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Arm China Has Gone Rogue
- xbmcuser 5y agoNow we know why Softbank wanted to get rid of Arm. As it has lost the largest market to its own subsidiary
- viking1066 5y agoChina is "Hotel California" for investor money!
- president 5y agoDon't forget that many federal pension funds and 401ks are invested in Chinese holdings. We are investing in our adversaries!
- klelatti 5y agoIf the current course continues this seems likely to lead to a bifurcation of the Arm ecosystem - presumably with Arm customers outside of China competing with incompatible products exported from China based on Arm China designs. I don't have any insight into the quality of the Arm China team but isn't one possible outcome that there is strong competition between the two ecosystems. So we could be in an Arms race (sorry!)
- cm2187 5y agoIANAL but I would assume they would infringe many Arm patents if sold outside of China.
- klelatti 5y agoPresumably Arm China would claim all legal and licensed to Arm China under Chinese law?
- jaywalk 5y agoThat's fine within China, but you specifically mentioned exports. They aren't exporting this stuff to any country outside of a small handful.
- klelatti 5y agoArm China is presumably licensing to Chinese SoC designers / manufacturers whose products are then included in devices that are exported.
- kelnos 5y agoThey could try that, sure, but the "real" Arm would likely sue to stop imports at as many destinations as possible. And they'd probably win those court cases.
- klelatti 5y agoAs I've said elsewhere: These are not counterfeit goods though. Where has the law been broken in a way that gives Arm the power to act? Probably IP licensed under Chinese law and Arm China will probably get its way in Chinese courts.
- mahkeiro 5y agoThey may be and ARM Uk will probably get its way in court outside of China.
- dylan522p 5y agoAuthor here. They specifically said they are not working with foreign companies. While they have exclusive rights to arm architecture in china, they cannot do anything outside china.
- monocasa 5y agoYou can put your hands on Zhaoxin boards in the west despite those also ostensibly being China only as well. And software bifurcation is the real problem, and would be handled at layer not exclusive to China.
- dylan522p 5y agoChips themselves can be sold, yes. The IP cannot be licensed to non Chinese based semi firms.
- jhgb 5y ago"Chips themselves can be sold, yes" How would even that be possible? Surely ARM's laywers are not interested in ripoff products being sold in the West.
- dylan522p 5y agoArm does not manufacture chips. They license IP for per chip or blanket fees. The model of many of these licenses is irrevocable. I've seen a couple different Arm licensing contracts and they're all very different so hard to make blanket statements. The Chinese entity has the right to license to all Chinese semiconductor firms who have the right to sell their chips.
- jhgb 5y agoI'm aware of how ARM operates. I just find it incredible that ARM would allow some entity to license its designs contrary to ARM's own intentions, or generally do anything that entity wanted to do with them, and ARM would just consent to it in places where law is enforced. I mean, shredding counterfeit imported goods has been a traditional pastime in the west.
- a9h74j 5y agoAlternate title: When one arm doesn't know what the other arm is doing.
- barrkel 5y agoThis is the standard Chinese operating model, as I understand it. Accept foreign subsidiary investment on condition of 51% Chinese ownership, transfer the technology, then turn around and compete with the parent. It was a similar story with maglev trains.
- sp332 5y ago-
- adriancr 5y agoSoftbank sold 51% > Arm Holdings, the SoftBank subsidiary sold a 51% stake of the company to a consortium of Chinese investors for paltry $775M.
- njarboe 5y agoSoftbank held 49%. "SoftBank subsidiary sold a 51% stake of the company to a consortium of Chinese investors for paltry $775M."
- Proven 5y agoOf course it was sold for a paltry sum. Does anyone think they were not nudged to sell to local state-designated champ and had one serious candidate (with the CCP pulling the strings behind the scene)?
- SkyMarshal 5y agoSoftbank was also in the middle of the failed WeWork IPO at the time, and probably needed to make a quick sale to raise cash. Any time you're in a hurry to buy or sell, and the counterparties know that, you're gonna get taken to the cleaners.
- klelatti 5y agoInteresting that it's not the 51% (and I think some of the 51% may be held by non Chinese investors) that has been key but rather Allen Wu having the seal - so even without control of the board he's still been able to get control of the company.
- seg_lol 5y ago> As part of the emphasis on the Chinese market, SoftBank succumbed to pressure and formed a joint venture. In the new joint venture, Arm Holdings, the SoftBank subsidiary sold a 51% stake of the company to a consortium of Chinese investors for paltry $775M. This venture has the exclusive right to license Arm’s IP within China. Somewhere between a hard fork and rebase force push. There is even less value in Arm, but RISCV will face a slightly harder time, Arm China will be tough to compete against.
- m33k44 5y agoHas the MIPS acquisition not borne fruits then?
- justincormack 5y agoHa, well no that is another interesting story. But way less valuable than Arm.
- ldiracdelta 5y agoPerhaps, as Scott Adams has said, "It is not safe to do business in China."
- flyinglizard 5y agoIt is also not safe, from a business perspective, to ignore China altogether. Very difficult situation indeed.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jaywalk 5y agoUnless by "safe" you mean "maximizing profits at all costs" I disagree.
- PopePompus 5y agoMaximizing short term profits.
- flyinglizard 5y agoCEOs answer to shareholders. Shareholders want returns. You want returns for your own investments and so do I.
- ASalazarMX 5y agoI suppose shareholders also want to maintain ownership of the technology that makes their profits happen in the first place, right? Wait, who am I kidding? Only a handful of shareholders decide the actions of a company, and even fewer know what the company actually does besides money-in = more-money-out. Most just want as much profit as fast as possible, hence the risks taken with China.
- PradeetPatel 5y ago
- nabla9 5y agoThis is why China can never be a global financial hub or have a global reserve currency. Russian oligarchs, Saudi princes, and other shady characters would never move their money to China for safekeeping. No matter how friendly they are with the Chinese. Move only enough money to do business in China, all extra is moved elsewhere. Without independent courts, separation of powers, ownership is a political privilege.
- ipnon 5y agoThe visual cliche of the "evil Chinese man in front of a red background with five yellow stars" has come as far as that of the "hacker guy wearing a hoodie in a dark room with obfuscated JavaScript floating in the frame."
- avaldes 5y agoThe "red background with five yellow stars" is the chinese flag. It's a common graphic pattern when you want to convey the idea of a person of geopolitical interest. Like putting Biden in front of the American flag o Macron in fron of the french one. Isn't specific to china nor represent any anti-china meaning.
- rossdavidh 5y agoSo, I cannot see this sort of thing stopping, until we see a point where non-Chinese investors revolt when they hear about the company they've invested going into China, rather than cheering. If investors have had such a change of heart at this point, I have not seen it.
- klelatti 5y agoThis sort of thing definitely has deterred investment in China. I was aware of it (in a very different industry) twenty years ago and it definitely affected decision making. It's impossible to track investments not made though.
- cm2187 5y agoTo be honest it has now become politically toxic for a western company to announce a large investment in China.
- vkou 5y agoIt's financially toxic for them not to invest in the Chinese market. Name a major American brand, and odds are you've named either someone who manufactures in China, sells to China, or more commonly, does both. When it comes to optics or money, boards and investors will choose money.
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
- ItsTotallyOn 5y agoThis article is entirely misinformed. Arm China already makes all these products, and has for years. This is a rebrand of existing products.
- FredPret 5y agoRebranding in the original, cattle-branding, ownership indicating sense. China simply stole an entire business division.
- joshuaissac 5y ago> China simply stole an entire business division. One guy in China (with dual US citizenship) went rogue and refused to step down as CEO of a joint venture after board members representing most of the shareholders (including Chinese shareholders) voted to remove him. He could only do that based on a legal technicality and the shareholders can still oust him via court action.
- PaulAJ 5y agoPresumably this is going to get interesting when they try to export hardware containing Arm-China items to the West. Arm will claim that it contains pirate IP, leading to seizures at the border.
- snek_case 5y agoHow much of what you buy on Amazon is made in China? How much of it do you think has been audited for IP protection?
- zoomablemind 5y agoAre there examples of mainland-grown IP/technology breakthroughs that resulted from such "transfers"? It seems so far that this does enable China to further catch up and massively expand the use of the captured technology, but are there instances of them qualitatively surpassing it? I'm sure China has enough resources for advancements beyond replication, as much as it's capable of showcasing something to the rest of the world equally valuable of "transfer".
- comrade-hn 5y agoSome of the most competitive products in some categories are from China, for example in drones. It's only a matter of time until they work their way up the chain. Remember the Tim Cook quote how it's difficult to fill a room with machinists in US, while in China you can fill 3 football fields with them.
- rsj_hn 5y agoThat is confusing cause and effect. Because companies move their manufacturing operations to china it becomes harder to manufacture in the US. They did not initially move to China because of a lack of dometic skilled workers, but because of lower costs. The result of that move was, after a delay, the de-skilling of the US labor force, creating the lack of domestic skilled workers we have now. To recover from that would require a reverse migration of manufacturing activity which would, after a delay, create more skilled workers in the US. Skills follow activity, they do not lead activity. You learn by doing. If you want to develop good bridge building skills, then build a lot of bridges. As a result of that process, you will, after a delay, have a labor pool that knows how to do it well, and the bridges you build later on will be higher quality than the bridges you started out building. You do not wait for the labor pool to sprout up like mushrooms spontaneously from the ground, so there are all these bridge builders standing around with nothing to do, and then you decide that you'll have them fill up a few rooms and and hire some of them to build a bridge.
- R0b0t1 5y agoIt's not just a lack of domestic skilled workers. I'm not really sure there is much of a lack. It's just that US labor is so much more expensive compared to earning power. US workers can't pay other US workers. Getting parts CNCed in China may be 10x less than the cost in the US, and materials are a tenth the cost as well (in small qty) as they haven't been transported yet. You can get roughly the same throughput in the US if you want to pay for it, but it will be vastly more expensive.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago> but it is clear that SoftBank’s short sighted profit driven behavior has caused a massive conundrum. I think the entire West has had short sighted profit driven behavior with respect to China for the past 40 years.
- monocasa 5y agoI'm not sure what anyone expected when we cut China off of chip IP. We did the same thing in the US, we had a policy of just straight up encouraging people to memorize patents before they immigrated over, and paying for their family to immigrate with them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater
- syedkarim 5y agoI can understand the value of memorizing designs, plans, and technical drawings that are kept as proprietary information, but why bother memorizing a patent? Patents are public information and are only valid in the specific country granting the patent. Without additional local filings, foreign patents are not valid in America and vice versa.
- monocasa 5y agoBecause Britain had a ban on exporting patents at the time and would search people leaving the country for patent documents, with jail time penalties.
- matheusmoreira 5y agoAre there more examples of this? I want to cite them every time people defend intellectual property.
- comrade-hn 5y agoWhy is anybody surprised? You know how they say in communism: Your company is our company. Your IP is our IP.
- fspeech 5y agoThis article gave some background on the reason for Arm China's existence in the first place: https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade-war/Beijing-s-latest-tech-ally-in-US-clampdown-Arm-China https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade-war/Beijing-s-latest-t... I wonder if the joint venture structure was contemplated as a pre-condition for Chinese approval of the Softbank acquisition.
- rayiner 5y agoWestern executives are in over their heads dealing with China. I don't think they even realized who was holding their leashes until China decided to start yanking on them a bit.
- president 5y agoThey don't care because they'll be long gone and next generations will be dealing with the problem. Same as engineers who come in at the start of a project and do a number on the architecture, get their accolades and bonus, leave to their next gig, and let the suckers deal with the BS they built.
- leaveyou 5y agothe oldest trick in the book..
- blacktriangle 5y agoI know one shouldn't attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence, but in this case I think malice is where it's at. Western executives are not so dumb to think China will play nice with them. I've never met anybody whose spent more than 2 hours working with the Chinese who thinks they are remotely trustworthy. Western execs whole plan has been to pump short term numbers, cash in, and get out before the CCP pulls the rug out from under them.
- mistrial9 5y agoI met a US California man who made a lot, a lot of money selling western tech in China, and I believe he had exactly this intention, from anecdotal evidence.
- throwaway210222 5y ago> whose spent more than 2 hours working with the Chinese who thinks they are remotely trustworthy. I dare you to a) change "Chinese" to "African Americans" and b) use your real name. Despicable.
- mikkelam 5y agoIsn’t it a matter of time before these licensed ISAs are dead anyway? With the advent of RISC-V is this really a problem? Obviously this way of doing business is not acceptable though
- tambre 5y agoHaving a license for the architecture isn't worth much if you aren't playing by the rules anyway. The IP and expertise for the best implementations? That's useful.
- denverkarma 5y agoSo when is the western world going to wake up and realize that China is a cutthroat competitor that does not respect western law or traditions, cannot be trusted, and intends to dominate the world? This seems especially troubling for the tech world as IP is easily copied and the only thing that really protects it is the legal system, which China has shown over and over they don't care about.
- echelon 5y agoAs soon as we stop banning people from saying that.
- trollski 5y agoand blaming _everything_ on Ze Russians?
- MichaelGroves 5y agoYou joke, but I was earnestly pleasantly surprised to see that dang isn't chilling this conversation with his complaints about "nationalist flamebait" yet.
- cronix 5y agoNaw, we shall label them as racist and xenophobic for even bringing it up, and we just can't have people labeled as racists running around spewing "facts," so out the ban hammer comes. And the world will cheer it on as they only read the headline of "Another racist banned from x" and scroll on thinking what good people they are.
- xadhominemx 5y agoWho is banning people for saying China doesn’t respect western IP? Please show me a single example.
- nickff 5y agoYou make the implicit assumption that it is possible to maintain an advantage in the market after destroying ongoing business relationships/expectations (as ARM China appears to have done). I think you may be overestimating the importance of 'apparent market power', and underestimating the value of consistency and adaptability. Highly centralized (command & control) and mercantilist systems tend to do well in the short term, but struggle and founder in the long term. In contrast, more chaotic, free market economies tend to look messy in the short term, but achieve amazing, spontaneous order over time.
- rootsudo 5y ago"Allen Wu has aggressively taken over the firm and is operating it how he sees fit. One interesting tidbit is that Allen Wu sued Arm China in order to declare his dismissal illegal. He essentially sued himself as he represented both sides in that specific court case. " Well, Smart.
- justicezyx 5y agoHe sued the board and investors, not himself... Don't be silly, common sense applies in China...
- rootsudo 5y agoNo, it is smart - once he gains control fully he can drop the suit himself, or he can admit fault as majority holder, It is very smart.
- fxtentacle 5y agoWhile I agree with most of the article, I find the conclusion makes it seem like propaganda: "it is clear that SoftBank’s short sighted profit driven behavior has caused a massive conundrum" If I understand things correctly, Arm China going rouge is a big problem for all western governments, who in the past have heavily relied on the leverage that they had thanks to western IP being needed for chip design. So shifting the blame onto SoftBank appears wrong. Did anyone expect a Japanese money-driven investment bank to do what's politically the right thing for the U.S.? I don't think it would be reasonable to expect that. So in my opinion, a better conclusion would be: "Western governments allowing SoftBank to take Arm's IP into China has caused a massive conundrum"
- HPsquared 5y ago"Going rouge" as in red? Seems appropriate...
- kreelman 5y agoI'm guessing "rouge" should be "rogue"? Somewhere in this conversation I think someone made a typo and it's gained its own life in the comments, thinking it's the correct term? However, in this case Softbank must be "rouge" (embarrassed) for their mistake... So perhaps it's kind of okay :)
- HPsquared 5y agoRed as in the colour of Communism (in name at least)... "Going red" meaning to defect to their side. Less rogue, more rouge.
- TruthWillHurt 5y agoYet another SoftBank fuckup...
- knodi 5y agoIs anything shocked by this? Chinese has been stealing IP for over 40 years now with government backing. In-fact government of China has encouraged such behavior and in some cases down right funded it. Just like before they'll get away with it. Who's going to stop this behemoth thug China?
- hvemsomhelst 5y agonot only does "arm china" license "arm limited" technology and develop its own technology, but "arm china" also employs many people on behalf of "arm limited" for global (not "arm china") r&d
- cletus 5y agoPeople need to wake up to the fact that China being a potential market of >1B people is an illusion. This is particularly relevant for any tech company. Let me spell it out: Chinese companies are extensions of the state. They are tools of Chinese foreign and trade policy. What cooperation you think US companies provide the US government, it is nothing in comparison. The Chinese government will ensure that no Western competitor will "win" in China. Period. I understand why to a point. My main issue is with the West being completely oblivious to it. If China wants to impose such restrictions on Western companies, they shouldn't get access to Western markets. And that's it. Here's where I think this will first come to a head: I believe the US government will at some point soon decide that any person born in mainland China is a security risk as far as working on anything national security related. This will probably extend to key industries of national importance too (eg SpaceX).
- bserge 5y agoGuess it's the American Dream of the rich, "anyone can make it (on the Chinese 1.3 billion people market)".
- baq 5y agoThe anarcho-capitalist’s nightmare: realization that you need a strong government to enforce fair, intervention-free market.
- kazen44 5y agoone of the best arguments against anarcho-capitalism is that without a goverment, there would be no market to speak of. why exchange in trade if no one can guarantee it will be beneficial for you? Why would the other party trade instead of just stealing your stuff? You could ofcourse defend against by carrying a bigger stick then the next guy or cooperating with others. Which starts to look an awful lot like the organised structure of a state..
- tablespoon 5y ago
- jiveturkey 5y ago> of the Century It's only 2021. There's bigger and better to come. Guaranteed.
- xmly 5y agoI wish the author can learn some Chinese before writing this article. And the related Chinese news was already there last year. The thing is the pure ARM internal political conflicts. ARM China CEO WU, a US citizen, claimed that he reported few high-level managers' corruptions and then he got fired by the ARM Softbank. ARM Softbank united with all board directors, including all Chinese investors, to fire Wu. But when Wu franchised ARM China, he signed a voting agreement with large shareholders to make sure he can not be fired for no reasons. So he claimed the board voting was illegal and Chinese shareholder violated the voting agreement. So even Chinese shareholders want him gone, but he refused to leave.
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y agoSources? Those are extraordinary claims. In english please
- wonnage 5y agoYou might need to learn Chinese if you're interested in following Chinese business drama.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y agoI take your point, but wouldnt categorize what looks like on paper the largest ever theft of intellectual property in the history of the world as "drama" I would expect some western sources to back those claims. Otherwise they look like run of the mill chinese propaganda
- wonnage 5y agoYou should seek Chinese sources on this Chinese business story if you want to get closest to the truth. The xenophobia and racism in this thread is laughable, apparently all mainland Chinese are CCP agents who can't be trusted
- api 5y agoCan we call Chinese flavored ARM chips ARrrrrrrrM after pirates?
- phendrenad2 5y agoARM did this to themselves. When you create a new entity in China, you agree that you don't control it. It is free to go off and do it's own thing. So when you create a nee entity in China, and give it a ETERNAL LICENSE to your CPU CORES you can't take that back if it "goes rogue". ARM created a monster and now they have to compete with it.
- joshuaissac 5y agoThey still own 49% of it, so are still entitled to a share of the profits. And if they prevail in court (assuming that court action is initiated), they can regain control of the subsidiary as well.
- sennight 5y agoI remember when bitcoin miners were transitioning from FPGA to ASIC... I nearly threw out my back from laughter when the Chinese deceitfully copied the masks with abandon, while also delaying fulfillment with longer and longer burn in tests.
- bserge 5y agoI don't get it, all current ASIC miners are from China.
- twobitshifter 5y agoChinese get paid to build the ASIC but instead of delivering as promised, they just keep it for themselves and mine with the designs.
- sennight 5y agoClose. If they just ghosted the client it would have been bad for that client (a managed group buy, from what I remember), but word would have spread quickly and the most they'd have had to show for it was a single revision zero ASIC for hashing SHA256 - no big deal in the grand scheme of things. Instead they churned out as many as they possibly could, only partially fulfilling orders in drips and drabs - and with a quality that made one wonder how low they were in the binning hierarchy. For some strange reason the fulfillment rate would drastically improve during periods of heightened uncertainty in bitcoin's exchange rate... Anyway, by stringing designers along like that they maintained access to later optimizations in design revisions. It was really weird to watch these early events unfold, because it provided the kind of satisfaction that accompanies the reinforcement of prior held positions - but tempered with the knowledge that you'd eventually be forced to take a bite from same shitsandwich.
- sennight 5y agolol, gee - wonder how that happened? There have been a few non-Chinese sourced chips decapped that predate the Chinese offerings, but as soon as some idiot uploaded his design to a Chinese fab in an attempt to undercut the competition...
- benreesman 5y agoThe PRC isn’t fucking around. They’re playing for the whole show and the West is bringing a significantly weaker game than it did against a significantly dumber geopolitical adversary last time. Being England or whatever isn’t the end of the world, there is life after global hegemony, but e.g. the USA should be realistic about the fact that e.g. shit like a legislature whose job is to get nothing done isn’t how you win in full-contact sports. For all its innumerable faults, flaws, and outright human rights violations: the West of the latter 20th century seemed like a plausible v0.0.1 of some future, hypothetical, benevolent society. Sucked ass if you were a minority but there was movement on that, real wages seemed to be trending ok, technological innovation was on point. It looked to be going somewhere. I’m not sure when it all went sideways, but the PRC is looking more than happy to design the future, and it seems unclear at best if that would be a net win in the “get to Star Trek as fast as possible” game.
- jackcosgrove 5y agoIf you're looking for a turning point, it was fall of 2001 with the 9/11 attacks and China's accession to the WTO. The USA became distracted and the 00s were the time when China's economy grew like gangbusters.
- colordrops 5y agoTurning point for China, yes. The turning point for the USA was as late as the Reagan administration dismantling the country for profit, though the seeds were planted earlier.
- webmaven 5y agohttps://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
- gamegoblin 5y agoOne could also make an argument that the fall of the USSR began a period of complacency. Terms like “the end of history” [0] come to mind. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las...
- LatteLazy 5y agoLook at everything China have done over the last 10 years. And we in the west have done nothing. One has to wonder if there is anything the CCP even could do to be taken seriously as a threat. I had hoped that with Trump out and Brexit at least quite we might see some action. I was wrong.
- chrischen 5y ago“In the new joint venture, Arm Holdings, the SoftBank subsidiary sold a 51% stake of the company to a consortium of Chinese investors for paltry $775M. This venture has the exclusive right to license Arm’s IP within China. Within 2 years, the venture went rogue. Recently, they gave a presentation to the industry about rebranding, developing their own IP, and striking their own independently operated path.” It sounds like what really happened is that Softbank and Chinese investors initially voted to oust Allen Wu, but he held onto something called a seal that gave him legal control of the company still. Retrieving the seal would have taken additional lawsuits and cooperation of Chinese courts, but they did not do this because the Chinese investors were not onboard with it. Apart from Allen Wu holding onto the seal the rest is just cutthroat capitalism.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jbhouse 5y agoIt's almost like China wants to make sure nobody ever lets them near useful IP again. This just seems counterproductive for them in the long run, though if you understand geopolitics better than I do, please help my understand how this is a good long-term strategy for China
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- audunw 5y agoChina is closing off and turning inwards. It's a fundamental political drive due to their communist party structure. They can't continue to let the wealthy get richer because it threatens their grip on power, so you see Xi reverting to traditional socialist policies and cracking down on everyone that threatens him and his supporters. So basically they're just rushing to steal and copy all the technology they can, so they can make everything they need for themselves internally. Their goal isn't to compete internationally, just to be self-reliant enough to have a reasonably good economy while maintaining absolute political control. China probably doesn't care that they can't access IP from other countries again. They've mostly gotten what they need. The alternative is that the party gradually loses its power, and that liberalisation eventually makes the whole system collapse. It's the exact same forces that made the Soviet Union collapse and it's well known that this is Xi's biggest fear.
- xtian 5y ago"Closing off and turning inwards"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative
- yourapostasy 5y agoViewed through the lens of the original Silk Road, the "closing off and turning inwards" trend is consistent with an increasingly Middle Kingdom posture. China is the center of the world in this posture, and in a very nearly literal sense all roads lead to China with BRI. It also neatly dovetails with asserting greater, more finely-granular political and social control the leadership desires (from which all other power emanates in such a world-view). Chinese nationalism is strongly encouraged, and evolving it to a "New Middle Kingdom" posture will generate incredibly powerful historical resonance with Chinese. Convincing 1.4B people to politically turn inward to only concerning themselves with domestic matters because China is the only nation that matters in an exceptionalism narrative, while delivering a practical logistics network to feed their ramping up resource requirements (because China cannot sole-source these resources domestically), could be a winning formula for a leadership that wants to maintain the bargain they have struck with the people: continued increasing prosperity in exchange for continued Mandate from Heaven. This is just my uninformed perspective from the outside looking in, without extensive corroborating data and cultural referents. I welcome discussion on what is really going on.
- mokus 5y agoThis article repeats “安谋科技” so many times but as far as I can tell, doesn’t mention even once how I might attempt to pronounce it or recognize when anyone else mentions it in the future. Can anyone at least provide a transliteration?
- at_compile_time 5y agoGoogle Translate comes up with Ammou Technology
- cylinder714 5y agodeepl translates it as "AnMou Technology."
- kazinator 5y ago谋 is the simplified form of 謀, which kanjidic has meanings like "conspire, cheat, impose on, plan, devise, scheme, have in mind, deceive". One Japanese word for conspiracy is in 陰謀 (inbō): conspiracy (lit: hidden plan); 陰謀論 (inbōron) means "conspiracy theory". The "Peacefuly Scheming Technology" company.
- prewett 5y agoIt's Chinese, though, not Japanese, and the Japanese meanings borrowed in the Tang dynasty are no longer modern Chinese. (Common words like "to eat" is 食 in Japanese, but in Chinese now that means "foodstuff" and is a noun, not a verb. The common Chinese word for to eat is 吃. There are a lot of these.) 谋 appears to mean more like "plan" as a neutral word. Obviously you could have hidden plans and devious plans as well as ambitious plans, public plans, wise plans, and helpful plans. I don't think anyone would name their company "Cheatful Scheme", even if that was actually their intention. And 谋 is modified by 安 (peace, safety, good health). So it'd be more like "Wholesome-safe plan".
- kazinator 5y ago> * 谋 appears to mean more like "plan" as a neutral word.* So do a number of Japanese words like 知謀 (chibō): ingenuity, resourcefulness, or 深謀 (shinbō): eliberate; careful; thoughtful; deeply laid plan.
- MangoCoffee 5y agohttps://www.eet-china.com/d/file/news/2021-08-26/20c9205f1af096aa7f63954333993f17.jpg https://www.eet-china.com/d/file/news/2021-08-26/20c9205f1af... from EET China, this image look interesting. It look like ARM China plan to add additional features into ARM or is it to build different chip on top of ARM? Question about ARM China's exclusive rights for the China market: 1. I assumed ARM China can only sell their IPs to their Chinese customers. what about the add-on? the article say they going to develop its own IPs. Can they sell those outside of China? 2. Can a product made in China use ARM China's IPs then sell it outside of China? 3. How can ARM China build its own IPs if they are based on top of ARM UK's IPs?
- nootropicat 5y agoDiversity happened. Civic nationalism empirically doesn't work [1]. Societies need some level of individual sacrifice for the group to prosper over the long term, and diversity kills the impulse to do that. Favoring the ingroup over the outgroup is a stable state for groups, starting from ants and ending with humans. Trying to eradicate those impulses was perhaps noble, but ended in utter failure. Hapless attempts at civic nationalism collapsed under assault from much stronger ethnic/racial and/or religious forces. I can see this changing if intelligent aliens turn out to exist, but until then, homogeneous countries (China is >90% Han) are going to continue winning over the West, increasingly mired in racial and religious strife. In addition to aliens, if necessary technology arrives, the ingroups could conceivably coalesce into basic humans vs transhumans, or perhaps humans vs independent ai beings, but that's pure scifi at this point. [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007...
- Robotbeat 5y ago…for Scandanavians, maybe. Europe, generally speaking, doesn’t know how to do immigration. America, for all its faults, does. (UK might as well)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- benreesman 5y agoSomehow I fail to see a line from the civil rights movement to smash-and-grab late capitalism. Diversity happened a long time ago, treating minorities ever-so-slightly more like human beings fails the smell check for the cause of a crumbling distribution of rewards for hard work and innovation. If I had to point to a single set of policies that I’d call an “own goal” it’s making it difficult for brilliant people to live and work in the West generally and the US in particular. Yeah, get your world-class technical education here and then get the fuck out of my country and into the H1-B maze. Apparently we’ve got top people on that one.
- mmastrac 5y ago
- justinzollars 5y agoSeems to me everyone is willing to sell out for a 49% stake in a Chinese company, for access to the Chinese market.
- platz 5y agoBut, according to the article, ARM Britain didn't sell to China, SoftBank (Japan) did.
- krak12 5y agoBusiness as usual, nothing to see here. Any company looking to do business with China will face the same fate.
- charles_f 5y ago> Arm Holdings, the SoftBank subsidiary sold a 51% stake of the company to a consortium of Chinese investors The story can be shaped in many ways. The fact is that after that transaction, that consortium owns more than half, and SoftBank is a minority investor, which means that it's not theirs anymore. I might be missing something, but once you surrendered the control of the company, can you really say it went rogue?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- NovemberWhiskey 5y agoExamples like this lend credence to the belief that there is no rule of law in China.
- ur-whale 5y agoA sobering story for all those who forgot what the word sovereign actually means.
- Phileosopher 5y agoThis is difficult to parse in my Western mind. I've grown up with a constant understanding of implicit liberties, so much so that I have the freedom to openly _discuss_ my general distrust of the government. The events that float by in HN are outliers: threats of more risk, but statistically unusual enough that they're stories of interest. This means that living and acting in a country where your very _thoughts_ are monitored is practically an alien concept for me. How do you live and decide with a government over you that can grab control at any time they wish?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mc32 5y agoIt's not hard when if you go back more than 40 years (so parents) knew first hand living in substandard housing, in huts and muddy fields, bunking two families to a flat and one "mao coat" per person in their wardrobe. Eking out a living. When you propel a billion (now 1.4) into the middle class, they will forgive a lot.
- refenestrator 5y agoRemember that nobody was threatened or, as a result, morally offended by China until the last few years when we figured out we couldn't keep them at the bottom of the value chain forever. How do we live in a society where we can just be aimed at a new foreign enemy and all of our free, enlightened citizens go along every time? Russia (support afghanistan), Iran (support Iraq), Iraq (support gulf emirates), Al Qaeda, Afghanistan, Iraq again, now China! It seems so normal to us, because that's all we know. They're not perfect, we're not perfect, and both states are feeding off of national rivalry to legitimize themselves because that's what states do.
- downWidOutaFite 5y agoThat is not true. There have been many reports concerned with China's aggressive efforts at stealing IP for at least 10 years that I'm aware of, probably more like 20.
- ggm 5y agoNot entirely defending things but observing that if you are of a view that IPR is basically absurd, "stealing" it may be equally absurd, but rational. After you've stolen it, it's still "there" except for the exclusivity. Chips will still exist, fab lines will still run. Profits have tanked, sure. Innovation is probably stifled but that's an opportunity loss. There's a long history of stealing IPR at the state level around the world. States do this, private individuals do this, assets get seized everywhere from time to time. 'Sovereign risk' has always to be factored in to any business venture, anywhere. Nobody can possibly have been investing millions in China mainland without knowing this risk going in. At this point, "outrage" is part of the negotiating tactics. Outrage won't really stop this happening here or anywhere else. Bilateral consequences might? What Chinese assets will somebody seize? The German petrochemical and drugs sector was economically robbed postwar WW1 and WW2 and personally I think somewhat rightly so. Bayer made cool drugs, but also helped the nazi party. Russia and America both took things as expropriation. Postwar, but.. does war make this IPR and asset claim really that much better?
- spats1990 5y agoThank you. I'm surprised by the tone of some of the comments here. The linked article's framing of the story is outright flamebait.
- ggm 5y agoThere's a very strong anticommunist view in this tech community, combined with libertarianism and neoliberal economic views. If you add nationalism to the mix, it's fuel on the fire. I don't want to live in an authoritarian society but foaming at the mouth about the CCP is really silly.
- memonkey 5y agoIn addition, there's a very strong Anti-China view in this community. But the red scare was just an appetizer. The main serving is the anti-communism that has infected the subconscious of Americans who only hear and listen to the media that serves this insanely good propaganda.
- trynewideas 5y agoI get a strong sense that SoftBank is maybe just... not very good at this whole investment side of things?
- LatteLazy 5y agoDidnt they make 69bn usd last year? I dont pretend i understand, but I think they are good at something at least.
- MangoCoffee 5y agoSoftbank paid $31 billion for ARM and Chinese investors get ARM China for $775 million.
- Taniwha 5y agoYes but what Softbank essentially bought was ARM's relationship with its captive western downstream market, at the time the Chinese downstream market was essentially 0 - $775m for that at the time probably seemed like a great deal for Softbank at the time .....
- TheMagicHorsey 5y agoIs this a true story? If so, this is an extraordinary indictment of the Chinese court system and a real wake up call for Silicon Valley. Thus far I've been of the opinion that people exaggerate the danger that Chinese IP theft poses ... but this is just ridiculous. Has any major newspaper covered this? It seems like it should make headlines ... ARM IP is a strategic asset!
- mikewarot 5y agoWe could just give up on the idea of "intellectual property", and go all out in an innovation race.
- oh_sigh 5y agoOk, so let me innovate. I'm going to dump a bunch of my money into researching and developing a new product. Great, that $100M paid off, now we have something we can produce and market. Oh, what's that? Someone who didn't put $100M of their own money into R&D just came along and stole our design. Now I'm $100M in the hole, and need to sell my product for more money than my rip-off competitor, because I actually need to make my R&D investment back. Of course, consumers don't care about whether I invested money in R&D or not, they just want the cheapest thing. So they buy the rip-off, and then I go out of business. I've learned my lesson: Never innovate when someone can come along and just take exactly what you innovated. It's far better to be a parasite, and rip off a true innovator and send them into bankruptcy while you reap the profits. Where exactly does the innovation race happen? If I could just steal books and publish them as my own, do you expect there to be an "innovation race" in authorship? Or, will authors-who-earn-money just stop writing because they can't make a living off of it?
- mrjangles 5y agoIn case you aren't aware, the reason we have intellectual property is because we have 300 years of human history showing that countries without intellectual property never innovate anything. The countries of the world adopted intellectual property rights, even though the nobility of Europe resisted for over a century, because they were forced to just to keep up with Britain. We also have 300 years of history showing what happens to countries who adopt policies that China do (it used to be called Mercantilism). It has always been an excellent system for copying superior countries and catching up with them. It is also an excellent system for launching economic (and real) warfare against your enemies, but in the end it always leads to stagnation (which in turn leads to these kind of countries using their state power for the only thing it is really good for - war). History shows that this will be the path China takes. We can only hope China begins to suffer from the stagnation part before they destroy the world.
- aduric 5y agoWhy is the article blaming SoftBank? They bought Arm fair and square. They can do with their acquisitions as they please. Arm is a profit seeking company like every other profit seeking company. They sold themselves to make their founders rich. They are not some beacon of Western liberty that people like to make it out to be.
- onethought 5y agoIt says in the article they sold 51% of it… that’s not going rogue… that’s selling a controlling stake. I think I need to reread… is this just Chinese fear mongering?
- civilized 5y agoChina has been doing this for, what, 30-40 years now? How is this news? It is astonishing to me how many people have been, apparently, sleeping under a rock for decades, and are just now announcing their bitter realizations that China is not a free market open to Western companies. Hillary Clinton did one of these announcements within the past year or so, and my eyes rolled right out of the back of my head.
- rektide 5y ago> China has been doing this for, what, 30-40 years now? How is this news? Company take-overs maybe. But to say that this is like the past is either ignorant or misleading. The stakes here are so much different than a mere spat over corporate property. This is the modern right to build computing machines. One rogue element in China has hijacked not merely a company, but a volume of IP that circumscribes probably hundreds of billions of devices. 99% of the consumer mobile devices on the planet are powered exclusively by this IP and a vast vast range of other consumer devices too. By usurping & overthrowing IP controls, by seizing this asset, Allen Wu has instigated a civilization-level technical fork, where the rest of the world has pre-legally-bound themselves to ban practically all future ARM China chips & any device licensed by ARM China. ARM China meanwhile is incentivized to license, sell & distribute as widely as possible, to make themselves an interesting competitive force, turning the heist into a self-sustaining movement of progress & growth for chipmaking, bolstered by less rules, less cruftiness, less legalese, more can do. Just to remind everyone, software has eaten the planet. Modern upstarts like RISC-V have been trying to grow a reasonable new basis to compute from, to host software atop, but to be honest, x86 and ARM are the only two players running this world-eater. AMD has gotten to play & keep x86 interesting & competitive because they got a license very very long ago, and ARM has been holding the reigns of the other horse, dictating how it evolves. RISC-V is just getting started, is almost no where, is only beginning to find itself, albeit has some good chops demonstrated on the lower end microcontroller type chips. But so far no one has been able to be interesting with chips. And ARM China is hereby announcing that they give no ducks, that they have whatever blasted sovereignty they want, that they will take & make new as they see fit from here on out. And they will almost certainly find many in China to work with. Which is something ARM in the rest of the world has gotten worse and worse and worse at over the years, as countless companies fold their application processor divisions to increasing competition.
- evancox100 5y agoI’m not saying this development is good, but didn’t ARM UK / SoftBank lose control of ARM China 3 years ago when they sold 51% of it and became a minority shareholder? Not being in control comes along with the minority shareholder status. The fact that ARM China CEO refused to step down is kind of irrelevant, the remaining 51% shareholders could just replace the board with whomever and install whomever they want as CEO. While this would require a unanimous vote by the other shareholders, I think it is just a technicality that this hasn’t already happened. Still, you have to wonder if ARM China is still sending SoftBank 49% of the profits! Or if they’re just like “what profits”. This whole saga with the corporate seals and everything is hilarious. Actually giving the JV access to the RTL (== keys to the kingdom) has to be the dumbest move ever. Also, goes without saying that none of this happens without the implicit consent of the CPC. Disclaimer: opinions my own.
- colinmhayes 5y agoThe entire board voted with SoftBank to kick this dude out. He literally refuses to step down. There would have to be a lengthy court battle which the board doesn't want.
- amelius 5y agoBecause Chinese law allows what dude was doing, a court battle would have been futile.
- onethought 5y agoBut the Chinese ownership could replace the board, right?
- joshuaissac 5y agoARM HQ and Chinese fund Hopu tried jointly to replace the CEO of ARM China who is refusing to step down. The ARM China board voted 7-1 to fire him but he controls the company seal.
- nl 5y ago
- thepasswordis 5y agoIt really feels like the rest of the world refuses to even try and prevent China from taking over everything.
- nerdponx 5y agoIt's the long game. The value of being an ally of China outweighs the costs of these individual situations.
- spfzero 5y agoWho would expect to remain an "ally" in China's eyes after their usefulness was exhausted? That's beyond wishful thinking. It is ascribing a magical western "loyalty" value that simply doesn't exist in business anywhere, even in the west. Chinese companies no doubt believe they can do everything a western company can do, and they're right, for practical purposes. What do they need help with once they have the trade secret designs, processes, etc.? I cannot believe these western "partners" believe in a long game where they come out being anything other than a chump.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bsder 5y agoWho in ARM will get fired for this? Until managers start getting sacked for dealing with China, this will continue.
- mrtweetyhack 5y agoToo bad ARM. You got what you asked for dealing with China
- jimbob45 5y agoThe subtext here being that China won’t circumvent the “long” legal process to remove Mr. Wu? I wish the author had provided any information regarding how the Chinese government had responded to the situation. Surely they understand that China as a whole is a loser and not a gainer in this situation.
- keewee7 5y agoWe need to hold responsible the people who de-industrialized the West by sending all our manufacturing to China.
- sudosysgen 5y agoNo one and everyone is responsible. Capital has its hands tied and must pursue higher profits. The ones responsible aren't just the ones that signed the paper but the ones that made and perpetuated the system that made that decision necessary.
- ApolloFortyNine 5y agoThey're called tariffs, they've been around for centuries, for exactly this purpose. Tariffs should have been raised ages ago on Chinese imports. And if not tariffs, sanctions have been put out against countries for way less.
- sudosysgen 5y agoThat's the thing. Tariffs hurt capital. And in our system, by design, it's those with property that have undue influence.
- spoonjim 5y agoThe continual failure of American political leadership is to be asleep at the wheel while China eats our lunch. It’s been happening for 40 years and the only President with any inclination to stop it was too idiotic to succeed.
- nl 5y agoThe British ARM company got sold to the Japanese Softbank investment company which then did a bad deal in China but somehow Americans think it is all about them.
- spoonjim 5y agoThis 40 year process has very little to do with Arm or Softbank. Arm and SoftBank are the end stages of the disease, the window for treatment is long passed.
- CRConrad 5y agoSure, there may be some larger process going on too -- but that has nothing to do with this. According to the article: SoftBank started "ARM China" as a joint venture with a Chinese consortium, and later sold more of it to them, so they now hold a controlling 51% interest in it. ARM China isn't "going rogue"; it's doing what its owners want it to do, just like a good obedient non-rogue subsidiary should. The article not mentioning this basic fact with a single word doesn't mean what's happening is weird; it means the article is bad.
- nl 5y agoARM China isn't "going rogue"; it's doing what its owners want it to do, just like a good obedient non-rogue subsidiary should. The article not mentioning this basic fact with a single word doesn't mean what's happening is weird; it means the article is bad. This isn't actually correct. The board voted to replace the CEO (7-1) but the CEO wouldn't give up the physical company seal (which is China represents the company), and he used that to gain control of the company. This is not conventional behaviour at all!!
- mrtweetyhack 5y agoHAHA. ARM just dropped in value. Should have sold to Nvidia
- 1MachineElf 5y agoMaybe "the world's policeman" is actually China, and now they've confiscated Arm.
- entropicgravity 5y agoLet this be a cautionary tale for anyone wanting to set up shop in China, go in with your eyes wide open. As far as I know only Tesla has been able to retain 100% ownership while operating in China.
- olamilekan1221 5y agohttps://linktr.ee/Olamilekan1221 https://linktr.ee/Olamilekan1221
- AlexandrB 5y agoFor a link with so many points and comments, this fell off of the front page unusually fast. Consider this link for contrast, which is one hour older with fewer points and comments (299|264 vs. 854|555) but still #10 on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28329286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28329286
- londons_explore 5y agoThis might be bad news for ARM shareholders, but it's good news for the rest of the world. When a market leader like ARM is forced to compete against last year's products sold at rock bottom prices (as Arm China will presumably do), it spurs serious amounts of innovation.
- neycoda 5y agoI don't know why anyone thought this wouldn't happen. You sell 51% stake, you may as well have sold 100%.
- square_square 5y agoBusiness Espionage
- silexia 5y agoAny CEO that invest or transfers IP into China at this point after countless examples of them stealing IP and businesses needs to be held civilly or criminally liable.
- CRConrad 5y agoAny CEO who sells 51% of anything to anyone, anywhere and still expects to be able to control what he's just sold may perhaps not be criminally liable, but certainly insane.
- adultSwim 5y agoGoing rogue? They sold the company, and now it's operating independently.
- secretdrumstick 5y agoThe chinese are well known to be extraordinarily dishonest. It is business as usual.
- justicezyx 5y agoA greedy CEO's American way of screwing his own partners, when painted with the China markers, suddenly becomes an insightful report that supports the so-called predatory behaviors orchestrated by CCP. With a single word, China, self-interest is no longer a universal guiding principle. It was replaced by a CCP reality distortion field that the loyalty to the party becomes an instinct, the original sin of any Chinese. Once Chinese always CCP loyalist! Racism? No, racism does not apply to Chinese!
- liberalbias998 5y agoIt seemed shocking, and stunningly incompetent when our UK government allowed ARM to be controlled by a dodgy bunch of Japanese venture capitalists, it is no surprise that it ends badly.