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US 'Won't Tolerate' China's Ban on Micron Chips, Commerce Secretary Says (reuters.com) 194

The United States "won't tolerate" China's effective ban on purchases of Micron Technology memory chips and is working closely with allies to address such "economic coercion," U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Saturday. From a report: Raimondo told a news conference after a meeting of trade ministers in the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework talks that the U.S. "firmly opposes" China's actions against Micron. These "target a single U.S. company without any basis in fact, and we see it as plain and simple economic coercion and we won't tolerate it, nor do we think it will be successful." China's cyberspace regulator said on May 21 that Micron, the biggest U.S. memory chip maker, had failed its network security review and that it would block operators of key infrastructure from buying from the company, prompting it to predict a revenue reduction.
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US 'Won't Tolerate' China's Ban on Micron Chips, Commerce Secretary Says

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  • For real? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sonlas ( 10282912 ) on Monday May 29, 2023 @12:11PM (#63559095)

    I mean, think what you want of China, but didn't the US start this game of "sanctions", with Huawei and the like [stackexchange.com]?

    What klnd of tough guy starts to cry when someone does the same thing to him?

    That said, it's all a big show. Of course they will tolerate it, they just want to save face.

    • Then as of this moment, they're on double secret probation!
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. And they did it with claims of "backdoors!" which still have not been proven in any way. One would expect the US to have some people that could actually find these alleged backdoors if they were there and publish some evidence. Instead, nothing. By now a lot of other people will have looked. Again, nothing.

      I have to admit I am disappointed. I actually had some expectations that I could learn how telco equipment can be backdoored, given that SS7 firewalls are a thing and that there is no need for ope

    • I mean, think what you want of China, but didn't the US start this game of "sanctions", with Huawei and the like [stackexchange.com]?

      What klnd of tough guy starts to cry when someone does the same thing to him?

      That said, it's all a big show. Of course they will tolerate it, they just want to save face.

      Are you kidding me? Hypocrisy is the number one tool in the US diplomatic arsenal!

  • Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander...

    • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday May 29, 2023 @01:39PM (#63559303)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Oh, oui, monsieur!

        You must form ze strategique alliance of ze cuisine !

        We French can teach you ze amazing recette of ze Coq au vin, our secrette weapon to help you close ze chicken gap and beat ze Chinese in ze poultry race!

        Vive la France, and vive la French cuisine!

      • I'm not so sure things are that dire. The proverb only refers to the preparation of geese and neither side has the clear culinary advantage there. They are more likely to use the Peking Duck, which while superior to our Fried Chicken is not available in anywhere near the same numbers. Furthermore, if NATO article 5 is invoked, we may certainly count on France's formidable Canard à l'Orange to help even up the score

  • With more chips being produced domestic, not only does the US get more independent but it also means more jobs in the US.

    Oh. Right. It cuts into the profits of the corporations. Can't have that, screw the jobs or the independence from openly hostile countries..

    • stupid thing is, the we spent $ on helping restart a minor part of a supply chain, and then are surprised that not enough is being sold.
      What is needed is for ALL parts of a manufacturing line has to be working.
  • Pot (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday May 29, 2023 @12:14PM (#63559105) Homepage Journal

    Pot, meet kettle.

    Where does this end? Clearly China is retaliating for what the US did to Huawei, ZTE, Hikvision, DJI, and others. I'm surprised it took them this long, perhaps they were hoping that Biden would discontinue the trade war started by his predecessor.

    If the US retaliates against the retaliation, we are into and endless cycle. Neither side can win this one, the best they can hope for is to lose more slowly than their opponent.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's not even retaliation or not eye for eye type retaliation.

      Micron can still be sold in China, just not for its infrastructure. Huawei is pretty much banned from the US in all form.

      Micron can still be sold and used all around the world, but not in China for its infrastructure. However US went on a diplomatic campaign to force all other nations to stop doing business with Huawei under the threat of sanctions.

    • Re:Pot (Score:5, Informative)

      by test321 ( 8891681 ) on Monday May 29, 2023 @12:39PM (#63559155)

      Neither side can win this one, the best they can hope for is to lose more slowly than their opponent.

      the western economies becoming less reliant on a giant dystopian monster that has potential to become a war rival, is a win. There are temporary issues like some products become more expensive, but this will bring long term benefits. Without even talking about bringing back the manufacturing jobs into the western countries, several locations in the Asia/Pacific areas can pick up the missing production capacity and and that are not ferocious dictatorship like China. Major foundries and electronics makers are located in Malaysia and Indonesia; these countries do not align with the values of the western society but contrary to China they don't appear to be a major threat for world peace or the democratic governance model.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by sonlas ( 10282912 )

        Major foundries and electronics makers are located in Malaysia and Indonesia; these countries do not align with the values of the western society but contrary to China they don't appear to be a major threat for world peace or the democratic governance model.

        Ah, so you want countries where you can offshore your pollution, and benefit from poor working conditions, but you don't like when they get big enough that they can put you in harm way. You should have said that first. That's called offshoring slavery.

        • so you want countries where you can offshore your pollution

          Obviously I'm fine with having jobs in the west and keeping our pollution here as well. I selected countries that I know have semiconductor foundries and that are sufficiently democratic for good practices, including in terms of better wages and environmental protection, to prevail in the long term. You seem to base your notion of international politics on who can harm others. I don't. The problem with China is not that it can "harm me", it's that it's a danger for the world, that we (greedy westerners) hav

      • Funny that they chose Micron too considering it has manufacturing in the US (Boise and Manassas) and only one manufacturing site in China proper. The problem is that most assembly happens in China still so this cuts them off from a huge amount of final assembly deals.
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Maybe the goal is to force Micron to move production to China.

        • It does not cut China out of anything. The Chinese government issued a directive so that Chinese state organizations and state owned companies stop buying anything with Micron products. The directive says nothing about assembling electronics with Micron chips in them for export.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The same argument applies to the US though. Europe shouldn't get too close to a country that elects people like Trump, impressions people without charge for decades, regularly violates human rights, doesn't respect privacy and data rights...

        Let's be real for a minute. This has nothing to do with the CCP being monsters or whatever, it's a trade war that Western companies wanted when Huawei and several others made better products than them. Nobody seriously thinks that Cisco network gear is more secure, or th

        • by hey! ( 33014 )

          The same argument applies to the US though.

          Which the EU is entirely aware of, especially when it comes to the US imposing differening philosophies on things like data privacy rights.

          I think, though, the Trump argument cuts both ways. While the US Constitution allows someone to be elected president without even a plurality of voters (and, technically speaking, without *any* public input), it also severely resrtricts what a president is able to do with the office. In fact, it doesn't seem like Trump fully understood the limitations of the office whe

        • Do you remember a Canadian company called Nortel? They entered into a partnership with Huawei, the end of the story was that Huawei had access to Nortel's IP and Nortel was dead. Embrace and destroy.
          A lot of the Chinese excesses only seemed to start after this trade war had begun, although maybe the reporting of the same was ramped up at that point. I think we can assume China (Eastasia) has entered a semi-alliance with Russia (Eurasia) against Oceania because Eastasia's plans for Taiwan match what Euras

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            If you check the details, Huawei copied some header files that were used for compatibility. Probably should have clean room recreated them, but the end result would have been the same.

          • The last time China invaded anyone it went really horribly wrong for them.

            I like how people treat this like a sport, as though "historical team stats" mean anything.

            They don't even mean in anything in sport. There, it's just magical thinking.

        • Europe shouldn't get too close to a country that elects people like Trump...

          No one should get too close to a country that elects (for some idiosyncratic definition of "elects") people like Biden, Trump, Obama, either Bush, Clinton... all the way back. (With the possible exception of JFK).

          As far back as you care to go, they were all rotating sons of bitches. Some rotated faster than others, that's all.

    • Pot, meet kettle.

      That was the exact phrase that leapt into my mind as soon as I read the title of the summary.

      Where does this end? Clearly China is retaliating for what the US did to Huawei, ZTE, Hikvision, DJI, and others. I'm surprised it took them this long, perhaps they were hoping that Biden would discontinue the trade war started by his predecessor.

      If the US retaliates against the retaliation, we are into and endless cycle. Neither side can win this one, the best they can hope for is to lose more slowly than their opponent.

      What you've said is sensible, and it seems both obvious and non-inflammatory. I'm still trying to figure out why you were down-modded.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I don't hate China enough for some people's tastes, so they mod me down all the time. Obviously I don't like the CCP, but there's also a lot of crap said about China, and worst of all we are setting ourselves up to fail by whining instead of competing.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Yes, both sides are doing the same thing, but that doesn't *necessarily* make them equivalent. The accusation against Huawei was that it puts backdoors in its products for the Chinese government. Whether or not that's actually true matters. Either side, both, or *neither* could be lying here -- e.g. the US *might* sincerely believe Huawei is doing this, and China *might* know it's not but be in a prove-a-negative situation. Or -- the US might be completely justified in targeting Huawei, although we shouldn

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        At the time of writing we have absolute proof that the NSA and GCHQ have backdoors into US products.

        As far as I'm aware, there is no evidence of secret backdoors in Huawei products. The closest anyone has come was the discovery of an admin account in some routers for the Italian market, but that appears to be a one off mistake rather than a systematic undermining of security. Not even as bad as hard coded Cisco accounts and the like.

        I'm not taking sides here, I'm just pointing out the evidence we have and h

        • by hey! ( 33014 )

          Oh, the US definitely does it, but it has no legal authority to compel a company to put a back door in a product. It can trick them by sneaking a back door into a proposed crypto standard, or it can persuade the company to put one in. The US government is a definitely a threat to US citizen privacy; China would be more of a threat, EU countries probably less.

          While I agree there is no public evidence for the Huawei backdoor, its existence has been treated as credible by multiple parties who woudl have seen

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Given what all comes from China these days and how utterly incapable the rest of the world is to replace that at acceptable cost, I would say starting a trade-war with China is pretty stupid.

      • That's exactly what's happening right now. Factories have begun to move to Vietnam and India.

        What magical thing does China have that India and Vietnam don't?

        Nothing. It's just a matter of time to get out since the west spent so much effort and time getting in but it will happen.

  • Double standard? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Murdoch5 ( 1563847 ) on Monday May 29, 2023 @12:26PM (#63559133) Homepage
    China "can't" impose a ban against a US company, because their reasons aren't valid, but, the US can ban products and resources from China, because the US has valid reasons? If the US can ban anything from China, then China can ban anything from the US, you can't have a single sided argument that veto wins. The US started the argument, and now wants to run to the aunts and uncles in the family, after they got grounded, it's really stupid and petty.
    • All true, but stupid and petty got us into this mess. The stupid was outsourcing manufacturing to other countries and the pettiness was the corporate greed that caused the stupid outsourcing of everything.

      -'for a few dollars more...'
      • the corporate greed that caused the stupid outsourcing of everything.

        People were free to vote with their money. There was a time when TV sets were still manufactured in the US. Others started to be manufactured in China. Guess what, people only bought the ones from China, because they were cheaper, and it gave them the short-term benefit of increased way of life. Except for the people manufacturing the TV sets in the US of course, but that was just a tiny fraction of them.

        Reminds me of this poem [hmd.org.uk].

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It should be noted that the US banned Chinese equipment without giving any evidence as to backdoors and the like. One would assume the NSA, for example, would have such evidence if it was actually there. Now China bans US products without providing any evidence and suddenly that is wrong?

      Sounds to me like "Mommy! They are fighting back! Waaaaaaaa!"

      • Exactly! "Mommy! They are fighting back! Waaaaaaaa!"

        Regardless if anyone has evidence of backdoors, the defacto standard should be: "The backdoor exists, we haven't found it yet!", unless it can be absolutely shown it doesn't.

        When ever I work on embedded systems, I always build backdoors into products, because people always lock themselves out, or brick the system through stupidity. I use the same system to engineer the backdoor, that I wrote ~10 years ago, with updates for modern practices. It invol
        • by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Well, I hope your employer is not active in any regulated industry, because doing that can get your company banned as supplier and fined rather heavily.

          Incidentally, unless they get camouflaged as vulnerabilities (and hence _anybody_ can find and use them), backdoors are not that hard to find.

      • No evidence is necessary. And if there is evidence they have no reason at all to shoe it to you and many reasons not to.

        Is there evidence? I don't know and you don't either but at least I understand evidence is not necessary. This isn't a high school debate. This is a raw expression of geopolitical power.

        Both countries do what they feel is in their best interest. This whole thing about proof and evidence is naive and childish.

        • by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Just ist just bullshit and marks you as an "useful idiot". If there was evidence, somebody else would have found it by now and would have published it. There is far too much "hacker street-cred" to be gained for that not to have happened.

    • The US started the argument

      They did not. Years before this, ever heard of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, Discord, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Dropbox, Medium, Wikipedia, Pinterest... .etc? China banned them all way before Trump became president. We can talk if some of them can get unbanned from the Great Firewall. The world is still *too generous* when it comes to banning Chinese products. A lot more can be done. Huawei, ZTE, TikTok should only be the beginning.

    • Why do you believe either country needs a reason?

      They do it because they feel it is in their best interest. No one needs to prove anything to anyone or convince anyone of anything. This is global power politics not a HS debate club.

  • by 0xG ( 712423 ) on Monday May 29, 2023 @12:43PM (#63559173)

    He should threaten to hold his breath until China capitulates.

  • It's interesting this hasn't entered the debate yet but they are banning memory modules on the basis of national security.

    We can debate whether sanctions against Chinese companies are on the basis of security concerns but not the potential.

    Here however even the potential for Micron to produce anything that's a threat is in question... so the justification itself has been voided by any reasonable person.

  • by waspleg ( 316038 ) on Monday May 29, 2023 @01:35PM (#63559297) Journal

    That doesn't exist in the US.

    Huawei is an arm of the CCP spy/theft/sabotage apparatus - they are not equivalent. As such they don't need profits to exist. I am curious why the US gov't gives a shit about Micron though.

    • am curious why the US gov't gives a shit about Micron though.

      Because intel and Micron are the only American companies doing advanced design AND manufacturing (in their respective areas) 100% in ye'ole USoA.

      AMD and Nvidia do Advanced Design there, but manufacture abroad.

      Samsung and TSMC do advanced manufacturing in the USoA, but are from abroad.

      The only "National Champions" In semiconductor Design AND Manufacturing (in their respective areas) are Intel and Micron.

      PS: The USoA Govt' did not only sanction Huawei, but also (among many others) YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technol

    • I am going to guess Micron makes chips that goes into military use and if micron's getting banned, their revenue are dropping like a stone and if they fold.. well who's gonna supply the military with US made chips?
      • Zero worries if micron is critical to US military supply chain. Companies like that are simply not allowed to go out of business. They will be offered some big long term contract to keep them going.

        You see the same thing at a larger scale for big ticket items like jet fighters. With only 3 major makers, the contract usually goes to one of the bidders that lost last time if their jet is viable.

    • by higuita ( 129722 )

      true, but US also mandates many classified actions to software and hardware builders, that is why you find NSA keys in windows and why Stuxnet was loaded in the printer firmware that was sent to Iran and why drug cartel leaders use dumb phones.

      why can't that happen also in memory chips or cpu, they also have complex firmware

      China and USA both do the exact same thing, yet both complain about the other one actions.

      For the US gov, i just say:
      For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind

  • When they started a war of tit for tat!
  • We turn around and say that we will not allow American companies to install Chinese systems that are guaranteed to be spyware and/or future attack points (and there are more that should be blocked),
    yet, we object when China does the same???? Seriously?
    This was EXPECTED.

    What is needed is to quit focusing on company parts and instead, develop FULL STREAMS HERE.
    That means, bring back manufacturing. Only AUTOMATE THE HECK OUT OF IT.

    Sad thing is, that Gina Raimondo is NOT a goon squad type and actual
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      This was EXPECTED.

      Indeed. Only a blithering idiot would start a trade-war and expect the other side not to retaliate. Also, "tolerate"? This is the law in China, there is nothing to "tolerate". The US fired the first shot, China retaliates. This is how these things go.

      • No, we did NOT fire the first shot. China has been stealing manufacturing and Military IP, subsidizing various manufacturing, and then dumping on the west to kill off our companies. They pulled it with REMs, Electronics, LEDs, PV, Wind turbines and are trying again with batteries and EVs, with Aeronautics sitting in the background.
        The problem is that our government has been ran by IDIOTS that have allowed CHina to run rough-shod on the west, but esp. America. Very stupid on our part.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Hopefully the US will continue moving factories out of China and leave their manufacturing sector in the dust.

      How's that sound?

      We shouldn't be trading with such grotesquely evil people anyway.

  • This is the dumbest thing I've seen in a while; well this and passing legislation that gives billions to pet projects under the guises of "inflation reduction" is another story. If you get into a trade war with a nation that is systemically destroying your economy and deliberately provoking an all-out war, expect a fight. The question is are you playing to win or just get to neutral levels?

    End favored trading status with China now.
    Raise Import tariffs on all goods coming from China by 25%.
    Ban Chinese investments in US land, natural resources, and industries.
    Call bullshit on their so-called climate reduction initiatives when they're building new coal mines month after month [institutef...search.org] while we're shutting ours down.

    Fight this to win.

    • by higuita ( 129722 )

      Too late, US already lost most of it industrial production
      China already got assets in all over the US, including external debt. They can tank the dollar if they want, they will also lose huge amount of money, but the dollar would take a major hit and cause major problems (that in turn will block china from selling to USA, so also taking a hit)

      It is the same as Russia selling gas to Europe, trying to play with those cards, both take a huge hit back

      • They can't tank the dollar. Their economy would crumble to dust long before ours and they're find themselves with a violent uprising of 1.4 billion starving people. The CCP are evil not stupid.

        There's nothing of note China can really do but wait for the inevitable sinking of their economy through their own ineptitude and corruption while we keep moving manufacturing out.

  • Sure, Jan. ðY(TM)
  • the US don't like it when their own recipes are used against them...
    what a bunch of whining hypocrits

    • I do. I'm super happy about this. I hope China blocks and kicks out all US companies. That's a huge long term win for the US and China's economy will collapse.

  • Is it April 1 somewhere?

    Like one needs evidence to sanction something these days. And pot calling the kettle black, etc, etc.

    Nothing to see here.

    -m

  • What does "won't tolerate" mean? It appears our leaders are engaged entirely in a fantasy world where the point is creating an intellectual argument with the best spin. Moreover, they seem to see themselves and their narrow clique as the final arbiters of who wins the argument. This ought to scare us since we are the ones who will pay the price when the real world intervenes.
  • Forget about the hypocrisy etc etc

    Surely, stopping the "forced transfer of tech" is what the US wanted? "Suppressing China's rise" is what the US wanted?

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