4 ms·

To contain China, chips shouldn’t be seen as “advanced” or “less advanced”

1 points by dlcmh 4y ago

ggm 4y ago
Instead of "containing" china, how about just working with them? if you want to create an adversary, forcing an economic asymmetry which otherwise wouldn't exist is a pretty good starting point. It's a massive economy, it runs to a different tune for sure. I am really not confident that this move around modern VLSI isn't capable of backfiring hard. That said, the article isn't wrong: if you believe the risk is solely future chips you've really misunderstood the depth of IPR in existing chips.
- thephyber 4y ago
  > forcing an economic asymmetry which otherwise wouldn't exist There is already a far more fundamental economic asymmetry. China’s intellectual property regime is different. Their government steals IP on behalf of their private sector. Their relationship between government and private sector is very different. Specifically, their laws are far more malleable to the interpretation of officials and are less objectively factual. They will hold businessmen and tourists hostage to gain leverage in business deals or diplomatic negotiations. That said, I don’t think there’s value in restricting all tech or all chips. Military-specific single purpose? Yes. Bleeding edge semiconductor manufacturing tech? Maybe. Commodity RFID, Bluetooth, WiFi chips? I don’t see any value except to create arbitrary shocks to the supply chain and force tech companies to add redundancy to their suppliers (which has already happened).
  - pxc 4y ago
    > China’s intellectual property regime is different. Their government steals IP on behalf of their private sector. you mean like this? https://contextisking.com/2021/02/06/the-paradox-of-hollywoods-piracy-roots/ https://contextisking.com/2021/02/06/the-paradox-of-hollywoo... or maybe like this? https://victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva74.html https://victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva74.html Seems like pretty standard stuff. We've just pulled the ladder up after ourselves with the export of the US copyright regime via trade agreements.
    - thephyber 4y ago
      I get that IP is screwed ip in the US, partially by lobbying and partially by ineffective regulation. But we have it on the books and US courts are all too happy to encourage IP knife fights (see the court in that forgettable “West” Texas county that all of the major tech companies choose to use for their litigation). In practice, Chinese companies don’t use IP and have much closer to perfect market competition. The Chinese government chooses not to enforce what IP they have on the books, suggesting it only exists for the purposes of homogenizing with international trade treaties.

1 points by dlcmh 4y ago

ggm 4y ago

Instead of "containing" china, how about just working with them? if you want to create an adversary, forcing an economic asymmetry which otherwise wouldn't exist is a pretty good starting point. It's a massive economy, it runs to a different tune for sure. I am really not confident that this move around modern VLSI isn't capable of backfiring hard. That said, the article isn't wrong: if you believe the risk is solely future chips you've really misunderstood the depth of IPR in existing chips.

thephyber 4y ago
> forcing an economic asymmetry which otherwise wouldn't exist There is already a far more fundamental economic asymmetry. China’s intellectual property regime is different. Their government steals IP on behalf of their private sector. Their relationship between government and private sector is very different. Specifically, their laws are far more malleable to the interpretation of officials and are less objectively factual. They will hold businessmen and tourists hostage to gain leverage in business deals or diplomatic negotiations. That said, I don’t think there’s value in restricting all tech or all chips. Military-specific single purpose? Yes. Bleeding edge semiconductor manufacturing tech? Maybe. Commodity RFID, Bluetooth, WiFi chips? I don’t see any value except to create arbitrary shocks to the supply chain and force tech companies to add redundancy to their suppliers (which has already happened).
- pxc 4y ago
  > China’s intellectual property regime is different. Their government steals IP on behalf of their private sector. you mean like this? https://contextisking.com/2021/02/06/the-paradox-of-hollywoods-piracy-roots/ https://contextisking.com/2021/02/06/the-paradox-of-hollywoo... or maybe like this? https://victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva74.html https://victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva74.html Seems like pretty standard stuff. We've just pulled the ladder up after ourselves with the export of the US copyright regime via trade agreements.
  - thephyber 4y ago
    I get that IP is screwed ip in the US, partially by lobbying and partially by ineffective regulation. But we have it on the books and US courts are all too happy to encourage IP knife fights (see the court in that forgettable “West” Texas county that all of the major tech companies choose to use for their litigation). In practice, Chinese companies don’t use IP and have much closer to perfect market competition. The Chinese government chooses not to enforce what IP they have on the books, suggesting it only exists for the purposes of homogenizing with international trade treaties.