Trump and Biden both tried to cut off China’s supply of advanced microchips. So China is now producing its own.
Please consider New Phone Sparks Worry China Has Found a Way Around U.S. Sanctions.
As Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was visiting China earlier this week, a sea-green Chinese smartphone was quietly launched online.
It was no normal gadget. And its launch has sparked hushed concern in Washington that U.S. sanctions have failed to prevent China from making a key technological advance. Such a development would seem to fulfill warnings from U.S. chipmakers that sanctions wouldn’t stop China, but would spur it to redouble efforts to build alternatives to U.S. technology.
Huawei Technologies Co.’s new smartphone, the Mate 60 Pro, represents a new high-water mark in China’s technological capabilities, with an advanced chip inside that was both designed and manufactured in China despite onerous U.S. export controls intended to prevent China from making this technical jump. Those sanctions were first imposed by the Trump administration and continued under President Biden.
One person told The Washington Post that the Mate 60 Pro has a 5G chip. Speed tests posted by early buyers of the phone online suggest its performance is similar to top-of-the-line 5G phones. In July, Reuters reported Huawei’s imminent return to the 5G phone market, citing three technology research firms speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“This shows that Chinese companies like Huawei still have plenty of capability to innovate,” said Chris Miller, a professor at Tufts University and author of the book “Chip War.” “I think it will also probably intensify debate in Washington on whether restrictions are to be tightened.”
Sanction Failure
The Global Times comments “The trade war, without a doubt, has proven to be a failure. While the tech war is ongoing and the US maintains an advantage in the high-tech sector, the momentum of the Chinese people’s determination to catch up despite the pressure, and a strong sense of moral conviction, are something that the US cannot match.”
China is producing chips with a 7 nanometer process while the most advance US chips are 4 nanometers. For comparison purposes the thickness of a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers.
But this advance, good enough for advanced 5-G, was not supposed to happen at all.
The US wanted to knock Huawei out of the 5G market. Now, instead of China using US chips, it is producing its own chips.
China rubbed it in US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s face by releasing the phone on her visit.
This is exactly what I predicted would happen when Trump announced the sanctions.
Technology sanctions may work for a few months or a few years, but the end result is failure. Sanctions aimed at toppling leaders don’t ever work.
In this case, the US just lost chip sales to the world’s biggest market without much to show for it.
The next US response is also easy to predict regardless of whether Trump or Biden is president. Both will double down on sanctions.
Sanction and Tariff Madness
- Question of the Day: Is Trump or Biden the Bigger Trade War Fool?
- Trump Wants a 10 Percent Tariff on Everything, It’s Really a $300 Billion Tax Hike
Also consider What Would it Take for a BRIC-Based Currency to Succeed?
I offer two definitions of success. The standard meaning will be a failure, but the BRICS+++ alliance might be very useful at avoiding US sanctions.
Someone above mentioned that SMIC bought the technical talent from other sources. It implies that such technical talent is equivalent to Ms. Stormy Daniels being “Bought “ by Trump. I am not putting down anyone here. Trump is a handsome man. Most girls in that business would not reject his offer for a one-night stand. But, the technical expertise helping SMIC to mass produce the 7nm chips is different. I have attached a link below for you to review (translate to English if you cannot read mandarin text). In short, Dr. Liang (Berkeley Ph. D.) in the semi-conductor field is highly respected just like Mr. Seymour Hersh in the news business. Neither gentleman can be “bought” to do something against his belief and conscience. He was not offered the promotion he deserved in TSMC. So, he went on to Samsung before joining SMIC. In fact, he had successfully developed the 7nm process two years ago using the DUV equipment. And, the process was further improved over the past year before the chips in Mate 60 were mass produced. Had he had the EUV machine, he would have developed the 3nm chips in Huawei’s Mate 60.
https://www.163.com/dy/article/HN9ECS1H0531IVHE.html
As to the massive tech transfer to China: that would have never of happened if we still got a majority of our tax revenue from tariffs. But Wall Street had to screw main Street so a few filthy rich could make a killing.
In the 19th Century when the US became an industrial might, its only source of revenue was tariffs. Sort if blows your idea out of the water.
“ In the 19th Century when the US became an industrial might” by stealing British tech and producing it cheaper.
Ring a bell?
Rather amusing that they are worried that China is going to catch up with US technology. Thy should be more worried that China is going to soon OVERTAKE US technology (and probably already has in some areas).
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/09/how-sanctioning-chinas-development-has-failed.html
“China’s industry developed by copying designs from other producers. But it only took a few years until it started to produce better or new products for new markets. Historically this is nothing new. Germany’s industrial development happened by ripping off British manufacturing processes and products. A few years later industrial German products could compete with British ones and the Brits started to copy Germany technology.”
“Restrictions on technology exports to China at best are a stopgap. Eventually, China, which graduates more engineers each year than the rest of the world combined, will develop its own substitutes”
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Has Xi Jinping bankrupted China?
It is finally possible to imagine a post-Communist regime
BY Edward Luttwak – Professor Edward Luttwak is a strategist and historian known for his works on grand strategy, geoeconomics, military history, and international relations.
August 24, 2023
It is hard to tell when a crisis in a dictatorial regime, such as the sudden breakdown of China’s economic model, is not about this or that, but about the regime itself. My own experience in this regard is very discouraging. In 1984, my book Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union contained many pages about nationalities I claimed were heading towards independence — not just the well-known if still very obedient Baltics, Armenians and Georgians, but others occupying vastly larger territories, the then barely known Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Tajik and Turkmen (I readily confess that it never occurred to me that Ukrainians might join them).
The response of every established Western Sovietologist was that I had foolishly confused folkloric categories with actual living and breathing nations — they were just “Soviets” who occasionally wore funny hats, and it was pure and utter fantasy that they might ever want to be independent. That was just seven years before the final and official collapse of the Soviet Union.
It is axiomatic that nations endure while regimes must collapse, but none of the easy Soviet analogies works when it comes to China. Yes, Beijing recognises 55 minority populations, but they account for no more than 9% or so of the total, and some of the nationalities really are only folkloric, unlike the Uyghur, Kazakhs and Tibetans whom the Chinese must actively repress.
…
https://unherd.com/2023/08/has-xi-jinping-bankrupted-china/
Sanctions on anyone induces them to develop their own proprietary technologies.
When it is time to build railroads people build railroads.
This is not like the secret formula for Coca Cola.
EUV technology is more unattainable than the formula for Coca Cola. Most experts put ASML at least ten years ahead of any competitor, even if the competitor had virtually unlimited resources.
Good, now we can steal their technology.
Just watch out for any “backdoors” in Chinese chips that allow the CCP an entry point into your business operations.
if the CCP want to see my business operations, i think they would be frightened. especially my search history on intertubes.
And watch out for backdoor chips created by the NSA in your American-made routers.
NSA can’t legally spy on Americans. Check.
NSA doesn’t pay any attention to any rules. Check.
Yes. Nudge, nudge, know what I mean?
Actually, it is only a half failure. The sanctions worked well for China.
Sanction of cell phones based upon security concerns is laughable unless Huawei installed backdoor like the USA’s NSA. So far, there is absolutely no evidence of that. In case you don’t know, Trump and Trudeau even used dirty plots to kidnap Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou in 2018 and held her for three years. So, justice is served when Huawei released the most advanced 5G satellite-capable cell phone during Raimondo’s China visit. If Huawei and Chinese semi-conductors’ firm were able to make the Mate 60, those technology capabilities would be in high demand for supercomputers, for space station, for ultrahigh speed missiles, for military applications. Yes, China will probably not be able to make the 3 nm chips for another 10 years. But, the current capabilities will be continuously developed and the following two scenarios will emerge:
1) Many nations will be able to have the confidence to buy Chinese equipment (e.g., 5G communication, defense weapons) since they know that China has penetrated US’s technology containment.
2) Many chip suppliers will be eager to sell semi-conductor equipment to China because they know that it is only a matter of time for China to develop its own supplier chain for the semi-conductor industry. Selling Chinese these equipment while they can will earn income from China that may actually slow down China’s own development due to competition.
The Washington elites would like the Chinese to be their slaves who can only supply cheap goods. But, they forgot that containment had never worked on China. Despite USA’s technological sanctions, China has developed its own GPS, space station, high speed missiles, EV batteries, and now the 5-7 nm chips and its design capabilities. It is time to scrap the containment strategy as it hurts more to the US suppliers.
“So far, there is absolutely no evidence of that”
——
You know this how?
I smell a Chinese agent in our midst.
I believe (and that’s true for other electronics components) that China “bought” TSMC’s key people (by paying them 2-3x more than Taiwan) who have been able to improve Huawei’s chip making capabilities (~ 5 nm). The critical part here is handling /operating ( trade secrets) of ASML ‘s lithography equipment.
And ASML is a nice Dutch company, not American.
Many of ASML’s patents are registered in the U.S. and critical components of their EUV machines comes from the U.S. Lithography technology was developed by ASML when it was a U.S. subsidiary of Philips Electronics.
Mish’s argument is valid. If there was no embargo for chips, by inertia the Chinese companies, especially global like Huawei, would have used the best chips available to them. Under pressure of sanctions, they were alerted to their weaknesses, and forced to act. There’s no reason to believe they won’t succeed.
Smart phone deflation.
This doesn’t prove sheet. Sanctions were not meant to thwart Chinese technology. They are meant to push US products over Chinese products TO US CITIZENS. They are stating that the Chinese can choose to sell their wares with tariffs or not, but either way we in the US will not accept their one-sided trade agreements any longer because we value sovereignty and national security over cheap Chinese sheet.
Sanctions and Tariffs do one thing: Drive up prices
They have totally failed.
As far as “Cheap Chinese Sheet” we once thought the same about Japan. China is now leading the world on EVs.
They do drive prices up, but who claimed they wouldn’t? That wasn’t the concern. There were other concerns and reasons for the tariffs.
“China is now leading the world on EVs.”
Not something I would be striving for. Let them have their EVs. As many as they like.
“China is now leading the world on EVs.”
——
You mean the cars that cannot survive a flood and has to be totaled if the battery gets exposed to saltwater? And only works up to spec in a relatively narrow temperature range? And has to be junked once the battery wears down because a replacement cost more than what the car will be worth after 8-10 years? I could go on.
Let China own the EV market. When the EV market implodes, it will be another albatross around Chinas neck, just like it real estate industry.
This is a losing game for the US.
Lets say that before sanctions, US companies sold 3 million chips a year. 1 million to US customers, 1 million to Chinese customers and 1 million to the rest of the world.
After sanctions they sell 2 million chips (1 to the US customers and 1 to the rest of the world). So immediately they are down 1 million sales.
Now that China has the same chips, they are going to take away the rest of the world sales (1 million chips) since they are cheaper than the US chips. That leaves US companies with 1 million sales in chips.
If they chose to sell at tariff prices in the US, they can eat away at that last 1 million in sales. Potentially using their 2 million in sales in China and worldwide to wipe out that last 1 million in sales in the US.
Bottom line is US companies go from 3 million down to 1 million and potentially a lot less. Does that sound like winning to do?
You fail to understand the main reason for the tariffs. It was to encourage US companies to relocate their manufacturing stateside for not only economic but security reasons.
Actually the tariffs were an attempt to hurt China since the chips themselves are mostly made in Taiwan which is our ally.
Relocating here essentially means we need to run corporate welfare forever on these chip companies in order to keep them afloat since they otherwise would be put out of business in an instant by Taiwan and now China. That corporate welfare is a constant drag on the economy along with plenty of other corporate welfare drags (looking at you GM/Ford, Boeing, US Sugar etc).
We can argue forever about whether we need this for security reasons (you do realize the military and NSA etc who really care about security make those own custom chips they sell to NO ONE) since these chips just go to US consumers. My take is the security reasons is BS. It’s just more corporate welfare in an attempt to onshore jobs in losing industries.
China will soon be invading Taiwan and own the will soon own TMSC and their expertise.
China does not have access to EUV lithography equipment necessary to make 5 nm or smaller advanced semiconductors such as those utilized by Nvidia for its most AI chips. The point of the sanctions is to keep China from getting access to ASML’s EUV equipment, and no they cannot simply reverse engineer an EUV machine because ASML and the U.S. control the supply chain that enables the technology in that equipment.
Sorry for posting this twice. I thought it didn’t go through the first time.
This doesn’t prove sheet. Sanctions were not meant to thwart Chinese technology. They are meant to push US products over Chinese products TO US CITIZENS. They are stating that the Chinese can choose to sell their wares with tariffs or not, but either way we in the US will not accept their one-sided trade agreements any longer because we value sovereignty and national security over cheap Chinese sheet.
Except the products you are talking about are not made in America. They are made in Taiwan.
If they were made in America it would be even worse because this would increase the trade deficit because the Chinese would no longer be buying the chips from America.
The chips are made in the Tiawan and then assembled into phones in China. So everyone’s half right.
I believe the point was any place but the likes of China. Taiwan is not considered a foe. You can’t repatriate an industry overnight.
Agreed. If it were left to Mish, he’d sell out every single US factory and move it to China or offshore it. That’s what would happen in his “free trade” world. When there’s a significant imbalance in cost, there has to be some way of equalizing the playing field.
Free trade is never free and is a myth, at least not between the US and a country like China.
rubbish
Trade with China has not been free for decades. Free trade can only be bilateral. It only takes one party void it and China did that long before Trump or Biden. This is what libertarians miss.
Yeah.
My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.
Any article that throws around nanometers is usually by definition hype.
There are many aspects to the chip industry. For example, the leading chip foundry, TMSC produces zero photo-lithographic machines.
There is another divide between processing and memory chips, the former not necessarily requiring the latest and most advanced technology, it depends on application: industrial or gadget. Phones are somewhat important gadgets.
intel has yet to introduce a made in USA 7nm CPU. So Intel’s woke and diverse workfarce is behind the 7nm communist Chinese, and behind the 4nm Taiwan Chinese. Education and work ethic are key parameters.
The Chinese were going to develop their own chips either way, American products are too expensive because there is too much government overreach and taxation. And the tariffs are about tax revenue, not trade. American products have a 50% tax rate once you add it all up, a burden Chinese products do not bear. So that has to be equalized for the sake of the budget even if you don’t care about fairness or American workers. All that “made in America” stuff is just how they sell the idea of higher taxes to the people. Tariffs won’t have any effect on the Chinese, American companies still cannot compete on price.
I don’t understand. They worked so well on Japan before WW2. Must be an anomaly.
Although sanctions weren’t imposed on the auto industry many decades ago, these sanctions are going to be the driving force (pun intended) of the same effect on US dominance of chip design as what happened there, IMO.
Information travels too easily now. Secrets on an industrial scale are very difficult to keep, and the Chinese don’t care about patents.
Absolutely correct.
Reverse engineering something is very easy to do. Then comes the harder part of building the manufacturing process but eventually you’ll get that part right too.
The funny part is that this reverse engineering process + manufacturing happens faster than the original country that invented it because there is no need to do R&D and more importantly, you know it’s possible.
Probably the most famous case of this was the Atomic bomb. The Manhattan project was an incredible undertaking. Yet the Russians stole the technology and built their own bomb in a faction of the time / effort.
The Atomic bomb argument is somewhat hollow. The most important wisdom Russia could have gained was that someone has it, and it can be done. If it didn’t posses scientific cadres in physics, it wouldn’t know where to begin.
But that’s exactly where the Chinese are/were in microchips. They had some knowledge and then knew something better could be done. So they reverse engineered it.
Making a 6 nm chip capable of enabling 5G consumer devices only requires state of the art DUV Lithography. Reverse engineering DUV lithography is not necessary for the Chinese as sanctions have to previously included DUV equipment for the most part. However, no company or country has been able to reverse engineer EUV lithography machines enabling 5 nm or smaller advanced semiconductors used in AI computing and advanced defense systems. EUV is exclusively a technology of ASML and those machines have not been allowed to be sold to the Chinese.
“..and more importantly, you know it’s possible.”
Touche!
That’s the biggie.
Comparing the responses you get from your own, currently failing, best effort; with what you get from something “better” which performs as desired; gives you a huge amount of hints. Compared to poking around in the dark, following hunches, it’s night and day.
Hence why the nonsense that “The Chinese”, or “The Japanese” or “The Bogeymen” or what have you; are somehow in need of “stealing” something, is so patently ridiculous to anyone literate who has ever been part of any design or scientific work: Pretty much any problem, is “easy”, once you have have access to a working solution. You don’t have to “copy” anything (which would be much harder, since your tooling and supply chains are different.) All you have to do is keep chipping away at narrowing down the difference between what you have, and what you see is working.
And note: You’re looking for _A_ working solution. The fact that someone else has already found _A_ solution, does not even remotely mean their’s is the only one in existence. Nor that it’s somehow the “best”, or “right” one. The reverse engineers’ solutions may be very different in methodology. Yet yield the same outputs for all relevant inputs. Hence just “as good.”
Every factory producing a similar product, tend to go about it in slightly different ways (or used to. Now there is only one factory and it’s in China. All the others just orders from them, affixes their designed-in-blah-blah label and marks it up for their audience of indoctrinates….)
The Chinese MRNA vaccine (which arrived a bit late….) is no doubt a bit different from Moderna’s and Pfizer’s. As will the eventual African one be. Which one is “best”, for some given situation, is anyone’s guess. But what’s concerning form a Western POV, is that the Chinese one will inevitably be so much cheaper than the Western ones, that the only ones buying the latter will be Westerners banned from doing otherwise. And this will, as always, result in yet another additional cost on Western producers of everything, making them even less competitive. All for the sake of ensuring some connected dilettante “investors” “make money,” of course….
in 1800s when we were fast growing, we notoriously “copied” patents from european nations. it’s what people do.
Mish, you are on fire with your work. Thanks for your efforts!
Global Times? Did you know that is the official English language version of the Chinese Communist Party’s newspaper “Peoples Daily”? No wonder it has articles saying that the chip embargo is not working. Is there a source less biased?
Bloomberg headline: “Huawei Teardown Shows Chip Breakthrough in Blow to US Sanctions”: “The company’s Mate 60 Pro is powered by SMIC’s 7nm chips, according to analysis that TechInsights conducted for Bloomberg News”
I assume TechInsights is not Chinese but I don’t know.
TechInsights said they are still studying the chip and it might be or might not. Apparently it could be an evolution rather than a revolution.
Ruh roh…
Well, the very first reference in the post was to WaPo, which is very much the Empire’s flagship propaganda rag.
China has just started producing 28 nm chips – which are many many generations older technology than modern standards – https://www.ibtimes.com/smees-28nm-litho-machine-shows-beijings-ability-break-wests-bans-advanced-tech-3709777.
SMIC, which makes the mate 60 chips, has not been subject to the US trade embargo and has been using western made machines to create its chips, including, presumably the chips used in the mate 60. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/17/us-undecided-on-further-restricting-chinas-smic.html. Presumably, the 28 nm chips mentioned in the article above are completely homegrown using china made machines, otherwise they wouldn’t bother.
As the embargo has not been applied to SMIC, it is difficult to judge what the effectiveness of a complete embargo would have been. Clearly the embargo against Huwai alone has not been successful.
So who are the best lithography machine manufacturers?
The Dutch, the Japanese, and surprise, the Chinese.
Lithographic printing of chips dates back to the late 1990’s and was invented to a division of Philips Electronics, now independent and known as ASML. There are different types of Lithography (DUV & EUV) being used in semi manufacturing. Today, only ASML has the EUV technology to imprint chips as small as 5nm or lower. These 5 nm chips and smaller are necessary to produce semiconductors used in AI and the most advanced weapons systems in the defense industry. Most experts believe that ASML’s technology is so far advanced compared to any other on earth that they are more than 10 years ahead of any other company.
Curt, you forgot to mention that ASML is a Dutch company.
See my other comments below. The U.S. has significant leverage with ASML because many of its patents are U.S. patents and some of the most integral components that go into its EUV machines come from U.S. companies.
Time for President Blinken to poke that Chinese Dragon ?
Because it worked so well poking the Russian Bear in the NATO Expansion War ?
Mark, your inference is well-taken. SANCTIONS DO NOT WORK. Look at how FREEZING OUT RUSSIA from the Financial System (Swift) and seizing Russian Assets. RESULTS:
Russia sells it nat resources OUTSIDE of that system. There is NOTHING that can be done, short of WAR.
Russia sells the bulk of its oil to India at less than $60/bbl. Russia receives rupees instead of dollars. Rupees are not a convertible currency so they are held by Indian banks. India produces nothing Russia needs or wants so the rupees are accumulating.
I hear India makes lots of very extravagant musical movies!
India exports lots of stuff to Russia. But the volumes don’t match the other side i.e., what it imports from Russia.
https://tradingeconomics.com/india/exports/russia
That can and will change, esp with regard to pharmaceuticals, machinery and electronic equipment.
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/USD-RUB?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiPssOrmJGBAxWzNn0KHUadD3sQmY0JegQIBhAr&window=MAX
Russia is a rotten old drunken empire burning itself down over something stupid.
Pretty much like the US
“Pretty much like the US”
Exactly. The only arena in which Russia and The US still retains some meaningful relevance, is military.
Hence why they are both doing their best to stay relevant and try reliving their Cold War golden age: By either invading directly, or fanning the flames of war in, countries everywhere else.
For anything other than weapons and military overreach, they’re no more relevant than Rome and Athens. Hence: Desperately trying to militarise everything and everywhere, is what they do.
Its human to do the work arounds. There are some effects that are hurting them from this war.
https://www.businessinsider.com › russian-economy-brain-drain-labor-shortage-workforce-exodus-capital-flight-2023-9?op=1
Russia’s Brain Drain Is Ravaging the Economy – These Figures Show How
1 day agoRussia’s war on Ukraine has fueled a massive brain drain that will hobble Putin’s economy. By some estimates, 80% of those who have left Russia are college educated, and 86% are under…
But are they leaving Russia to work on chips and software in China, not the US?
Of course they went to China. Once you grow up under an authoritarian government, you naturally want to stay under that style of government because it is so wonderful.
Wake-up and smell the coffee [doofus], as Ann Landers used to say.
———
Russia’s massive brain drain is ravaging the economy – these stunning figures show why it will soon be smaller than Indonesia’s
Filip De Mott
Sep 3, 2023, 5:30 AM PDT
– Russia’s war on Ukraine has fueled a massive brain drain that will hobble Putin’s economy.
– By some estimates, 80% of those who have left Russia are college educated, and 86% are under the age of 45.
– Russia’s GDP, as measured by purchasing power parity, will fall behind Indonesia’s in 2026.
Russia’s war on Ukraine triggered a massive brain drain, and the toll it will take on the economy is coming into clearer focus.
Since Vladimir Putin launched the invasion in February 2022, emigration out of Russia has exploded, with some estimates putting the exodus at 1 million people. A recent analysis from the policy platform Re: Russia narrowed the number to 817,000-922,000.
That’s contributed to a record labor shortage, with 42% of industrial firms unable to find enough workers in July, up from 35% in April.
The composition of Russia’s exodus also points to the best and brightest fleeing the country. While a barrage of Western sanctions incentivized many to leave for economic reasons, others fled to avoid military service, skewing the numbers toward younger Russians.
…
https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-economy-brain-drain-labor-shortage-workforce-exodus-capital-flight-2023-9
We may not be so bright either, the boneheads in Washington have made some peeps about reinstituting the draft. Also guess where some of the poor but smart US born UC grads my daughter went to school with are now? You guessed it, China. For demographic reasons our young educated class are going to be very much in demand in the world high-skills job market.
America, America, America is Best,
So up with America and down with the rest.
God is always on the side of America!
I prefer the old saying, for King and country.
The guys that designed them probably went to school here.
Yes, they are clever.
Some of them did. Just as Einstein and Godel went to school in Europe.
If “we” want to even close to keep up; our kids will have to go to school in China….
Top Chinese, even Indian, students, are no longer coming here in any numbers. Second tier ones, who fail entrance exams for top schools at home, still do. They’re still the “smart kids” in the hard subjects…..
At the same time: Even tenured academics at top US schools, heck even Nobel laureates, don’t have the resources here anymore, that their colleagues do in China (which is why I very seriously doubt much bombing will ever be required to de facto reunite the two Chinas). Exactly as was the case in Europe vs the US in the first five decades post WW2.
“We” may, scattered about, have enough brains. Americans may appear stupid when they cheer for senile and orange clowns; but it’s not like they’re born any dumber than others. But what America don’t have, is the resources, nor the institutions, nor the management ability, for Manhattan Projects nor Moonshots nor Silicon Valley anymore. All resources for that, were stolen by the Fed. Then transferred to the dumbest of the dumb in America, nothing but a bunch of illiterate monkey dancers every single one of them, by way of “asset appreciation.”
So while the Chinese have the resources to quickly build world class chip teams; “we” have shacks, built back when “we” were an advanced country. Shacks which are now 50 years old and falling down. That “we” are told are now magically “worth” the annual salary of 100 Chinese chip developers.
And to keep that idiotic illusion, which underpins the entire self image of the clueless American dilettante class to which all has been handed, alive: “We” than ban building cheaper and better housing and commercial buildings. Such that American chip startups, are forced to overpay to the point of never being competitive. In rent, insurance, health care, “legal” protections; what have you. It was silly and lopsided 20 years ago. Now, nobody with the brains to do anything sophisticated and resource intensive, would even remotely consider attempting it here. The environment is simply vastly superior in China.
So: “We” are stuck living on past glories. We still have good, even if declining universities. Containing what are still world class groups scattered about. And still retain leading edge commercial labs from the “Silicon Valley” era. But it’s a downbound train.
“Silicon Valley” is a “real estate” and dilettante “investor” hub now. Where young guys, a generation ago, used to create stuff, they now “pitch” illusions of stuff. While childishly babbling about “exits” and “valuations.” Noone makes money, and fewer still even has any clue what that would even mean. After all, their only paying customers are dilettante “investors.” Their only real product, paper and empty promises. And besides, they are forced to spend 75% of their day trying to get to work from the back of beyond where they can afford to live; just to keep armies of “real estate” “Investors” coddled in the childish illusion that they are somehow, like, “smart investors” and stuff.
While those poor, poor Chinese, suffers from such calamities as the ability to build entire cities of brand new housing, which are simply sitting there ready to be grabbed for the asking. The horrors, the horrors. Poor, poor them…
America at one point had resources like that. Simply rolled out California beachfront for returning GIs, without any problems. The technical term for which is “First World Country.” Quaint, I know…
Very well said.
Also, the recent CHIPS Act that shoveled billions of dollars into the companies’ coffers? They were to replenish the billions of dollars that those very companies had spent of stock buybacks so that they could keep their stock prices high and the big-shot insiders could sell and make out like bandits.
It is a system that is hopelessly broken, on multiple fronts.
What rock are you living under? China did engineer the corona virus that caused COVID-19, I’ll give them that. Otherwise they’re a communist country whose only hopes continue to be copying and stealing technology from the west.
“While those poor, poor Chinese, suffers from such calamities as the ability to build entire cities of brand new housing, which are simply sitting there ready to be grabbed for the asking”
I’ve read about those ghost cities. Just genius!
And the buildings and infrastructure that routinely collapses due to the high quality work. [lol]
Made with inferior DUV technology, not the advanced EUV process the West uses. I wouldn’t call that a defeat. We are starting to see chips at 2nm soon and the West is already at 5nm using EUV.