6 ms·

While China is very far behind in terms of chip manufacturing technology, the US government has essentially showed China that if they don't have it themselves,

While China is very far behind in terms of chip manufacturing technology, the US government has essentially showed China that if they don't have it themselves, they'll be sanctioned at whenever and whatever.

hashtagmarkup 6y ago
In what world can you believe China is behind or "very far behind" in chip manufacturing??? Or, are you one of "Taiwan isn't China" types?
- SR2Z 6y ago
  Taiwan is distinct from the PRC - they have their own government, currency, and most importantly, a totally different relationship with the west that led to the rise of companies like TSMC. Either your comment is about Taiwan having a legitimate claim to the name "China," or you're claiming that Taiwan is rightfully a part of the PRC. The first one is intentionally awful communication, and the second one is a whole other can of worms.
  - marky75 6y ago
    Technically, most countries are not allowed to recognize the ROC (Tawain) as an independent country but as a Rogue province. The one China policy was accepted when the UN removed the ROC in favor of PRC.
    - hashtagmarkup 6y ago
      Yeah, me being right certainly is a can of worms, but continue with your propaganda.
    - skissane 6y ago
      > Technically, most countries are not allowed to recognize the ROC (Tawain) as an independent country but as a Rogue province. If we are talking about international law, governments are free to recognise or refuse to recognise whichever foreign states or governments they want. PRC tries its best to bribe and threaten other countries into not recognising ROC, and mostly succeeds. But that's realpolitik, not international law. Recognition of a state does not imply recognition of all its territorial claims. (For example, the US recognises Australia, but the US doesn't recognise Australia's territorial claims in Antarctica.) So a state could choose to recognise both PRC and ROC simultaneously, while not recognising PRC's claims to Taiwan nor ROC's claims to the mainland. There is nothing in international law which prevents such a policy. The problem is political not legal. ROC doesn't even seriously intend their territorial claims on the mainland any more. The only reason they don't drop them is that PRC would interpret that as an "independence move" and threatens to invade in that case. The political reality is any country announcing recognition of ROC, even if it insists it still maintains its recognition of PRC, is going to have diplomatic relations withdrawn by PRC, and PRC will also try to retaliate in trade/etc. > The one China policy was accepted when the UN removed the ROC in favor of PRC. The UN's policies are not binding on its member states. The UN Secretariat has to follow the will of the majority of its member states as expressed in General Assembly resolutions. But each UN member state is free to choose a different position if that's the decision of their government.
      - hashtagmarkup 6y ago
        We can all choose to do anything... but, there are consequences that come with those choices. You chose to spread propaganda rather than concede that I'm technically right. This entire argument is pointless. TSMC pays Chinese Tax through their subsidiary in Shanghai. How can you claim they aren't Chinese? Do you even know what the C stands for in all your acronyms?
        kjs3 6y ago
        You do seem to be an expert in 'propaganda'. North America is the same as South America, because they both have America in the name, right? And I pay taxes on my Costa Rican subsidiary in Costa Rica...so Costa Rica owns the United States, right? Do tell us about those 'consequences' your threatening. Gonna send us to one of your concentration camps out West for 'reeducation'? Just...sad.
        hashtagmarkup 6y ago
        You do seem to be a smug moron who doesn't understand where "China" is, or the difference between "your" and "you're". You don't need reeducation... you need a first dose of education. Just...dumb.
- kjs3 6y ago
  Yes. Taiwan isn't China, especially with respect to semiconductor manufacturing. What does being a propaganda shill on HN pay these day?
  - hashtagmarkup 6y ago
    Read your paystub, hypocrite. Taiwan is officially the Republic Of China. CHINA. You are beyond dumb.
skissane 6y ago
> While China is very far behind in terms of chip manufacturing technology SMIC, the leading fab in mainland China, is now doing 14nm. That makes them about six-seven years behind the leading edge. However, 14nm is good enough for very many applications. A lot of the most critical applications for national security, such as military embedded systems, are several generations behind that. Anyway, design of CPU instruction sets and microarchitectures is at a different level of the stack from semiconductor fabrication – how advanced you are in one does not directly correlate to how advanced you are in the other. CPU design is about getting the maximum performance and features out of the budget provided by the fabrication process, power and thermal constraints, etc. How good the best fabrication process you have available to you is doesn't really say anything about how good you are as a CPU designer
- jimbob45 6y ago
  This is why I feel that the “China steals all its tech” argument to be facile US propaganda. Simply having the tech secrets is a small slice of the pie when building a business. If those people were right, little weak Taiwan is somehow able to withstand the force of Chinese industrial spy agencies to learn its secrets. That’s idiotic. China has vastly more resources and could easily get the secrets if it wanted. The fact is, building great processor manufacturing is extremely hard and knowledge has to be developed within to overcome future hurdles.
  - azinman2 6y ago
    Not everything is like that (most things aren't), and stealing information always gives you a big head start if you're starting from scratch.
    - wahern 6y ago
      > stealing information always gives you a big head start if you're starting from scratch. That's like saying cheating in school makes you smarter and more capable. That might sometimes be true, for example if it helps you reallocate resources more efficiently, but its highly context dependent. There exists a biased, Western narrative that casts Chinese and East Asians in general as incapable of originality or novelty; that all they do is copy the hard work of Westerners. This is less true of Japan or Taiwan today, but it was very much true of Japan throughout the 1970s and of Taiwan throughout the 1990s. If we stand back and take an objective look at how industrial and scientific "copying" actually works in practice throughout the world, including among the leading industrial nations, I think it would show the China narrative to be exaggerated. Moreover, the narrative, whether true or not, is dangerous. It causes us to underestimate their prowess, and to the extent we assume that by disengaging and preventing copycat behavior we'll stave off a rising China, we're in for a huge surprise. Not only will China continue to rise, but in setting up an Us vs. Them world we'll have accomplished part of their Divide & Conquer strategy that China will inevitably (and, indeed, already has begun to) employ. And the risks will be greater as without strong bilateral ties--including ties that appeal to the self-interests (e.g. money) of powerful domestic organizations--resort to military aggression becomes a more prominent and easier option for both sides.[1] [1] Why did the U.S. invade (a 2nd time) and then conquer Iraq, and is constantly on the verge of war with Iran? Because sanctions don't just cut off a country from the U.S., they cut off the U.S. from that country, which means there's no domestic political pressure to avoid war beyond the enlightened beliefs of a diminishing minority. That's why Saudi Arabia constantly gets a free pass--because of the strong U.S. business interests in Saudi Arabia, not merely because of oil, per se, of which there exists plenty of alternatives around the world. Similarly, it's also why Saudi Arabia has always been much more circumspect with their support for terrorism, which is something worthwhile as Saudi Arabia might otherwise provide much greater support for terrorist organizations if they weren't so concerned with protecting their American relationships.

hashtagmarkup 6y ago

In what world can you believe China is behind or "very far behind" in chip manufacturing??? Or, are you one of "Taiwan isn't China" types?

SR2Z 6y ago
Taiwan is distinct from the PRC - they have their own government, currency, and most importantly, a totally different relationship with the west that led to the rise of companies like TSMC. Either your comment is about Taiwan having a legitimate claim to the name "China," or you're claiming that Taiwan is rightfully a part of the PRC. The first one is intentionally awful communication, and the second one is a whole other can of worms.
- marky75 6y ago
  Technically, most countries are not allowed to recognize the ROC (Tawain) as an independent country but as a Rogue province. The one China policy was accepted when the UN removed the ROC in favor of PRC.
  - hashtagmarkup 6y ago
    Yeah, me being right certainly is a can of worms, but continue with your propaganda.
  - skissane 6y ago
    > Technically, most countries are not allowed to recognize the ROC (Tawain) as an independent country but as a Rogue province. If we are talking about international law, governments are free to recognise or refuse to recognise whichever foreign states or governments they want. PRC tries its best to bribe and threaten other countries into not recognising ROC, and mostly succeeds. But that's realpolitik, not international law. Recognition of a state does not imply recognition of all its territorial claims. (For example, the US recognises Australia, but the US doesn't recognise Australia's territorial claims in Antarctica.) So a state could choose to recognise both PRC and ROC simultaneously, while not recognising PRC's claims to Taiwan nor ROC's claims to the mainland. There is nothing in international law which prevents such a policy. The problem is political not legal. ROC doesn't even seriously intend their territorial claims on the mainland any more. The only reason they don't drop them is that PRC would interpret that as an "independence move" and threatens to invade in that case. The political reality is any country announcing recognition of ROC, even if it insists it still maintains its recognition of PRC, is going to have diplomatic relations withdrawn by PRC, and PRC will also try to retaliate in trade/etc. > The one China policy was accepted when the UN removed the ROC in favor of PRC. The UN's policies are not binding on its member states. The UN Secretariat has to follow the will of the majority of its member states as expressed in General Assembly resolutions. But each UN member state is free to choose a different position if that's the decision of their government.
    - hashtagmarkup 6y ago
      We can all choose to do anything... but, there are consequences that come with those choices. You chose to spread propaganda rather than concede that I'm technically right. This entire argument is pointless. TSMC pays Chinese Tax through their subsidiary in Shanghai. How can you claim they aren't Chinese? Do you even know what the C stands for in all your acronyms?
      - kjs3 6y ago
        You do seem to be an expert in 'propaganda'. North America is the same as South America, because they both have America in the name, right? And I pay taxes on my Costa Rican subsidiary in Costa Rica...so Costa Rica owns the United States, right? Do tell us about those 'consequences' your threatening. Gonna send us to one of your concentration camps out West for 'reeducation'? Just...sad.
        hashtagmarkup 6y ago
        You do seem to be a smug moron who doesn't understand where "China" is, or the difference between "your" and "you're". You don't need reeducation... you need a first dose of education. Just...dumb.
kjs3 6y ago
Yes. Taiwan isn't China, especially with respect to semiconductor manufacturing. What does being a propaganda shill on HN pay these day?
- hashtagmarkup 6y ago
  Read your paystub, hypocrite. Taiwan is officially the Republic Of China. CHINA. You are beyond dumb.

skissane 6y ago

> While China is very far behind in terms of chip manufacturing technology SMIC, the leading fab in mainland China, is now doing 14nm. That makes them about six-seven years behind the leading edge. However, 14nm is good enough for very many applications. A lot of the most critical applications for national security, such as military embedded systems, are several generations behind that. Anyway, design of CPU instruction sets and microarchitectures is at a different level of the stack from semiconductor fabrication – how advanced you are in one does not directly correlate to how advanced you are in the other. CPU design is about getting the maximum performance and features out of the budget provided by the fabrication process, power and thermal constraints, etc. How good the best fabrication process you have available to you is doesn't really say anything about how good you are as a CPU designer

jimbob45 6y ago
This is why I feel that the “China steals all its tech” argument to be facile US propaganda. Simply having the tech secrets is a small slice of the pie when building a business. If those people were right, little weak Taiwan is somehow able to withstand the force of Chinese industrial spy agencies to learn its secrets. That’s idiotic. China has vastly more resources and could easily get the secrets if it wanted. The fact is, building great processor manufacturing is extremely hard and knowledge has to be developed within to overcome future hurdles.
- azinman2 6y ago
  Not everything is like that (most things aren't), and stealing information always gives you a big head start if you're starting from scratch.
  - wahern 6y ago
    > stealing information always gives you a big head start if you're starting from scratch. That's like saying cheating in school makes you smarter and more capable. That might sometimes be true, for example if it helps you reallocate resources more efficiently, but its highly context dependent. There exists a biased, Western narrative that casts Chinese and East Asians in general as incapable of originality or novelty; that all they do is copy the hard work of Westerners. This is less true of Japan or Taiwan today, but it was very much true of Japan throughout the 1970s and of Taiwan throughout the 1990s. If we stand back and take an objective look at how industrial and scientific "copying" actually works in practice throughout the world, including among the leading industrial nations, I think it would show the China narrative to be exaggerated. Moreover, the narrative, whether true or not, is dangerous. It causes us to underestimate their prowess, and to the extent we assume that by disengaging and preventing copycat behavior we'll stave off a rising China, we're in for a huge surprise. Not only will China continue to rise, but in setting up an Us vs. Them world we'll have accomplished part of their Divide & Conquer strategy that China will inevitably (and, indeed, already has begun to) employ. And the risks will be greater as without strong bilateral ties--including ties that appeal to the self-interests (e.g. money) of powerful domestic organizations--resort to military aggression becomes a more prominent and easier option for both sides.[1] [1] Why did the U.S. invade (a 2nd time) and then conquer Iraq, and is constantly on the verge of war with Iran? Because sanctions don't just cut off a country from the U.S., they cut off the U.S. from that country, which means there's no domestic political pressure to avoid war beyond the enlightened beliefs of a diminishing minority. That's why Saudi Arabia constantly gets a free pass--because of the strong U.S. business interests in Saudi Arabia, not merely because of oil, per se, of which there exists plenty of alternatives around the world. Similarly, it's also why Saudi Arabia has always been much more circumspect with their support for terrorism, which is something worthwhile as Saudi Arabia might otherwise provide much greater support for terrorist organizations if they weren't so concerned with protecting their American relationships.