4 ms·

Somebody needs to build cutting-edge node fabs given the rhetoric from China in the past few days regarding forced "reunification" with China.

theteapot 5y ago
Past few days? Where have you been for the last 70 odd years? Difference lately is it's become more credible for bunch of reasons around politics and capability.
dragonelite 5y ago
Taking over Taiwan will not give China cutting edge node fabs. TSMC is working on a western equipment plus chemical stack. So it will give China absolutely nothing, China is rich enough to make Taiwanese talent offers they can't resist. So much so that Taiwan had to shut down Chinese recruitment bureaus and certain Taiwanese talent are not allowed travel or exit the country. China can just bide its time they will be the biggest economy at the end of the decade that will psychologically change the world so much regarding the West and Asia. You can already see a disconnect between western and Asian elites/diplomats view on China and the Region. Why Western ASEAN anti-china recruitment the last few years failed really hard.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > China can just bide its time they will be the biggest economy at the end of the decade that will psychologically change the world so much regarding the West and Asia. Does this take into account China's demographics? Will be to able to 'grow rich before it grows old'?
  - dragonelite 5y ago
    I'm not a demographer, so only time will tell how big of a problem it will become. The Chinese government is worried about it, already was couple of years ago. But I don't see it becoming a roadblock that will prevent China from becoming the biggest economy in the world, hell I wouldn't be surprised that the Chinese market will be twice that of the combined western market. China can always play the Asian immigration card. To soften the blow of a graying demographic.
    - HKH2 5y ago
      China has been pushed towards being a monoculture for the past 70 years or so. I don't think Asian immigration would be an easy option at all.
      - FooBarWidget 5y ago
        For certain definitions of "monoculture". Even Han culture between different regions can be very different.
        HKH2 5y ago
        Sure, China is not as homogeneous as what it could be. Yet is it preserving diversity? Through its enforcement of standards and nationalism, the CCP has been clear that it has no interest in making China more multicultural.
        FooBarWidget 5y ago
        That isn't the reality I see on the ground. Take a look at for example this Tibet documentary: https://youtu.be/zkYhSsQqRhI https://youtu.be/zkYhSsQqRhI This Tibetan woman has 3 husbands. Look inside her house: full of Tibetan and religious artifacts. And this is just a normal Tibetan household, after we've been told for decades that Tibetans are being culturally genocided. It looks to me that Tibetan scripts and languages, Mongolian scripts and languages, etc are better preserved than over the border in India and Mongolia. Yes there are also plenty of examples where they tear down a cultural site. Yet I think there is a fundamental difference between western and Chinese interpretations of such acts. Western societies have developed a sort of mythical worshipping of traditional ethnic culture. To the Chinese, to whom development and modernization have come late, development and modernization is number 1: there is no pride in living a traditional, ethnic life if that means being in the middle of poverty. Some sites are torn in the name of development. See this discussion from 1999, back when the China topic wasn't so politicized: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/02/tibet-through-chinese-eyes/306395/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/02/tibet-t...
  - leoc 5y ago
    It's not just the demographics: https://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/78138 https://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/78138 .
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- cronix 5y ago
  > So it will give China absolutely nothing It essentially gives them tremendous power over the world. All they have to do is threaten to shut it down, or ban exports to the west, or put very high tariffs on them. In addition to gaining all IP from customers. What do you think that will do to all companies that rely on cutting edge TSMC nodes such as Apple? Tesla? Nvidia? These new plants won't likely be putting out M1 chips, etc., the cutting edge fabrication is held physically in Taiwan. It would be a great way to collapse the economies of the world as you are rising, if one were aiming at doing such a thing.
  - FooBarWidget 5y ago
    And why would they do that? They themselves also need advanced chips, which they can't get when the west boycotts supplies. In the end, such actions are doubled-edged swords, nobody benefits. I find all this decoupling rhetoric/fear very weird and contradictory. On the one hand people say we should decouple from China, on the other hand we fear decoupling from China and we get furious when they initiate decoupling (see Australian trade). In the mean time actual Chinese officials keep saying that a trade war benefits nobody and keep calling for rational decision making.
    - ohashi 5y ago
      Trade war benefits nobody, but if you can gain slight advantages by manipulating currency, stealing IP, etc, you can get ahead while 'saying the right thing.'
  - elzbardico 5y ago
    China depends on global commerce as much as the US or Europe. It is not on their best interests to create a global tech crash.
- wavefunction 5y ago
  China must obviously gain cutting edge node fabs or associated knowledge and processes from seizing Taiwan given the claims you've made about Taiwanese being prevented from being hired by the Chinese Government.
  - dragonelite 5y ago
    China is already domestically on 14nm pushing for 7nm at SMIC. They went from a decade behind to like 3~5 years behind in like 18 months. Time is on China's hand, Taiwan and south Korea should be worried about their so called ally the US stealing their tech. Because without TSMC what is Taiwan for the west a annoying island that we need to backstab some time in the future like the western backed regime in Afghanistan. At the end of the day its just business.
- NonEUCitizen 5y ago
  Not just Taiwanese talent -- China has also been recruiting South Korean semiconductor talent.
- audunw 5y ago
  At the current rate, China won’t become the biggest economy in nominal GDP for a few more decades, and that assumes growth continue at the current rate China might become number one in GDP (PPP) in a decade, but that also assumes continued growth at the current rate. China is overdue for a recession, as they need massive restructuring of the economy to shift away from an export driven economy and to pop its housing bubble (which does drive GDP growth now but not in a way that actually makes the country wealthier) Why do you think Xi Jinping is doing such massive reforms right now? And clamping down harder on dissent and access to information and culture that’s not in line with CCPs agenda? He knows what’s coming, and to an extent he’s accelerating it with new lending restrictions and such. He knows it’s necessary.
  - mrep 5y ago
    China already has the largest GDP (PPP) in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
    - dragonelite 5y ago
      It was kind of a shocker too me when I discovered that in the PPP metric China has surpassed the US back in 2014. Also a thing i heard today was that Mercedes for examples sold 770k plus cars in China compared to only 220k and 260k in the US and Germany. And people still expect western companies to decouple.

theteapot 5y ago

Past few days? Where have you been for the last 70 odd years? Difference lately is it's become more credible for bunch of reasons around politics and capability.

dragonelite 5y ago

Taking over Taiwan will not give China cutting edge node fabs. TSMC is working on a western equipment plus chemical stack. So it will give China absolutely nothing, China is rich enough to make Taiwanese talent offers they can't resist. So much so that Taiwan had to shut down Chinese recruitment bureaus and certain Taiwanese talent are not allowed travel or exit the country. China can just bide its time they will be the biggest economy at the end of the decade that will psychologically change the world so much regarding the West and Asia. You can already see a disconnect between western and Asian elites/diplomats view on China and the Region. Why Western ASEAN anti-china recruitment the last few years failed really hard.

throw0101a 5y ago
> China can just bide its time they will be the biggest economy at the end of the decade that will psychologically change the world so much regarding the West and Asia. Does this take into account China's demographics? Will be to able to 'grow rich before it grows old'?
- dragonelite 5y ago
  I'm not a demographer, so only time will tell how big of a problem it will become. The Chinese government is worried about it, already was couple of years ago. But I don't see it becoming a roadblock that will prevent China from becoming the biggest economy in the world, hell I wouldn't be surprised that the Chinese market will be twice that of the combined western market. China can always play the Asian immigration card. To soften the blow of a graying demographic.
  - HKH2 5y ago
    China has been pushed towards being a monoculture for the past 70 years or so. I don't think Asian immigration would be an easy option at all.
    - FooBarWidget 5y ago
      For certain definitions of "monoculture". Even Han culture between different regions can be very different.
      - HKH2 5y ago
        Sure, China is not as homogeneous as what it could be. Yet is it preserving diversity? Through its enforcement of standards and nationalism, the CCP has been clear that it has no interest in making China more multicultural.
        FooBarWidget 5y ago
        That isn't the reality I see on the ground. Take a look at for example this Tibet documentary: https://youtu.be/zkYhSsQqRhI https://youtu.be/zkYhSsQqRhI This Tibetan woman has 3 husbands. Look inside her house: full of Tibetan and religious artifacts. And this is just a normal Tibetan household, after we've been told for decades that Tibetans are being culturally genocided. It looks to me that Tibetan scripts and languages, Mongolian scripts and languages, etc are better preserved than over the border in India and Mongolia. Yes there are also plenty of examples where they tear down a cultural site. Yet I think there is a fundamental difference between western and Chinese interpretations of such acts. Western societies have developed a sort of mythical worshipping of traditional ethnic culture. To the Chinese, to whom development and modernization have come late, development and modernization is number 1: there is no pride in living a traditional, ethnic life if that means being in the middle of poverty. Some sites are torn in the name of development. See this discussion from 1999, back when the China topic wasn't so politicized: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/02/tibet-through-chinese-eyes/306395/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/02/tibet-t...
- leoc 5y ago
  It's not just the demographics: https://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/78138 https://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/78138 .
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cronix 5y ago
> So it will give China absolutely nothing It essentially gives them tremendous power over the world. All they have to do is threaten to shut it down, or ban exports to the west, or put very high tariffs on them. In addition to gaining all IP from customers. What do you think that will do to all companies that rely on cutting edge TSMC nodes such as Apple? Tesla? Nvidia? These new plants won't likely be putting out M1 chips, etc., the cutting edge fabrication is held physically in Taiwan. It would be a great way to collapse the economies of the world as you are rising, if one were aiming at doing such a thing.
- FooBarWidget 5y ago
  And why would they do that? They themselves also need advanced chips, which they can't get when the west boycotts supplies. In the end, such actions are doubled-edged swords, nobody benefits. I find all this decoupling rhetoric/fear very weird and contradictory. On the one hand people say we should decouple from China, on the other hand we fear decoupling from China and we get furious when they initiate decoupling (see Australian trade). In the mean time actual Chinese officials keep saying that a trade war benefits nobody and keep calling for rational decision making.
  - ohashi 5y ago
    Trade war benefits nobody, but if you can gain slight advantages by manipulating currency, stealing IP, etc, you can get ahead while 'saying the right thing.'
- elzbardico 5y ago
  China depends on global commerce as much as the US or Europe. It is not on their best interests to create a global tech crash.
wavefunction 5y ago
China must obviously gain cutting edge node fabs or associated knowledge and processes from seizing Taiwan given the claims you've made about Taiwanese being prevented from being hired by the Chinese Government.
- dragonelite 5y ago
  China is already domestically on 14nm pushing for 7nm at SMIC. They went from a decade behind to like 3~5 years behind in like 18 months. Time is on China's hand, Taiwan and south Korea should be worried about their so called ally the US stealing their tech. Because without TSMC what is Taiwan for the west a annoying island that we need to backstab some time in the future like the western backed regime in Afghanistan. At the end of the day its just business.
NonEUCitizen 5y ago
Not just Taiwanese talent -- China has also been recruiting South Korean semiconductor talent.
audunw 5y ago
At the current rate, China won’t become the biggest economy in nominal GDP for a few more decades, and that assumes growth continue at the current rate China might become number one in GDP (PPP) in a decade, but that also assumes continued growth at the current rate. China is overdue for a recession, as they need massive restructuring of the economy to shift away from an export driven economy and to pop its housing bubble (which does drive GDP growth now but not in a way that actually makes the country wealthier) Why do you think Xi Jinping is doing such massive reforms right now? And clamping down harder on dissent and access to information and culture that’s not in line with CCPs agenda? He knows what’s coming, and to an extent he’s accelerating it with new lending restrictions and such. He knows it’s necessary.
- mrep 5y ago
  China already has the largest GDP (PPP) in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
  - dragonelite 5y ago
    It was kind of a shocker too me when I discovered that in the PPP metric China has surpassed the US back in 2014. Also a thing i heard today was that Mercedes for examples sold 770k plus cars in China compared to only 220k and 260k in the US and Germany. And people still expect western companies to decouple.