3 ms·

When facing an advanced adversary such as China, embargoes can backfire badly. Short term, you may annoy them for while, but you better use that time wisely, l

by juancn 3y ago

When facing an advanced adversary such as China, embargoes can backfire badly. Short term, you may annoy them for while, but you better use that time wisely, long term, your embargo may be the forcing function that makes them even more advanced. Granted, there may not be other politically palatable options available, but it's nonetheless risky. The Loongsons or Kirins may be not a huge threat now, but think of Japan in the 20th century, where it turned from barely competent, almost rural country to a tech powerhouse in a few decades. I read this tit for tat behavior as proof that the US embargoes may end up just making their own companies less competitive.

nradov 3y ago
Japan eventually ran into structural limits and growth has been stalled for many years. Out of the 100 largest companies in the world, only a couple are Japanese. The country is still doing well enough but has lost the ability to produce disruptive innovations. Expect the same thing to happen to China. If they can avoid another violent revolution, that is.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  Why does it matter to have x number of companies in top 100 or something? People repeat the same lines for Europe too but both in Japan and EU people live longer, healthier lives and the life quality in general isn’t any lower than the US or China. What if giant corporations isn’t the metric to measure success?
  - nradov 3y ago
    Feel free to use other metrics if it makes you happy. The point is that there is no historical basis to expect that technology embargoes against China will make them stronger over the long term. They are facing severe demographic and economic challenges, and will be hard pressed just to maintain their current levels let alone achieve major increases.
    - mrtksn 3y ago
      I don't know what will happen to China but both China and US have high hitters in the TOP100 lists and both have lower life quality than EU and Japan. What if giant corporations aren't predictor of anything but problems? Giant corporations don't actually innovate much, the thing about them is that they can extract money from the society without doing much innovation. They are bean counters. Having the biggest bean counters isn't as cool as a TOP100 lists imply. If you read closely, you will notice that TOP100 lists are curated by some bean counting metrics, not innovation or anything like that. TOP100 by capital is where innovation goes to die. The best they can do is to buy startups and try to stay relevant when actual inventors invents stuff.
    - nebula8804 3y ago
      yeah yeah yeah this is the standard Peter Zeihan thesis that the cool kids on Youtube and Geopolitics forums love to tout. What they fail to acknowledge is that the Chinese are extremely proud and nationalistic and if you look at any industry you can think of from nuclear to semiconductor to even animation they are determined to out compete the US and they continue to post impressive gains in such a small amount of time. Their work ethic is just astounding. Not even Hollywood or Starbucks is safe. I wonder what the Chinese McDonalds will be? [0]:https://youtu.be/W2J0pRJSToU?t=373 https://youtu.be/W2J0pRJSToU?t=373 [1]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S3H0DKntNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S3H0DKntNw Maybe the steam will run out in 20 years due to demographics and they sink to the bottom of the ocean. Maybe Xi Jinping really did mess up taking over as supreme leader and we will see the consequences play out in the next 20 years. However, those 20 years will still be absolute hell for the US and their allies (lets be honest the US is the only real player). They may very well drag the US down to the bottom of the ocean with them by outclassing them at literally everything. The US is not some perfectly run paradise and it has severe issues that it did not have in the last challenge to its supremacy. We will see how things turn out.
Dalewyn 3y ago
>The Loongsons or Kirins may be not a huge threat now, Anyone who thinks CPUs allegedly on par with 10th gen Intel (or even a 14600K?!) and practical implementations of 7nm nodes are not huge threats is, sincerely, fucking delusional. And assuming the claims are hot air and they're more on par with 6th gen Intel or thereabouts, anyone who thinks that's not a huge threat is, sincerely, still fucking delusional. I think a lot of people, including those who really should know better, aren't realizing just how much processing horsepower even 6th gen Intel really has. Of course, if those people also don't consider China a hostile in the first place, then I will grant their logic would make sense.

by juancn 3y ago

nradov 3y ago

Japan eventually ran into structural limits and growth has been stalled for many years. Out of the 100 largest companies in the world, only a couple are Japanese. The country is still doing well enough but has lost the ability to produce disruptive innovations. Expect the same thing to happen to China. If they can avoid another violent revolution, that is.

mrtksn 3y ago
Why does it matter to have x number of companies in top 100 or something? People repeat the same lines for Europe too but both in Japan and EU people live longer, healthier lives and the life quality in general isn’t any lower than the US or China. What if giant corporations isn’t the metric to measure success?
- nradov 3y ago
  Feel free to use other metrics if it makes you happy. The point is that there is no historical basis to expect that technology embargoes against China will make them stronger over the long term. They are facing severe demographic and economic challenges, and will be hard pressed just to maintain their current levels let alone achieve major increases.
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    I don't know what will happen to China but both China and US have high hitters in the TOP100 lists and both have lower life quality than EU and Japan. What if giant corporations aren't predictor of anything but problems? Giant corporations don't actually innovate much, the thing about them is that they can extract money from the society without doing much innovation. They are bean counters. Having the biggest bean counters isn't as cool as a TOP100 lists imply. If you read closely, you will notice that TOP100 lists are curated by some bean counting metrics, not innovation or anything like that. TOP100 by capital is where innovation goes to die. The best they can do is to buy startups and try to stay relevant when actual inventors invents stuff.
  - nebula8804 3y ago
    yeah yeah yeah this is the standard Peter Zeihan thesis that the cool kids on Youtube and Geopolitics forums love to tout. What they fail to acknowledge is that the Chinese are extremely proud and nationalistic and if you look at any industry you can think of from nuclear to semiconductor to even animation they are determined to out compete the US and they continue to post impressive gains in such a small amount of time. Their work ethic is just astounding. Not even Hollywood or Starbucks is safe. I wonder what the Chinese McDonalds will be? [0]:https://youtu.be/W2J0pRJSToU?t=373 https://youtu.be/W2J0pRJSToU?t=373 [1]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S3H0DKntNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S3H0DKntNw Maybe the steam will run out in 20 years due to demographics and they sink to the bottom of the ocean. Maybe Xi Jinping really did mess up taking over as supreme leader and we will see the consequences play out in the next 20 years. However, those 20 years will still be absolute hell for the US and their allies (lets be honest the US is the only real player). They may very well drag the US down to the bottom of the ocean with them by outclassing them at literally everything. The US is not some perfectly run paradise and it has severe issues that it did not have in the last challenge to its supremacy. We will see how things turn out.

Dalewyn 3y ago

>The Loongsons or Kirins may be not a huge threat now, Anyone who thinks CPUs allegedly on par with 10th gen Intel (or even a 14600K?!) and practical implementations of 7nm nodes are not huge threats is, sincerely, fucking delusional. And assuming the claims are hot air and they're more on par with 6th gen Intel or thereabouts, anyone who thinks that's not a huge threat is, sincerely, still fucking delusional. I think a lot of people, including those who really should know better, aren't realizing just how much processing horsepower even 6th gen Intel really has. Of course, if those people also don't consider China a hostile in the first place, then I will grant their logic would make sense.