7 ms·

But China doesn't actually have a lot of technological prowess on their own. The USG might be trying to slow them down but they're not concerned about China mil

But China doesn't actually have a lot of technological prowess on their own. The USG might be trying to slow them down but they're not concerned about China militarily. I worked for a defense contractor back in the early 2000s when the USG was selling a lot of arms and systems to Taiwan. I got to see the bullying in person via the ASOC (part of the C4ISR platform) system we were installing. China would routinely fly fighters over the straight to the boundary and fly the line and return to the mainland. I didn't understand the rationale at the time but the US was enabling Taiwan for their own interests in chips. China doesn't matter as much but Taiwan does. The US always had a large naval presence in Taiwan that I saw. China has a relatively weak naval force in comparison - but obviously enough forces to easily take over Taiwan if and when they really feel the need to. I think these programs just bought the US more time. Ultimately though, China needs Taiwan for those chips. The problem being that if the major producers leave Taiwan then China is hopeless as they don't possess the capabilities or people to retool. They need the likes of Germany and others to even think about the ability to produce competitive processors to AMD / Intel. China can't build its own fab for these types of procs. Finally, I didn't realize until more recently that China was, and still is, relatively incapable on their own. Some recent books put it into perspective for me on a global scale. But the fact that China just recently figured out how to manufacture a high precision pen is an interesting reference [0]. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/18/finally-china-manufactures-a-ballpoint-pen-all-by-itself/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/18...

kingkawn 4y ago
Chinese tech and power has come along way since your formative image of them took shape in the early 2000s
- windexh8er 4y ago
  How? China doesn't possess the capability to build their own competitive chips. The chips they do manufacture do not require high precision. Everything I've read about China over the last few years has indicated it is, generally, unsustainable. From their disastrous fiscal policies of internal hyper-finance [0], their weakening navy [1], their aging population that's well on its way through decline [2] and the [3] continued climate issues that loom over China - it doesn't look all that great once you peel back the facade. China is in a big mess that started back then and continues to get worse under current leadership. [0]https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-slow-motion-financial-crisis-unfolding-expected https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-slow-motion-financial-c... [1] https://news.usni.org/2021/01/22/chinese-navy-faces-overseas-basing-weakness-report-says https://news.usni.org/2021/01/22/chinese-navy-faces-overseas... [2] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3157385/chinas-ageing-population-long-term-reality-and-its-silver https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3157385/c... [3] https://www.world-energy.org/article/20509.html https://www.world-energy.org/article/20509.html
  - Dah00n 4y ago
    >China doesn't possess the capability to build their own competitive chips The US doesn't either. ASML is the only supplier of cutting-edge lithography systems and they are Dutch, not from Taiwan or the US. Without them Intel and TSMC couldn't do what they do and US sanctions is why China can't currently build competitive chips. It is not because of some kind of US tech brilliance.
    - petra 4y ago
      I believe TSMC is 50% owned by US companies.
      - selectodude 4y ago
        Intel owns a significant chunk of ASML but it’s always been a fully Dutch company. That being said, ASML is 100 percent reliant on US Government research for their EUV breakthroughs, which is why the USG can tell them who they can and can’t sell to.
    - windexh8er 4y ago
      Look at the top 12 chip manufacturers globally. The ones that design the chips that run our everyday lives. They are mostly US based companies. The IP is within, mostly, US based companies. I posted this in another comment. This is why the US is heavily subsidizing bringing that to US soil [0]. This is preemptive, but in many ways, a bit late. If you're saying the US doesn't know how to design and build chips then you're conflating two very different things. The US manufacturers used to build them here, but the global supply chain made it infeasible to do it on US soil historically. The US currently doesn't have the manufacturing capacity to fabricate the chips they design - but the actual R&D is here. China doesn't have that. > It is not because of some kind of US tech brilliance. If that's the case then please share one Chinese rival to Intel / AMD. [0] https://www.nist.gov/semiconductors/chips-act https://www.nist.gov/semiconductors/chips-act
  - mywittyname 4y ago
    China has recently developed a low-altitude, hyper-sonic missile platform (DF-ZF) for which the USA doesn't have a great defense against. And this platform is specifically designed to attack carrier groups. THAAD can theoretically stop these missiles but the range for doing so is extremely limited due to the speed (up to Mach 10) and low altitude these missiles fly at.
Dah00n 4y ago
>The USG might be trying to slow them down but they're not concerned about China militarily. The one thing that matters in the long run is money and even though the US is fighting tooth and nail to halt China it isn't very likely to happen - who knows, we'll see. Whenever this discussion pops up it reeks of racism. People from China aren't less intelligent than people in Germany or in the US so with time and more money they will with 100% certainty overcome any technological gap. Sure they are behind in some areas but pretending they can't make a pen is disingenuous. They have had the capability to launch satellites since the 1970's and are now building a space-station. It is no different than saying the US can't make rockets because they had a lot of outside (Nazi) help after WW2. China has in a very short time-span gone from mostly agriculture to being in the top three in many (most?) high tech areas. But in short can you explain why the US is using insane amounts of energy to slow down China if they are so totally incapable? Why do we need a completely new doctrine and pivot of the navy to be sailing around an utterly incapable and un-concerning China?
- windexh8er 4y ago
  > Whenever this discussion pops up it reeks of racism. People from China aren't less intelligent than people in Germany or in the US so with time and more money they will with 100% certainty overcome any technological gap. Sure they are behind in some areas but pretending they can't make a pen is disingenuous. It's not disingenous and it's not racist as I've laid it out. Facts are facts. I've never discounted the fact that China can't make electronics or that it can't, as a nation state, build satellites. What it's manufacturing sector, the bulk of China's financial success couldn't do was make a ball point pen as it requires precision manufacturing. That was not in China's wheelhouse until 2017. There are countries that excel in precision manufacturing at scale. You're conflating some very macro things. > China has in a very short time-span gone from mostly agriculture to being in the top three in many (most?) high tech areas. Define "high tech". The top 5 chip manufacturers in the world are: AMD (US), Intel (US), Broadcom (US), TSMC (CN --> Taiwan), NVidia (US). I'm curious if that helps you understand, better, what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about run of the mill electronics manufacturers. If you round out the top 12 - China isn't there: STM, NXP, Micron, LRC, Applied Materials, Texas Instruments, and Qualcomm - none of which are Chinese corporations. These are the companies that know how to build chips. Where is China in this mix? Because these are the companies you need to build high-tech things. Putting an iPhone together is not the same thing as building the chips in them. > But in short can you explain why the US is using insane amounts of energy to slow down China if they are so totally incapable? Why do we need a completely new doctrine and pivot of the navy to be sailing around an utterly incapable and un-concerning China? Yes. TSMC. They are the dominant, mass volume, manufacturer of these chips today. The US supply chain relies on this right now. Chip building isn't like retail where you can throw up a store in a few weeks and are off to the races. Building what TSMC has takes time. The US is buying time. That's why you slow China down and keep the issue of Taiwan at bay.
greedo 4y ago
The US has no naval presence in Taiwan. USN ships might do port visits, but they have no basing rights. They will periodically transit the Straits on Freedom of Navigation (FON) exercises. The closest USN base is in Yokohama Japan.
- windexh8er 4y ago
  I don't know if they had any basing rights at the time I was there, but given the USG was delivering weapons (military ships, etc) there was a large presence there at that point in time. I only know that through actual observations while on bases there.
- CapricornNoble 4y ago
  We've got amphibious assault assets in Sasebo (Kyushu) and White Beach (Okinawa) but it's true that the bulk of 7th Fleet's major surface combatants are based out of Yokosuka (Yokohama).
lossolo 4y ago
Things changed. Most war games/simulations around Taiwan that I'm aware of were lost by US or stalemated. "US Could Lose 1000 Fighter Jets, Its Entire Global Fleet If It Goes To War Against China Over Taiwan"[1] 1. https://eurasiantimes.com/us-could-lose-over-900-fighter-jets-if-it-goes-to-war-against-china/ https://eurasiantimes.com/us-could-lose-over-900-fighter-jet...
- dQw4w9WgXcQ 4y ago
  Fundamentally the access to resources would make defending Taiwan exceptionally challenging. The real answer to the war though is disconnect our supply chain dependencies from China and let them sink into economic chaos, and that is easily winnable and already in work.
  - rnk 4y ago
    It's not easily winnable. It will take more than a decade to move so much manufacturing to other places. Many things will just stay there in China as long as they can.
DeathArrow 4y ago
>China can't build its own fab for these types of procs. China can't build fabs for very small lithography processes yet. But 40 years ago they couldn't build almost anything. That changed. The fab situation will change, too.
- windexh8er 4y ago
  That's entirely true. They're also decades behind at this point. Chip design and fabrication is an iterative process - if you don't have access to high precision manufacturing capable of building the machines that fabricate the chips you can't fab. China can't build those machines today. Again, it's simple to say on a whim that China can go from building a lot of cheap electronics to building very complex microprocessors. But that doesn't change the hurdles or the reality. Also keep in mind that if anything gets in the way of developing these processes - more supply chain breakdown, access to raw materials required to fabricate processors is unavailable or constrained, or China is dealing with any other number of issues along that path it will only take longer. Then realize that during this period of time the rest of the processes are enhanced and iterated leaving China even further behind. So at the time China can fabricate chips that are outdated today, the world will be 20+ years down the road from where we are right now. The more you dig into all of the things that are needed for China to catch up the more it's apparent that it very well may not happen.

kingkawn 4y ago

Chinese tech and power has come along way since your formative image of them took shape in the early 2000s

windexh8er 4y ago
How? China doesn't possess the capability to build their own competitive chips. The chips they do manufacture do not require high precision. Everything I've read about China over the last few years has indicated it is, generally, unsustainable. From their disastrous fiscal policies of internal hyper-finance [0], their weakening navy [1], their aging population that's well on its way through decline [2] and the [3] continued climate issues that loom over China - it doesn't look all that great once you peel back the facade. China is in a big mess that started back then and continues to get worse under current leadership. [0]https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-slow-motion-financial-crisis-unfolding-expected https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-slow-motion-financial-c... [1] https://news.usni.org/2021/01/22/chinese-navy-faces-overseas-basing-weakness-report-says https://news.usni.org/2021/01/22/chinese-navy-faces-overseas... [2] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3157385/chinas-ageing-population-long-term-reality-and-its-silver https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3157385/c... [3] https://www.world-energy.org/article/20509.html https://www.world-energy.org/article/20509.html
- Dah00n 4y ago
  >China doesn't possess the capability to build their own competitive chips The US doesn't either. ASML is the only supplier of cutting-edge lithography systems and they are Dutch, not from Taiwan or the US. Without them Intel and TSMC couldn't do what they do and US sanctions is why China can't currently build competitive chips. It is not because of some kind of US tech brilliance.
  - petra 4y ago
    I believe TSMC is 50% owned by US companies.
    - selectodude 4y ago
      Intel owns a significant chunk of ASML but it’s always been a fully Dutch company. That being said, ASML is 100 percent reliant on US Government research for their EUV breakthroughs, which is why the USG can tell them who they can and can’t sell to.
  - windexh8er 4y ago
    Look at the top 12 chip manufacturers globally. The ones that design the chips that run our everyday lives. They are mostly US based companies. The IP is within, mostly, US based companies. I posted this in another comment. This is why the US is heavily subsidizing bringing that to US soil [0]. This is preemptive, but in many ways, a bit late. If you're saying the US doesn't know how to design and build chips then you're conflating two very different things. The US manufacturers used to build them here, but the global supply chain made it infeasible to do it on US soil historically. The US currently doesn't have the manufacturing capacity to fabricate the chips they design - but the actual R&D is here. China doesn't have that. > It is not because of some kind of US tech brilliance. If that's the case then please share one Chinese rival to Intel / AMD. [0] https://www.nist.gov/semiconductors/chips-act https://www.nist.gov/semiconductors/chips-act
- mywittyname 4y ago
  China has recently developed a low-altitude, hyper-sonic missile platform (DF-ZF) for which the USA doesn't have a great defense against. And this platform is specifically designed to attack carrier groups. THAAD can theoretically stop these missiles but the range for doing so is extremely limited due to the speed (up to Mach 10) and low altitude these missiles fly at.

Dah00n 4y ago

>The USG might be trying to slow them down but they're not concerned about China militarily. The one thing that matters in the long run is money and even though the US is fighting tooth and nail to halt China it isn't very likely to happen - who knows, we'll see. Whenever this discussion pops up it reeks of racism. People from China aren't less intelligent than people in Germany or in the US so with time and more money they will with 100% certainty overcome any technological gap. Sure they are behind in some areas but pretending they can't make a pen is disingenuous. They have had the capability to launch satellites since the 1970's and are now building a space-station. It is no different than saying the US can't make rockets because they had a lot of outside (Nazi) help after WW2. China has in a very short time-span gone from mostly agriculture to being in the top three in many (most?) high tech areas. But in short can you explain why the US is using insane amounts of energy to slow down China if they are so totally incapable? Why do we need a completely new doctrine and pivot of the navy to be sailing around an utterly incapable and un-concerning China?

windexh8er 4y ago
> Whenever this discussion pops up it reeks of racism. People from China aren't less intelligent than people in Germany or in the US so with time and more money they will with 100% certainty overcome any technological gap. Sure they are behind in some areas but pretending they can't make a pen is disingenuous. It's not disingenous and it's not racist as I've laid it out. Facts are facts. I've never discounted the fact that China can't make electronics or that it can't, as a nation state, build satellites. What it's manufacturing sector, the bulk of China's financial success couldn't do was make a ball point pen as it requires precision manufacturing. That was not in China's wheelhouse until 2017. There are countries that excel in precision manufacturing at scale. You're conflating some very macro things. > China has in a very short time-span gone from mostly agriculture to being in the top three in many (most?) high tech areas. Define "high tech". The top 5 chip manufacturers in the world are: AMD (US), Intel (US), Broadcom (US), TSMC (CN --> Taiwan), NVidia (US). I'm curious if that helps you understand, better, what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about run of the mill electronics manufacturers. If you round out the top 12 - China isn't there: STM, NXP, Micron, LRC, Applied Materials, Texas Instruments, and Qualcomm - none of which are Chinese corporations. These are the companies that know how to build chips. Where is China in this mix? Because these are the companies you need to build high-tech things. Putting an iPhone together is not the same thing as building the chips in them. > But in short can you explain why the US is using insane amounts of energy to slow down China if they are so totally incapable? Why do we need a completely new doctrine and pivot of the navy to be sailing around an utterly incapable and un-concerning China? Yes. TSMC. They are the dominant, mass volume, manufacturer of these chips today. The US supply chain relies on this right now. Chip building isn't like retail where you can throw up a store in a few weeks and are off to the races. Building what TSMC has takes time. The US is buying time. That's why you slow China down and keep the issue of Taiwan at bay.

greedo 4y ago

The US has no naval presence in Taiwan. USN ships might do port visits, but they have no basing rights. They will periodically transit the Straits on Freedom of Navigation (FON) exercises. The closest USN base is in Yokohama Japan.

windexh8er 4y ago
I don't know if they had any basing rights at the time I was there, but given the USG was delivering weapons (military ships, etc) there was a large presence there at that point in time. I only know that through actual observations while on bases there.
CapricornNoble 4y ago
We've got amphibious assault assets in Sasebo (Kyushu) and White Beach (Okinawa) but it's true that the bulk of 7th Fleet's major surface combatants are based out of Yokosuka (Yokohama).

lossolo 4y ago

Things changed. Most war games/simulations around Taiwan that I'm aware of were lost by US or stalemated. "US Could Lose 1000 Fighter Jets, Its Entire Global Fleet If It Goes To War Against China Over Taiwan"[1] 1. https://eurasiantimes.com/us-could-lose-over-900-fighter-jets-if-it-goes-to-war-against-china/ https://eurasiantimes.com/us-could-lose-over-900-fighter-jet...

dQw4w9WgXcQ 4y ago
Fundamentally the access to resources would make defending Taiwan exceptionally challenging. The real answer to the war though is disconnect our supply chain dependencies from China and let them sink into economic chaos, and that is easily winnable and already in work.
- rnk 4y ago
  It's not easily winnable. It will take more than a decade to move so much manufacturing to other places. Many things will just stay there in China as long as they can.

DeathArrow 4y ago

>China can't build its own fab for these types of procs. China can't build fabs for very small lithography processes yet. But 40 years ago they couldn't build almost anything. That changed. The fab situation will change, too.

windexh8er 4y ago
That's entirely true. They're also decades behind at this point. Chip design and fabrication is an iterative process - if you don't have access to high precision manufacturing capable of building the machines that fabricate the chips you can't fab. China can't build those machines today. Again, it's simple to say on a whim that China can go from building a lot of cheap electronics to building very complex microprocessors. But that doesn't change the hurdles or the reality. Also keep in mind that if anything gets in the way of developing these processes - more supply chain breakdown, access to raw materials required to fabricate processors is unavailable or constrained, or China is dealing with any other number of issues along that path it will only take longer. Then realize that during this period of time the rest of the processes are enhanced and iterated leaving China even further behind. So at the time China can fabricate chips that are outdated today, the world will be 20+ years down the road from where we are right now. The more you dig into all of the things that are needed for China to catch up the more it's apparent that it very well may not happen.