US Pushes Japan and Other Allies To Join China Chip Curbs (nikkei.com) 58
The U.S. is urging allies including Japan to follow its lead on restricting exports of advanced semiconductors and related technology to China, likely intensifying the impact of Chinese-American tensions on chipmakers worldwide. From a report: Tokyo has begun internal discussions on the issue at Washington's request, a Japanese government insider said. Officials are weighing which restrictions can be adopted in Japan, and will watch how other U.S. allies such as the European Union and South Korea respond. The sweeping export controls announced Oct. 7 by the U.S. Commerce Department span chipmaking equipment, design software and even engineers who support semiconductor manufacturing in China.
"We were talking to our allies. No one was surprised when we did this, and they all know that we're expecting them to cover likewise," Alan Estevez, undersecretary of commerce for industry and security, said during an event Thursday hosted by a U.S. think tank. The curbs allow companies to apply for exemptions, but with a presumption of denial, meaning such requests are unlikely to be granted. Violators may face civil and criminal penalties.
"We were talking to our allies. No one was surprised when we did this, and they all know that we're expecting them to cover likewise," Alan Estevez, undersecretary of commerce for industry and security, said during an event Thursday hosted by a U.S. think tank. The curbs allow companies to apply for exemptions, but with a presumption of denial, meaning such requests are unlikely to be granted. Violators may face civil and criminal penalties.
Hmmm .. (Score:2, Informative)
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So doesn't this increase the chance (Score:2)
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of China moving up plans to steal Taiwan and TSMC?
It is unlikely that China would capture much Taiwanese technology intact. Sensitive precision equipment is trivial to sabotage.
Also, China is not remotely ready to invade Taiwan. Have you seen the beach assault in Saving Private Ryan? The Allies had many times as much amphibious landing ship capacity as China has today. The distance from China to Taiwan is several times further than from Britain to Normandy. Normandy was defended by 3rd rate troops, while 95% of the German army was busy elsewhere. The Allie
Re: Hmmm .. (Score:3)
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is a dutch company.
A Dutch company, okay, not Danish, sorry. There are already stories about the US leaning on them to embargo China, too. Time will tell if it works. Seems like stupid strategy, so I'm being a bit contrarian but just pointing out that the stories can be spun for the benefit of the USA just as much as for China.
Re: Hmmm .. (Score:2)
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If the people in a clearly demarked geographic area (e.g. a large island) are democratically polled and wish to remain a separate state, then that should be the legal situation.
It belonging to the PRC is just one opinion. It never belonged to PRC. It was a part of the previous incarnation of the chinese state, or federation, or whatever, which was never successfully converted into being part of PRC upon the coup / civil war that converted the mainland of China.
Re: lack of recognition (Score:3)
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What? Next you're going to say that President Nixon was unprincipled!
Re: Hmmm .. (Score:4, Informative)
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How can you steal something that already belongs to you?
That's a nice fantasy, if you are a Chinese government pundit (which you honestly kinda sound like with this angle). Problem is, Taiwan doesn't belong to them: says Taiwan. Unlike your opinion, China's, The State Department, or mine, that's who really matters here: Taiwanese people.
Re:Hmmm .. (Score:5, Informative)
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The bulk of devices in this world don't need such "technologically advanced" chips.
Everything with a battery benefits from being a more advanced process, and that's the majority of personal computing today. All of the most expensive and thus potentially profitable ICs (if you're not trying to get them out of an Intel fab anyway) are "technologically advanced".
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personal computing?
haha, guess again. that's not where the bulk of the world's chips are.
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personal computing?
haha, guess again. that's not where the bulk of the world's chips are.
It's a big, profitable market, between the handhelds and the desktops and the game consoles. The bulk of the world's chips are puny little things with small margins.
Re:Hmmm .. (Score:5, Insightful)
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we're not just talking of their being able to make "low end cheap appliances", most applications in this world don't need 7nm and smaller. I swear it's like a bunch of zoomers here judge everything by their gaming rig.
SMIC is getting into 7nm manufacturing right now anyway.
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It's irrelevant, China can make server and chips for other applications with the other nodes.
You think companies with server farms throw out their gear with older nodes every two years?
You view the semiconductor chip world through the juvenile eyes of a gamer rig maker. You only show your ignorance.
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hahaha, so they can't make what you call a "flagship phone"??!!
Funny, I never had a flagship phone. None of my adult friends have one either.
Fall behind in status symbol bling phones? Oh, the humanity.
You seem confused about something, the "cutting edge" isn't what most the world is built out of, not even tech gear. My home PC and laptop aren't cutting edge, the servers at my employer aren't cutting edge. The businesses we take in money from aren't cutting edge.
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At this point you are the willfully ignorant one. The USA can't even make the common chips it needs, and advanced chips are made elsewhere. China can make the common chips it needs, and many other electronic parts that USA can't and has to import. In that sense USA is falling behind the chip making world.
In the future,China will be making advanced chips, that is a certainty.
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CHIPS is about a desperate attempt to counter China, funny you'd bring that up. USA is losing.
The most powerful chips in the world are not made in USA. Anyone who starts spewing about Intel doesn't know the business.
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China has been putting a lot of effort (and money) into developing high end chip manufacturing. If we aren't careful we will end to in another 5g situation.
The best tech come from the Netherlands, so unless the US can convince the EU do take action it's not going to stop China.
Which is to say nothing of the optics of trying to prevent your rival from getting the technology to compete. This isn't the cold war, and a lot of developing nations are watching how China is treated as it becomes an industrialised n
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This isn't the cold war...
Yes. Yes, it is.
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While most of the chips used (by quantity) are mature nodes, they are also the cheap dinky chips no one pays a lot of money for (at least in normal times).
Things like gates, jellybean logic and other semiconductors are mature nodes. But as we've seen, they're also ones that don't make much profit given how a cheap microcontroller can jump in price because supplies
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doesn't work that way. the biggest part of the market, in value, is big old nodes stuff. ...
Microcontrollers
Power mosfets and drivers
Power management chips
chargers, power converters, regulators
sensors, MEMS
Microwave amplifiers and transceivers
Interface line drivers
Analog front ends
Display drivers.
Discretes
All older nodes.
All those are required to build smartphones, and may be cheapish, but much more numerous, so they add up to a huge portion of the value.
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No. I wasn't speaking of quantity.
Again, the bulk of the market, by money, is "mature mode"
that includes controller chips in cars, trucks, airplanes, ships, weapons systems
not your gee-whiz crap
Re: Hmmm .. (Score:2)
Re: Hmmm .. (Score:4, Insightful)
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This is one of the reasons I opposed brexit. The EU is big enough to easily resist these calls, like it did with the Iran oil export deal and data transfer rules. The UK by itself will doubtless roll over and wag its tail.
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That's just awful. What a bunch of crybabies are the americans, because they are falling behind they'll try to ban chip export to China instead of trying to catch up.
China is completely dependent on foreign firms for the central equipment needed in the fab industry, and the USA remains a major player in that tech, while China is not.
Re: Hmmm .. (Score:2)
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If the US was behind, there would be no reason to ban the export of chip technology.
It's common knowledge that any intellectual property that enters China is copied and quickly found in domestic startups backed by the government. My company made the mistake of trying to produce there (to support Asia sales) in the mid 2000's. Within 2 years there were full counterfeit products badged as OEM on the market.
I understand the bene
Re: Hmmm .. (Score:2)
Rule by fear (Score:2)
"It's better to be feared than loved." -- Niccolò Machiavelli
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So the US govt is confident that it is more feared by Japan than Japan fears China.
"It's better to be feared than loved." -- Niccolò Machiavelli
No, I think it's more along the lines of Japan would much prefer the strings attached to friendliness with the United States than those attached with comparable friendliness with China.
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Japan relies on the US for defence. Many of the vehicles and weapons used by the Self Defence Forces are American. There is also this weird kind of "big brother" relationship Japan has with the US, which started after the war. So Japan tends to go along with the US on a lot of stuff.
It will be interesting to see if they are willing to hobble their economy like this though. Right now they are starting a big new stimulus package to deal with a devalued Yen.
Re: Rule by fear (Score:2)
It's a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Japan is not a fan of the US, but they dislike China even more
Fun (Score:1)
Yup, further strangle supplies and cause a global depression, what could go wrong? When will jackasses at the Fed and govt? realize that the answer to a shitty economy is not to make people lose their jobs. The only winners will be the wealthy. These stupid anti free trade maneuvers only cause pain and suffering.
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I wish you right wing nuts would make up your minds. You've spent decades bitching and moaning about China and the instant we do something about it, and with a strong nationalist policy, you suddenly love China and Chinese manufacturing.
I'm beginning to think you just want something to bitch about.
Oh, and this isn't going to strangle anything. We fab more chips here in the US than China does. They're only responsible for something like 6%, and nothing on the high-end. What this move *will* do, is bring
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I've always been pro free trade and globalist, so please fuck off. I'm anti any sort of nationalism, racism, and tribalism.
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This isn't a bad idea but the overall motivation (Score:2)
Could be better.
China has had an illegal occupation of Tibet for what 70 years now? and is also trying to exterminate the Uighurs, is implementing social policies straight out of science fiction dystopias, has that late stage version of communism, where it's indistinguishable between fascism, communism, and plain organized crime and they have managed to combine that with China's unique imperial insanity where emperors do crazy things like locking entire cities up.
So yeah curbing China's growth is important,
John Mearsheimer predicted this (Score:2)
CCCP (Score:3)
They should create some kind of international agreement and call it the China Chip Curb Pact.