| justicezyx wrote:
| > Publicly traded US companies are beholden to investor
| returns
|
| Long- or short-term investor return?
|
| Given the situation and prospect, anyone who still sticks to
| this principle of short-term investor return is at good the
| capitalism in the worst form, or at worst plain
| irrationality.
| gpanders wrote:
| It doesn't strike me so much as a handout as an investment in
| domestic infrastructure and chip manufacturing. It's pretty
| clear from the present situation that international supply
| chain risk is huge and this is an attempt to incentivize
| domestic production.
| jariel wrote:
| ? US strategic investment in semiconductors is probably the
| only way to fight Large State Actors dumping on world
| markets, by your very own logic.
|
| $25B is about the right number as well, the challenge will be
| related to how efficiently it is spent.
| staycoolboy wrote:
| I know, my comments sure do sound like a contradiction if
| viewed this way.
|
| There just seems to be something fundamentally wrong here.
|
| Semicon companies have been massive wealth generators for
| almost 4 decades, and how all of that wealth was genreated
| by clearly dubious means (Intel's lawsuits are legendary,
| as is there attempts at shuffling money out of the US buy
| building fabs in other countries to avoid tarrifs). But now
| they need taxpayer dollars to be competitive? Sure, the
| state of the US economy _might_ be at risk, but that doesn
| 't square with the industry leaders' malign actions in the
| past 20 years.
|
| It's like if you were getting beat up by a bully every day
| on your way to school, and he took your lunch money. Then
| one day a bigger bully from another town shows up, and the
| school starts paying your bully your lunch money, plus
| additional money from your allowance, to beat up the other
| one to protect the school (a bigger risk), when they didn't
| care about protecting you as an individual (a non-important
| risk).
| honkycat wrote:
| It's almost as if our beloved corporations dismantled our labor
| movements and sold us all out for short sighted profits.
|
| I hope you enjoy your billions when the bottom drops out of the
| United States economy, Bezos. Keep up those stock buybacks,
| Intel! You are REALLY contributing the the American project with
| all of that wealth you are hoarding!
| stock_toaster wrote:
| All that government driven industrial espionage is paying off,
| apparently.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| I hope that US and Europe politicians are looking at this
| seriously and are able to think long-term.
|
| I completely agree with the author about the vital importance of
| this technology, it should be considered as a resource.
|
| The long-term solution is not military, but industrial.
| latrare wrote:
| China is keeping things surprisingly civil considering they could
| just limit the supply of or manipulate the cost of rare earth
| minerals. Many Western companies would soon find themselves in
| Huawei's shoes, counting down the days until the stockpiles run
| out.
| newacct583 wrote:
| That's a MAD scenario though. I mean, trade wars can escalate,
| but deliberately crippling global industries is a shade too far
| (probably).
|
| In fact the Huawei chip regulation was attractive precisely
| because it doesn't impact much in the way of actual products
| right now. The overwhelming bulk of Huawei's revenue is derived
| from simple manufactured products using semiconductors from
| non-PRC sources. Their domestic chip design was a fledgling
| industry still.
| MHordecki wrote:
| The moment they start doing this, other countries will restart
| their mines and the Chinese leverage (and profits) will
| evaporate. Rare earth minerals aren't that rare.
| latrare wrote:
| China has been maintaining a majority share of production for
| at least a decade at this point. I would wager that while
| that your proposed response is short as a phrase, actually
| getting production to match the currently relied-upon volume
| without China would take years, and I don't think stockpiles
| would last that long.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| The US accounts for a small part of the global REM
| consumption. Even with their majority share, unless China
| is willing to burn the rest of the world, the US would be
| able to make do. And that's not even getting into
| transhipping which was used to circumvent previous REM
| export bans.
| benologist wrote:
| I saw it explained like this. Rare minerals are everywhere
| but they're spread out, and China's advantage is they will
| destroy a lot of environment to extract them while other
| countries are regulating protections for the environment. If
| that is true it would be very difficult for other countries
| to fill the demand?
| iguy wrote:
| I thought lots of existing mines had ore containing them,
| but can't make a profit extracting them, so they don't. How
| quickly such extraction/refining steps could be added, I
| don't know. (Am far from an expert though!)
| latrare wrote:
| Found the estimate in the report the Pentagon gave to
| Congress on this issue in 2013. Your proposed action would
| take the US, alone, 15 years (https://imgur.com/olWM3Xi).
|
| Report: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R41744.pdf
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| I believe there's a few Australian mining companies with
| plans ready to go if China ever does this. The prices will
| go up, a lot, but the spice will flow.
| chrisjc wrote:
| From what I understand, it's not the mines that are the
| problem. In fact, China imports most of its rare earth
| materials. What they control is the refinement of these
| materials turning them from a raw form to something useable.
| I believe the US is finally starting to do something about
| this imbalance, but I'm unsure if its scale is great enough
| to have an effect. A refinement plant just came online in
| Colorado (or is it Texas?) in the last few months. I believe
| there might be more in the pipeline including Mountain Pass
| (in addition to the mine itself) in California. From what I
| understand, traditionally refinement is an extremely dirty
| process and as a result extremely costly to run especially
| with all the environmental restrictions and potential fines.
|
| edit: latrare brings up another very important point. The
| patents surrounding the processes to refine RE materials.
| Take a look at who owns most of them...
| blackrock wrote:
| I recall that China owns most of the latest patents on rare
| earth refinements. This should be obvious considering they
| are the most active in its refinement process.
|
| Now, the irony is that if American companies want to start
| rare earth refining, then they must pay China for the use
| of those refinement patents.
|
| Oh the irony.
|
| Unless some American senator want to invalidate all of
| China's patents on grounds of National Security. Oh the
| hypocrisy.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| The REM myth is just that. The CCP previously tried to
| weaponize REM exports to hurt Japan and that both failed and
| revitalized REM production outside of China. That would also
| further hurt their own ability to export as no one will want
| anything important be it infrastructure or supply chains to be
| reliant on the whims of wolf diplomacy.
| jonplackett wrote:
| If you imagine this as a board game along the lines of Risk,
| you'd have to much prefer being in China's position. They have so
| many options and can also just bide their time.
| tmaly wrote:
| TSMC having all its fabs in one place is a big risk if there is
| an earthquake. It makes sense to diversify
| blueblisters wrote:
| The CCP is getting ever more ambitious (perhaps reckless) in the
| wake of the pandemic. I am not sure if it's overconfidence or
| calculated tactical moves. The timing of the border conflict with
| India is no mere coincidence -- it seems like an attempt to
| secure assets (CPEC) on the Western theatre in anticipation to
| any action on the Eastern front.
| cgh wrote:
| If you are curious about China's ambitions and possible future
| in the wake of the American pullback from the international
| order, I recommend the book "Disunited Nations". It also
| profiles Germany, Iran, France and various other interesting
| places.
| magicsmoke wrote:
| The flareup is over 60km2 of territory on the other side of
| Kashmir and the CPEC highways, it's not going to have any
| impact on them. More likely that local forces got rowdy as
| infantrymen tend to do and now the higher ups are scrambling to
| defuse the situation. If this was an actual calculated move to
| take significant amounts of territory the big guns would be
| firing by now.
| sbmthakur wrote:
| Previous agreements prohibit the use of firearms on the Indo-
| China border even if troops are carrying them. Have a look at
| the weapon used by the Chinese troops to figure if the attack
| was premeditated.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53089037
| screye wrote:
| I've been reading a ton of geopolitical and military experts
| over the last few weeks, and there is a unanimous consensus
| that China never makes moves on the border without explicit
| instructions from the top.
|
| Their reaction here has been paired with new movement in the
| South China Sea, changed messaging through proxy Government
| (Oli in Nepal and Pakistan at large) and claims over new land
| that has never been claimed by them before.
|
| Xi is using the fallout from Corona as a way to impose China
| on countries that are distracted by the pandemic as of this
| time.
|
| > If this was an actual calculated move to take significant
| amounts of territory the big guns would be firing by now.
|
| That isn't how China works. They are well know for their
| salami slicing (https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/08/03/salami-
| slicing-in-the-s...) approach to expansionism. Their current
| actions are perfectly in line with previous attempts at
| expanding borders and signaling intent for armed invasion.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Since when is Nepal Chinese proxy?
| newyankee wrote:
| since the Maoist Govt took hold. Since Chinese promised
| to pay for all Nepal schools to teach Mandarin which was
| adopted by a lot of schools. They extended their claims
| on Mt. Everest. Nepal claimed new territory from India on
| Chinese pressure in an area which is open border. Nepal
| is now almost a part of OBOR. Connectivity via Tibet and
| lure of easy Chinese money.
| magicsmoke wrote:
| I'd like to see that list of experts and their reasoning.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| Desperation, possibly. As I understand it, the deal between the
| CCP and the Chinese people was "you get rich, but you get no
| rights". If the economic downturn from COVID hits as hard as
| the doomers predict, then that deal could be over. A war could
| be a way of putting off the civil problems that will bring.
| bokwoon wrote:
| China would squash any civil problems out, like a bug
| growlist wrote:
| BLM hardly seems coincidental either.
| mediaman wrote:
| ...are you suggesting protests about brutality against Black
| Americans is primarily a Chinese ploy?
| dannyw wrote:
| China is absolutely fuelling it on the digital space. For
| example, in a first, TikTok is elevating BLM protests,
| while continuing to ban and de-elevate HK protests:
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-17/tiktok-
| lo...
|
| And this is just an overt action.
| sbmthakur wrote:
| Mention of Dalai Lama, Tibet, or anything that goes
| against the CCP is supposed to be removed by TikTok
| moderators.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/IndiaSpeaks/comments/gkte2w/tikt
| ok_...
| growlist wrote:
| No, I'm sure hostile forces would never take advantage of
| such a situation /s
|
| 'Russia and China target US protests on social media
|
| Both countries have flooded Twitter with hashtags and other
| content experts say is aimed at sowing dissent across the
| country.'
|
| https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-china-us-protests-
| soc...
| fuoqi wrote:
| No, everyone knows it's a Russian ploy. /s
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The US is the one refusing to sell to China here, how is China
| getting more ambitious or overconfident in the "chip war?"
| vsareto wrote:
| I don't understand the military implications. The US has had long
| range missiles and defenses that are effective with stuff from
| the 80's and 90's. If China somehow got complete control over
| TSMC to the point they no longer supplied the US, it doesn't take
| much to sabotage the factories. If not missiles, then using
| spies, or attacking the systems that run the factories. This
| seems like a fragile advantage. Advanced chips don't even give
| you advantages in cyberwar.
|
| Even if this triggered a longer conflict, the US could just buy
| through other countries that can buy from TSMC. Or just start
| using consumer off-the-shelf stuff. I'm fairly certain my gaming
| PC could guide a missile. There's lots of data centers in the US
| to pull from too.
|
| If we lose all access to buying chips tomorrow, how does that
| affect our weapons?
| sneak wrote:
| > _If China somehow got complete control over TSMC to the point
| they no longer supplied the US, it doesn 't take much to
| sabotage the factories._
|
| I am told that TSMC has a poison pill setup for their fab(s)
| for the case where the PLA takes Taiwan by force, which makes
| sense in the same way that a "driver carries less than $20 in
| cash" window sticker does.
| Aperocky wrote:
| That's the point though? Now firms in China can't get it
| because of arbitrary sanctions from the US. How about nobody
| gets it, say bye bye to your supply AMD/Apple.
|
| That's the stake China is putting on the table.
| throwawaygh wrote:
| The USSR lost a war and collapsed.
|
| War is about more than just hard power.
| vsareto wrote:
| Right but the author is saying the world just got a lot more
| dangerous and I'm wondering how with respect to the military.
| openasocket wrote:
| > The US has had long range missiles and defenses that are
| effective with stuff from the 80's and 90's
|
| All of our weapons systems have undergone significant
| modifications and upgrades since then, which make heavy use of
| modern computing. Missile seekers can take advantage of this
| increased computing power to better track targets, especially
| when being jammed. We could probably develop replacements for
| these that used less high-end chips, but that will take time
| and would probably still result in worse performance, and there
| will likely be certain features that would have to be dropped.
|
| > If China somehow got complete control over TSMC to the point
| they no longer supplied the US, it doesn't take much to
| sabotage the factories
|
| This is true, but it isn't guaranteed, and the PLA could
| stockpile a whole bunch of chips pre-war to satisfy their
| wartime production ordnance needs for a least a little while.
| While this is viable, it becomes a race to the bottom where
| neither side has access to advanced chips, and is stuck with
| whatever the advanced weapons they had stockpiled.
|
| > I'm fairly certain my gaming PC could guide a missile
|
| They need some custom chips, for a couple regions. First is
| they need to do some digital signal processing stuff that is
| implemented in hardware. Second is that the chip needs to be
| rugged:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_computers#MIL_standar...
| mywittyname wrote:
| I thought the military sourced chips domestically for such
| applications.
| openasocket wrote:
| Not always. TSMC, for example, is one of the only sources
| of chips for parts of the F-35.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/25/technology/pentagon-
| taiwa...
| kube-system wrote:
| > Advanced chips don't even give you advantages in cyberwar.
|
| > If we lose all access to buying chips tomorrow, how does that
| affect our weapons?
|
| Communication is a critical component of war. More processing
| power can enable better cryptoanalysis used in offence, and to
| a degree, better ciphers used in defense. Advanced chips
| definitely give advantages in cyberwar.
| staycoolboy wrote:
| Alibaba is making huge investment in AI, 5G and IoT chips. They
| are totally bypassing the Intel<>Arm general purpose CPU battle
| because that isn't the future. The new fabs in Pingtouge are just
| the beginning. China has the skill, the money, and the
| motiviation. There's no reason why they need to be dependent on
| chips from Intel and Arm licensees. Ever since the mid-1990s the
| US has tried to use laws to prevent exports and hinder China (P6
| export laws anyone?), 5G laws are nothing new.
|
| This will end up with China exceeding US fab capacity and
| supplying chips to all non US & European countries in 10 years.
|
| I'm not making a value judgement, I'm saying that if a country is
| going to try to hold you back by limiting your access to
| technology, you just develop your own.
| gok wrote:
| What is an IoT chip but a cheap low power general purpose chip?
| staycoolboy wrote:
| It's not.
|
| They are SoC (system on chip). They come loaded with
| peripherals, like NICs, UARTs, I2C, SPI, ADC, RTC, crypto,
| DSP, Ai acceleration, etc. The CPU usually takes up a small
| fraction of the die and isn't the selling point, the
| integration and IO fabric is just as important.
| gok wrote:
| How is that different from an SoC used for...literally
| anything else?
| kanox wrote:
| Completely agree: China is the world largest economy and any
| attempt at withholding technology from them will just result in
| them building domestic equivalents faster.
|
| I don't see what the US can gain from the war.
| magicsmoke wrote:
| It's interesting how all the actions the author thinks China
| will take involves military coercion of Taiwan in some form.
| When all you know how to use is a hammer, every problem looks
| like a nail. The idea that China could build an alternative to
| TSMC instead of trying to take it apparently doesn't compute.
| T-A wrote:
| https://technode.com/2020/05/22/smic-to-the-rescue-huawei-
| sh...
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/06/smic-chinas-biggest-
| chipmake...
| monocasa wrote:
| That's what in fact what they're doing.
|
| SMIC is in 14nm risk production, and aggressively working on
| EUV.
| blackrock wrote:
| Exactly. Taiwan is really useless in regards to CPU
| manufacturing for China.
|
| Why? Assuming people thinks that China will invade Taiwan
| just to take over TSMC, then what?
|
| 1) TSMC doesn't build the tools that builds the microchips.
| In fact, they probably don't even know how to build it, or
| even know the optical science to research and develop it.
| That dubious honor goes to ASML, and some other Japanese
| companies. But ASML, the euro company is currently in the
| lead for 5nm. TSMC just knows how to use their machine, and
| to get better at it. And to be clear, ASML doesn't know how
| to manufacture the chips like TSMC can, so both companies
| need each other, in a symbiotic type of relationship.
|
| 2) In the event of war, then the losing side can just bomb
| TSMC factories. Then everyone is screwed. No more advanced
| microchips for anyone.
|
| 3) If China succeeds in invading Taiwan, then the USA will
| just force ASML to stop selling their equipment to China,
| like they already do now. So, China is back at square one.
| They might have the current technology, but no ability to
| advance to newer technologies.
|
| The only viable solution for China, is to build their own
| chip making tools, and fabrication factories. Thus removing
| ASML and TSMC from the equation completely. Also, they will
| gain independent Intellectual Property rights and patents to
| their own indigenous R&D.
|
| The American government is apparently thinking that China
| doesn't have the skills to do this.
| jbay808 wrote:
| Can the US actually prevent ASML from selling equipment to
| China? ASML is not American.
|
| Also, given how obscenely expensive a war would be,
| couldn't China save money by just hiring the entirety of
| TSMC's and ASML's technical staff at 10x the market rate
| for ten years?
|
| Paying a premium to headhunt technical experts is a tried-
| and-true method of catching up to a front-runner. In fact,
| both Taiwan and South Korea did this, poaching underpaid
| Japanese talent.
| davrosthedalek wrote:
| The US not directly, but certainly EU can. And if China
| actually starts a war, it is likely that the EU would be
| rather opposed to helping China.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| >Can the US actually prevent ASML from selling equipment
| to China? ASML is not American.
|
| Yes. ASML is integrated into the dollar-based global
| financial system, so it will have to respect American
| financial sanctions. This is the same way that such
| sanctions against Iran and North Korea work.
| hectormalot wrote:
| ASML can sell if they want, but indeed the US has a lot
| of ways to make that unattractive. Case in point, the US
| has recently started pressuring the Dutch Government to
| prevent sales by ASML to China. I think the current
| stance is that they (Gov + ASML) are still considering
| how to proceed.
|
| An interesting aspect though: I think the technological
| superiority of ASML is a big asset in these discussions.
| e.g. If the US would follow up on a threat of sanctions
| against ASML (e.g. banning US companies from working with
| ASML) it would hit the US semiconductor industry quite
| hard (particularly Intel), while non-US players (e.g.
| TSMC) could continue producing with euv.
|
| In effect, they would have to go much further to keep
| some similarity of a level playing field: e.g banning all
| products containing chips produced on ASML machines. That
| would hit a lot more companies, many of them US based
| too. Creating even more reasons for the US Gov to not to
| take such drastic steps.
|
| Therefore I expect that it is much more likely they'll
| use pressure on the EU / NL government systems to force
| the behaviour they want, compared to economic sanctions
| vs ASML.
|
| > ASML is integrated into the dollar-based global
| financial system, so it will have to respect American
| financial sanctions
|
| I'm no expert, but if a company wants to pay ASML in
| Euros, I'm pretty sure they can accept euros. The dollar
| is convenient, not a requirement.
| kube-system wrote:
| > I'm no expert, but if a company wants to pay ASML in
| Euros, I'm pretty sure they can accept euros. The dollar
| is convenient, not a requirement.
|
| Companies rarely exchange money directly, though. They
| usually have a bank do it on their behalf, and those
| banks are subject to the laws of the countries they
| operate in.
| _jal wrote:
| > if a company wants to pay ASML in Euros, I'm pretty
| sure they can accept euros.
|
| The implication is not about accepting payment. The
| western banking system can and has blackballed firms that
| took money from people the US didn't like.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Dutch intelligence is skilled and highly respected by
| Five Eyes countries - I don't think the US is going to
| steamroll them
| flyinglizard wrote:
| There's no reason to believe Dutch government and US
| government are on different sides here. No one from the
| West wants to wake up one day to find they've been
| assigned a place in China's system.
| deepnotderp wrote:
| Much of ASML's EUV expertise comes from Cymer. Although
| ASML owns them, they're still mostly geographically in
| the US O believe.
| chongli wrote:
| _just hiring the entirety of TSMC 's and ASML's technical
| staff at 10x the market rate for ten years_
|
| That's assuming those folks would want to move to China
| and work there. If strategic tensions are increasing to
| the point where war is feared and China uses this as an
| alternative, who would want to move there and risk
| becoming a hostage?
| tartoran wrote:
| Yes and also what stops the other side from making a
| better counteroffer?
| vkou wrote:
| The fact that for a small field of employment, a
| sovereign can dramatically outbid the free market, if it
| so chooses.
| iorrus wrote:
| You can hire them in Europe, Huawei has R&D sites in
| Europe.
| pinkfoot wrote:
| SMIC also has a fab in Italy.
| toohotatopic wrote:
| >They might have the current technology, but no ability to
| advance to newer technologies.
|
| How much needed are further advancements? Aren't we
| reaching the limits of shrinkage and clock speed? Computers
| can be used for years because there are no more huge
| increases. It may cost some more energy, but the current
| technology should be good enough for 10 to 15 years until
| China has its own knowledge.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| In 10-15 years AI will probably be doing a lot more
| stuff... you cannot imagine the impact being 10 years
| behind the top AI chips then, not can anyone really.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > 1) TSMC doesn't build the tools that builds the
| microchips. In fact, they probably don't even know how to
| build it, or even know the optical science to research and
| develop it. That dubious honor goes to ASML, and some other
| Japanese companies. But ASML, the euro company is currently
| in the lead for 5nm. TSMC just knows how to use their
| machine, and to get better at it. And to be clear, ASML
| doesn't know how to manufacture the chips like TSMC can, so
| both companies need each other, in a symbiotic type of
| relationship.
|
| TSMC has investnents in many tool makers, and has own
| tooling RnD.
| 0x8BADF00D wrote:
| Not to mention, the next war will be the last one ever. It
| would be an extinction level event. That choice wouldn't be
| rational.
| davrosthedalek wrote:
| Well, world war yes, but we just saw Russia annex a part
| of a different country by force. So China could say:
| Taiwan is Chinese, we belong together. And would the rest
| of the world not say: Well, we can't start a world war,
| because it's an extinction level event, so let's just
| condemn China in a very strongly worded letter?
| fuoqi wrote:
| >by force
|
| It was so forceful, that it was effectively bloodless and
| an overwhelming portion of the "annexed" populace has
| actively supported it.
|
| Meanwhile situation in Taiwan is drastically different.
| Pro-mainland faction is really weak and can not be used
| to provide sufficient support for quiet absorption. And
| since Taiwan has deep military connections with USA for
| many decades, any military intervention will inevitably
| escalate into a major military conflict.
|
| The only scenario in which something like that can happen
| is civil-war-level turmoil in USA. Probability of which,
| worryingly, is noticeably bigger than zero.
| theflyinghorse wrote:
| Crimean population is overwhelmingly Russian so that
| played a massive role ("These aren't invaders, these are
| our people" sort of take). I wonder if Taiwanese
| population identifies as strongly with China as Crimeans
| do with Russia
| riku_iki wrote:
| > Crimean population is overwhelmingly Russian so that
| played a massive role
|
| Per latest census not under Russia control, it was 60%
| for Russians, and rest were Ukranians and Tatars. It is
| not overwhelmingly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demogra
| phics_of_Crimea#Ethnici...
| fuoqi wrote:
| "Russian" is not only an ethnicity, but also a language
| (which is a proxy to culture and society values).
| According to the same Ukrainian census for 77% of
| Crimeans Russian was a native language. Rejection of
| forceful ukrainazization was one of the major driving
| forces behind protests in Crimea and Donbas.
|
| I am more than certain that if Russian language was a
| second official language in Ukraine and rights of
| minorities were properly respected, then Crimea would
| have been still part of Ukraine and war in Donbas
| wouldn't have happened.
|
| Plus note, that a significant number of people in Crimea
| (and in Ukraine) are of mixed blood, so they can easily
| change their ethnicity based on the current political
| situation.
| riku_iki wrote:
| Russian language had status of official regional language
| in Crimea by the law: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9
| 7%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD...
|
| I think protests and exodus were result of TV propaganda,
| amount of disinformation was tremendeus, though Crimeans
| probably got better life within richer Russia.
| fuoqi wrote:
| Funny you mention this law, IIRC exactly its revoking has
| triggered the Crimean protests, which have opened a
| window of opportunity for Russia. And the new power in
| Kiev was actively hostile to Russia, so there was no hope
| for a better law. In a sense it was the last straw for
| Crimeans.
|
| And even before that, Ukraine is a country in which 30%
| consider Russian a native language (according to the
| official census, so I consider it a lower bound) and more
| than 80% prefer to use it in daily live (the numbers
| should be lower now for obvious reasons, but the point
| still stands). It's simply ridiculous to not have Russian
| as an official language in such conditions. For
| comparison in Canada only 20% know French and still it's
| a full-fledged official language.
| riku_iki wrote:
| Law has not been revoked until 2018 though.
|
| > It's simply ridiculous to not have Russian as an
| official language in such conditions.
|
| They allowed Russian to be official regional language in
| regions where more than 10% population speaks Russian.
| Sounds reasonable to me.
|
| Window of opportunity was caused by messed up government
| in Ukraine, which couldn't produce any resistance against
| Russia's military invasion.
| vkou wrote:
| I doubt ethnicity was the driving factor behind it, as
| much as growing NATO influence over Ukraine, in the years
| leading up to the conflict.
|
| Russia does not want to lose its warm-water ports, or to
| be bordered by hostile countries. If Mexico made serious
| noises about joining an alliance with China, we'd see
| regime change before the week were out.
| fuoqi wrote:
| Yes, the main reason why it has happened is the strategic
| value of Crimea (Donbas was not so lucky in this
| regard...), but the overwhelming local support (which
| originated from factors like ethnicity, culture,
| language, poor Ukrainian rule, etc.) made everything much
| easier and cheaper for Russia. I highly doubt that with a
| hypothetical level of support 50% or lower Russia would
| have risked to take such action.
| tartoran wrote:
| They don't but in an event of forceful takeover the PRC
| propaganda machine could make it look like TW are are
| willingly joining the larger China.
| justinclift wrote:
| > It was so forceful, that it was effectively bloodless
| and an overwhelming portion of the "annexed" populace has
| actively supported it.
|
| That seems like an unusual perspective.
|
| If by "bloodless" you mean "lots of people died, but
| nowhere near as many as a world war" though, then sure.
|
| For the "actively supported", where are you getting that
| information? My impression (from friends in Kiev) is that
| it's universally condemned.
| fuoqi wrote:
| By it I mean that only total 6 people have died from both
| sides, of which only 2 can be attributed to direct
| actions of Russian armed forces (well, if you trust
| Ukrainian version of events, which should be taken with a
| lot of salt, same as with the Russian one). Now compare
| it with number of deaths in Kiev, Odessa or Donbas. (note
| that majority of deaths in the latter case are Ukrainian
| citizens killed directly by Ukrainian army, so much for
| "war with Russia")
|
| >For the "actively supported", where are you getting that
| information?
|
| Directly from Crimeans. I have visited Crimea last year
| as a tourist and talked with them personally (in
| Massandra and Alushta, btw the wine is really great,
| recommend trying it). Try watching 2014 videos, for
| example this one is before Russian forces have became
| active:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atm0W5wA2y4
|
| If you don't trust my anecdotal experience, then how
| about "The Crimea conundrum: legitimacy and public
| opinion after annexation" published in the Eurasian
| Geography and Economics journal? Or how about "To Russia
| With Love" article published in Foreign Affairs? They
| both confirm strong local support in favor of the
| transfer.
|
| >My impression (from friends in Kiev) is that it's
| universally condemned.
|
| I hope you understand that your friend quite probably is
| really biased regarding this issue, right? Always try
| looking outside of the media narrative (one may call it
| soft propaganda), usually world issues are far more
| complex than the version painted by media.
| yclept wrote:
| I think you are purposely narrowly referring to 1 action
| of many in a crisis that has had >10,000 deaths.
| fuoqi wrote:
| Wat? We are discussing the "annexation of Crimea", not
| the larger context. I just provided examples for
| comparison to show that the "annexation" itself is indeed
| can be called "effectively bloodless".
| kjs3 wrote:
| _I hope you understand that your friend quite probably is
| really biased regarding this issue, right?_
|
| The irony is strong with this one.
| fuoqi wrote:
| Sure, in this particular case my point of view is closer
| to the Russian narrative, than to the Western one. And
| some may call it a bias. This is why I've tried to
| provide sources supporting my position, which are
| independent from the Russian state.
| kjs3 wrote:
| "Effectively bloodless" and "actively supported" are
| missing the "as reported in Russian media" and "by the
| people left". The UN reports something like 13,000 people
| died and between the UNHCR and the IDMC says there's
| something like 1.5-2 million people internally displaced
| by the Crimean annexation. That's in a region with a 2014
| population of around 2.3m.
| fuoqi wrote:
| Are you serious? Crimean population difference between
| 2001 and 2014 censuses is less than 5%. And considering
| that population was slowly dwindling since 90s, number of
| people who left from Crimea to Ukraine is even less than
| that. Can you provide any sources claiming that more than
| 6 people have died in Crimea during 2014 events?
|
| I think you are trying to confuse others with numbers
| describing the Donbas conflict, not the "annexation" as
| implied in your message. A really low effort fallacy I
| must say.
| Udik wrote:
| > lots of people died
|
| First time I hear this. Source?
| iorrus wrote:
| I don't see a war effort supporting Taiwan playing well
| in the US domestically. It would be very bloody.
| loulouxiv wrote:
| Why would any political leader go to the extent of "an
| extinction level event" ?
| retrac wrote:
| Wars have a way of getting out of hand. A nation may go
| to war over a fairly realistic goal, only to find itself
| mired in a conflict it cannot exit that is being
| escalated by forces beyond its control.
| jlokier wrote:
| Indeed. This may possibly include trade wars, such as the
| one taking place now.
| ben_w wrote:
| Because they refuse to believe that it is an extinction
| level event ("project fear"); or they think the threat of
| damage will force their opponent to surrender ("they need
| us more than we need them").
|
| It would hardly be the first time that a government
| failed to understand the situation they found themselves
| in.
| nitrobeast wrote:
| Totally this. Covid-19 really opened my eye on how all
| governments basically lie to avoid "fear" in public.
| PeterisP wrote:
| The only way how a WW3 could become an exinction level
| would be full Warsaw Pact - NATO war during the peak of
| the cold war; and even then it would be expected to be a
| horrible disaster, but not an extinction level (e.g.
| killing 80% of population is a catastrophe, but far from
| extinction).
|
| Both USA and Russia have far less nukes (and with smaller
| yields) now, so now the effect of a full USA-Russia
| nuclear exchange would be much smaller - but we are not
| talking about that; we're talking about China, which has
| something like 250 warheads - it's a sizeable deterrent,
| but it's not mutually assured destruction. MAD was the
| doctrine between USA and USSR or Russia; MAD does not
| apply for any other nuclear powers - China, France, UK,
| India, etc. A nuclear exchange with _them_ is "only"
| mass murder, but nowhere close to an extinction level
| event.
| petra wrote:
| What about reverse-engineering, is it a real possibility
| for creating fab equipment ? or are those too complex and
| opaque ?
| sbmthakur wrote:
| > The idea that China could build an alternative to TSMC
| instead of trying to take it apparently doesn't compute.
|
| The author does point out that it will take years for any new
| replacement to reach TMSC's capacity.
| rbecker wrote:
| Time flies, and China has proven it's willing to stand
| behind investments for 'years'.
| dathinab wrote:
| The author did mention that China is trying to do so since a
| while but is not quite there yet.
| rezeroed wrote:
| Perhaps the thought is, controlling TSMC controls supply to
| other countries.
| Teever wrote:
| > When all you know how to use is a hammer, every problem
| looks like a nail.
|
| you're implying that the author has violent predispositions?
| joshuaissac wrote:
| I think the commenter is suggesting that the author's
| understanding of China's military/retaliatory capability
| against Taiwan is his "hammer", so his predictions of
| Chinese actions may be biased accordingly.
| catalogia wrote:
| Is a TSMC fab such an easy thing to even take? I expect it
| could be sabotaged easily by the US or Taiwan if there were
| an imminent threat of it being captured by PRC forces.
| microcolonel wrote:
| I've been told that they have a contingency for this, that
| much of the design collateral is literally rigged for
| destruction.
|
| And I'm inclined to believe it: TSMC guaranteeing that PRC
| would fail to capitalize on their assets if they invaded
| Taiwan is a primary national security concern for the
| Republic of China.
| catalogia wrote:
| It seems believable to me. I've heard some other
| countries (South Korea, and Switzerland maybe?) have/had
| bridges rigged to blow up or mountain passes rigged to be
| blocked by massive concrete structures above them.
| tjalfi wrote:
| Stay-behind[0] operations such as Operation Gladio[1]
| were common in western Europe during the Cold War.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if Taiwan has a similar setup in
| place.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stay-behind [1]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
| skissane wrote:
| North of Sydney, Australia, there is a 1.69km (just over
| 1 mile) long railway tunnel on the main northern railway
| line called the Woy Woy Tunnel.
|
| During WW2, a short additional tunnel was dug above the
| tunnel entrance, to be filled with explosives in order to
| blow it up. This was so that if Japan invaded, the
| Japanese military would not be able to use the railway
| line to help them invade Sydney. The feared Japanese land
| invasion never came, the explosives were never detonated,
| but the tunnel dug for the explosives is still there
| today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Interior_of_Wor
| ld_War_2_d... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Interior
| _of_World_War_2_d...
| welterde wrote:
| In Germany certain bridges were also rigged with
| explosives during the cold war. But they have since been
| removed.
| time0ut wrote:
| China is also make large investments in side stepping Intel and
| AMD in the form of Zhaoxin's x86 CPUs. At the rate they are
| progressing, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they at least
| match Intel and AMD on x86 performance within 10 years.
| chrisjc wrote:
| I think it's pretty safe to say that they always were in the
| process of developing their own. They never weren't. All this
| is going to do is accelerate those plans.
| rezeroed wrote:
| Basically how black markets form. "Fine, we'll play our own
| game".
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > I'm saying that if a country is going to try to hold you back
| by limiting your access to technology, you just develop your
| own.
|
| Yes but this would take a very long time, so from the OP's
| "strategic" POV it's just not relevant in the short-to-medium
| term. The supply chain for reasonably "advanced" electronics
| (the sorts you'll need if you want a usable 4G/5G mobile
| network, etc.) is extremely complex and any single country
| would be at a disadvantage if they tried to develop every part
| of it domestically. Plus China would also have plenty of catch
| up to reach state-of-the-art tech.
| staycoolboy wrote:
| > Yes but this would take a very long time,
|
| I don't think this argument works in 2020.
|
| There are dozens of fabs in China on line and coming on line.
|
| Sure, fabs are expensive: $5B for 7nm fab, plus what, a
| billion more for talent? China is throwing trillions at this.
|
| The other claim implicit in this argument is that China isn't
| smart enough, like there's a monopoly of fab engineers: only
| the smart ones live in the US and work for Intel and AMD.
| That is nonsense bordering on racism (chinese are too dumb to
| compete).
|
| The rest of the supply chain: sort, test, packaging,
| assembly... is trivial by comparison. And Singapore does
| almost all of this for Intel due to lax environmental
| regulations: die are shipped from the US fabs in Oregon,
| Santa Clara and Arizona to Singapore for the final steps
| before being shipped back for sale. Guess where all of that
| post-manufacturing machinery comes from? Yup: China. Even the
| test equipment.
|
| It's almost like most of the people on this thread don't
| realize china makes their own CPUs, chipsets, and
| motherboards that we never even see or hear about unless you
| go to ISSCC, HotChips, or Embedded World.
|
| Stroll through here looking at wafer size and technology:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat.
| ..
|
| EDIT: edited for snark and clarity.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| We've been outsourcing all kinds of low and high tech
| manufacturing to China for decades. Is it a surprise that
| there are two or three generations of people there who
| learned the ins and outs of advanced technologies, some of
| who eventually moved from building to designing their own?
| tartoran wrote:
| Plus China went all in with this, Im thinking a lot of
| western countries would now be a lot more vigilent about
| copyright theft. China has been good at making imitations and
| improving on them due to their low labor cost and high
| production capacity. Once left on their own devices they'd
| inevitably screw up somewhere and being how top down they're
| being governed they would be a lot less nimble IMO. But let's
| see
| blackrock wrote:
| And to add to this, the new wrinkle in this TechWar, is how the
| USA just banned a Chinese university from buying Matlab.
|
| Yes, Matlab.
|
| They banned a university with a bunch of students from using a
| fancy calculator.
|
| This is like banning the sales of Microsoft Excel to China.
|
| The next interesting play, is what China will do to
| countermeasure this.
|
| They will likely have to make their own Matlab program, thus
| eliminating all future profits for Matlab in China. And then,
| Matlab might even now have a new international competitor in this
| area.
|
| Then, will China also ban Microsoft products in the future, in
| retaliation, after they make their own version of Excel.
|
| If I were them, I would think that the American side is also next
| planning on banning the sales of Excel to China.
| unishark wrote:
| The software isn't banned in all of China yet though. Just
| organizations on the sanction list. So to retaliate in that way
| China would effectively be increasing the sanctions on
| themselves.
|
| There's multiple competitors to matlab already that even some
| US schools use. It isn't as lopsided as Excel versus, uh...
| google sheets?
| blackrock wrote:
| Well, the problem is that, China has likely invested and
| spent, hundreds of billions of dollars, and millions of man
| years, on American technology products.
|
| They have built their own applications and business
| processes, on top of American technology systems.
|
| American companies have benefited handsomely from this
| engagement with China. Their stock prices reflect that, in
| how much they earned from China, and how much future
| potential they will earn from China.
|
| What the USA government is doing here, is saying that America
| is no longer reliable. Essentially, that they can take away
| their products on a whim.
|
| This puts the onus of the risk on China. Why should they
| continue to spend and invest in American technology, when it
| can all be taken away, and their applications on top of it
| will be useless.
|
| Imagine if a Chinese company spent 5 years, and millions of
| dollars, to build an application on top of the Microsoft
| Windows framework. Then one day, the American government
| says: Hey, we will no longer allow you to use Windows.
|
| Now, your expensive program, is wasted, and is now worth less
| than a paperweight. Even a paperweight is more useful than
| your program.
|
| Will this happen? Who knows. But it is clearly a risk. And it
| must be a violation of some WTO trading rules somewhere.
| Because something like this, is clearly a monopolistic and
| predatory action, akin to an all-out economic war, designed
| to force the Chinese to their knees, and which would force
| the Chinese side to counter-react to.
| darwingr wrote:
| I guess that's good news for the Octave project.
|
| Unless we're fully heading towards 2 internets from the
| American side as well, I don't know how you would stop that
| from being downloaded in China. I would say they'll just go
| around the fire-wall...that kind of argument has not been
| persuasive as of late.
| wwarner wrote:
| Europe and NA lead the world in solid state physics, and this is
| where real computing power for the future comes from. Europe and
| North America should continue to invest heavily in basic research
| and create incentives for science that can be applied to
| computing.
| dnprock wrote:
| It's good to see people in the tech circle thinking about China.
| China's rise to dominance is unquestionable now. The current US
| administration has failed miserably. In the past 4 years, China
| has made gains on all fronts. I don't think they suffered any
| setback. The US does not seem to have a coherent strategy to
| counter this trend. The trade war was lauded as an achievement.
| But it has failed. The US is now going back to something similar
| to TPP, a policy championed by the previous administration. One
| step forward, 2 steps backward.
|
| This pandemic started in China. But they somehow turned the table
| back to the US. The virus has done more damage to the US than
| China. The US leadership is incompetent. The government and the
| Fed are fixated on keeping the S&P 500 index. Tech investors make
| calls to build. Then, they invest in the next app trend. People
| seem to lose their moral compass. I think in the near future, the
| US won't be able to print money to fix its problems.
|
| China seems to play a war of attrition. It engages the US in
| small conflicts and tends to drag them out. The US is the top
| dog. So it wants to win all of its battles. These conflicts
| distract the US from the big picture. The US is fighting fires on
| all fronts. Then China slowly makes gains.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| It all comes back to
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpdt7omPoa0. It's easy to blame
| our leaders, but we choose our leaders. The real problem is our
| culture of entitlement and bigotry which celebrates naivety.
| Yes, Trump's corona response was terrible, but in the end the
| problem is the huge number of people who not only refuse to
| where a mask/quarantine but put considerable effort into
| mocking those who do.
| free_rms wrote:
| The last time China "engaged" the US in a conflict was Vietnam,
| I think? What do you mean by "engage"?
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(page generated 2020-06-18 23:00 UTC)