4 ms·

Withholding technology is the only tool we have. If we let them have the tech it's not like they'll start depending on us. They will simply replicate the machin

by arjie 3mo ago

Withholding technology is the only tool we have. If we let them have the tech it's not like they'll start depending on us. They will simply replicate the machinery and then someone else will be writing a comment on Nacker Hews in this alternative Earth about how we were such fools in the West to simply let them have our technology thinking that would make them depend on us. In fact, we have this evidence because all the news about Hygon Dhyana being based on a nerfed Zen 1 had all Internet commentary shaped like "We're such idiots to let them have this. We are the eternal morons!" Literally every non-embargoed technology they have access to they instantly build and enhance. They have industrial and manufacturing iteration ability far beyond what we have. They won't be grateful to us, they won't be dependent on us, they won't be supplicants. They are well on the trajectory to being an equivalent world power with divergent objectives and thinking that handing them R&D is going to slow a negative outcome for us is wishful thinking. Sometimes the only plan available is not a great plan. That's just how it is. The world sometimes gives you constraints that don't have a happy solution. You race down the precipice on whatever you have. And look what we earned for it: almost a full decade before they got here. That's amazing. The US only had the bomb exclusively for 4 years before the USSR got that. We had 18 months before they got nuclear submarines with ballistic missiles. We got 8 years of EUV that China couldn't match us in. Precious 8 years and ongoing.

nneonneo 3mo ago
For highly complex technologies that require tons of capex to get anywhere, Chinese firms are perfectly happy to depend on foreign companies if they are allowed to. Chinese chipmakers weren't willing to use the first batch of domestic DUV machines because they simply weren't as good as foreign alternatives, and this made it doubly difficult for domestic machine manufacturers: they couldn't get revenue for selling machines, and they couldn't learn from their customers' experiences. The Chinese government, for example, is now apparently withholding Nvidia chips from being imported - despite the export ban being partially lifted from the US side - in order to incentivize local companies to use domestic NPUs instead. Similarly, on a personal level, most of the (technical) folks I know here in China are using Claude/GPT models because they want to use the best models available. But, companies like Bytedance (Doubao) cannot use such models to serve their customers, and ordinary folks also cannot access these models without workarounds. As such, the market for domestic AI models is huge, which has uplifted a lot of the current AI model providers. Ultimately, this creates a funny conundrum: sanctions mean that certain parts of the Chinese population can still access the "banned" tech - able to experiment with it and learn from it - while spurring domestic companies to seek domestic alternatives.
- arjie 3mo ago
  Okay, I think you’re right about some things. Coordinating a market economy is not straightforward. Individual participants will buy what is optimal for them. By embargoing them we provided a coordination mechanism. Chinese semiconductor manufacturers now had a captive market to sell into and the state was able to incentivize production without too much waste. But the thing that strikes me is that China was already trying to do this. SMIC et al were already funded by the Big Fund. And they generally succeed in industrial policy. It’s true that a GPU can’t be torn apart and replicated like a car factory can. But they were already trying and they were already attracting sufficient numbers. I suspect we couldn’t have stopped them. DUV tech like this has been already explored deeply. And the loss is in power and scale - both of which China can compensate for elsewhere. We are power constrained. They are not. If they want to run 3x DCs for every one of ours they can do it. It’s not like we don’t rent them GPUs. My friends do that. It’s entirely legal and Chinese companies don’t balk at needing to rent B300s. The whole thing isn’t resting on whether they want to capex it or opex it. It’s that they want domestic capability and we needed to trade off building them a coordination mechanism vs slowing them down. And we did this thing and it did that. In a world where we sell them top of the line GPUs and allow ASML to sell them EUV do we think that the geolock on those devices stops China when they decide to replicate it? Or do you think they succeed at industrial espionage, that their local techs get as good at using the machines as TSMC does, and that they eventually transfer whatever learnings they have to what they can produce?
- jingpostmedia 2mo ago
  [flagged]
deaux 3mo ago
> They are well on the trajectory to being an equivalent world power Equivalent is your wishful thinking seeping through.
gaigalas 3mo ago
> Withholding technology is the only tool we have. The US has the strongest military in the world, tight control of a large part of the world economy, unprecedented cultural soft power, a permanent vetoing seat at the UN security counsel, vast territories, a 50-year headstart in space, thousands of nukes, dozens of cyber organizations with deep roots everywhere. The embargoes and tariffs are literally a skill issue.
- tarsinge 3mo ago
  The US had the strongest military in the world using outdated 20th century metrics. The new reality is the world is watching the US losing the war against Iran, depleting critical weapons inventories that need China’s supply chain to be rebuilt.
  - gaigalas 3mo ago
    When the French used colorful obsolete uniforms in WWI, it was a skill issue. They had all the time in the world to modernize, but got cocky and made a terrible mistake. The US made their military supply chain too complex, and in several points tied to private interests more than national security. It's not just the rare earths (that is a lame excuse), it's how insanely bloated the supply chain is due to too many hands on the pot. That is the major US vulnerability right now, and not letting that go (those private interests controlling a lot of stuff) is choking the US. Most importantly, the war on Iran is asymmetrical, so it's not about having a powerful military. It's more a failure of soft power than strength. That soft power loss was also a skill issue (ostracized many international allies, etc). It's more like the US broke its own toys and doesn't want China to fill the power vacuum it has put itself in.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
HSO 3mo ago
> They won't be grateful to us, they won't be dependent on us, they won't be supplicants. Oh no!!! And yea, to think china will be ``equivalent`` to you is such a westoid delusion i dont even know what to tell you maybe keep dreaming
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
Haven880 3mo ago
There is this thing called payback. Chinese has a history of ultimate payback. The infamous very first one written down was eunuch Zhao Gao wiped clean entire Qin clan of Qin dynasty. WIPE CLEAN. When Deng met up with Thatcher, he gave her ultimatum to cede or army will march in that afternoon. That was just right after She won the Falkland war. USA will get Chinese payback. The only way to stop this is to invoke friend and savior role. Unfortunately, USA is playing the ultimate sore loser card with a generous dose of bullying. Be worry. Be very worry.
- lostlogin 3mo ago
  > USA will get Chinese payback. The only way to stop this is to invoke friend and savior role. Unfortunately, USA is playing the ultimate sore loser card with a generous dose of bullying. Be worry. Be very worry. Watching Trump try to use tariffs while China holds the cards has been actually hilarious.
- arjie 3mo ago
  Were we going to get payback for this latest economic war? Or for the last one? Or for supporting Taiwan in the 80s? Or for the Korean War? That’s the thing with this payback notion. It’s always justifiable. You just rewind to an appropriate time. No leader of the present can do anything about the fact that we killed two hundred thousand Chinese soldiers under Mao’s command in the Korean War. There was never going to be a friend and savior role. Given that we had the Korean War there was always going to be this convenient thing to rewind to and blame. Zhao Gao was always going to be conveniently rewritten to be a payback story. Even if he wasn’t described as a eunuch until later. That’s the thing with civilizations. They have these motifs that are post-hoc justified. If China wishes to threaten us in the future, and no doubt they will have the ability to fight us on even terms and perhaps even on uneven terms, they will simply seek an appropriate past. After all, note that Zhao Gao’s story is one of supposed alignment with revealed misalignment afterwards. It’s not like he came out an enemy. He worked through subterfuge. Should we have decided to ally with China in the 2000s, doubtless when they turned on us they would easily tell the tale of revenge for the Korean War for which they pretended to be allies until at the last moment they revealed themselves as plotting revenge! Just like Zhao Gao ended the Qin dynasty you will say, proudly. President Xi Jinping has referenced the Thucydides trap many times. To start with, dismissive of this idea, and now warnings that it is still avoidable. It won’t be revenge for the Korean War or for this latest economic escapade that will be the cause of any conflict with China. But when it comes, whatever story the Chinese public needs, the Chinese leadership can deliver. If revenge is what you want, you’ll get that story.

by arjie 3mo ago

nneonneo 3mo ago

For highly complex technologies that require tons of capex to get anywhere, Chinese firms are perfectly happy to depend on foreign companies if they are allowed to. Chinese chipmakers weren't willing to use the first batch of domestic DUV machines because they simply weren't as good as foreign alternatives, and this made it doubly difficult for domestic machine manufacturers: they couldn't get revenue for selling machines, and they couldn't learn from their customers' experiences. The Chinese government, for example, is now apparently withholding Nvidia chips from being imported - despite the export ban being partially lifted from the US side - in order to incentivize local companies to use domestic NPUs instead. Similarly, on a personal level, most of the (technical) folks I know here in China are using Claude/GPT models because they want to use the best models available. But, companies like Bytedance (Doubao) cannot use such models to serve their customers, and ordinary folks also cannot access these models without workarounds. As such, the market for domestic AI models is huge, which has uplifted a lot of the current AI model providers. Ultimately, this creates a funny conundrum: sanctions mean that certain parts of the Chinese population can still access the "banned" tech - able to experiment with it and learn from it - while spurring domestic companies to seek domestic alternatives.

arjie 3mo ago
Okay, I think you’re right about some things. Coordinating a market economy is not straightforward. Individual participants will buy what is optimal for them. By embargoing them we provided a coordination mechanism. Chinese semiconductor manufacturers now had a captive market to sell into and the state was able to incentivize production without too much waste. But the thing that strikes me is that China was already trying to do this. SMIC et al were already funded by the Big Fund. And they generally succeed in industrial policy. It’s true that a GPU can’t be torn apart and replicated like a car factory can. But they were already trying and they were already attracting sufficient numbers. I suspect we couldn’t have stopped them. DUV tech like this has been already explored deeply. And the loss is in power and scale - both of which China can compensate for elsewhere. We are power constrained. They are not. If they want to run 3x DCs for every one of ours they can do it. It’s not like we don’t rent them GPUs. My friends do that. It’s entirely legal and Chinese companies don’t balk at needing to rent B300s. The whole thing isn’t resting on whether they want to capex it or opex it. It’s that they want domestic capability and we needed to trade off building them a coordination mechanism vs slowing them down. And we did this thing and it did that. In a world where we sell them top of the line GPUs and allow ASML to sell them EUV do we think that the geolock on those devices stops China when they decide to replicate it? Or do you think they succeed at industrial espionage, that their local techs get as good at using the machines as TSMC does, and that they eventually transfer whatever learnings they have to what they can produce?
jingpostmedia 2mo ago
[flagged]

deaux 3mo ago

> They are well on the trajectory to being an equivalent world power Equivalent is your wishful thinking seeping through.

gaigalas 3mo ago

> Withholding technology is the only tool we have. The US has the strongest military in the world, tight control of a large part of the world economy, unprecedented cultural soft power, a permanent vetoing seat at the UN security counsel, vast territories, a 50-year headstart in space, thousands of nukes, dozens of cyber organizations with deep roots everywhere. The embargoes and tariffs are literally a skill issue.

tarsinge 3mo ago
The US had the strongest military in the world using outdated 20th century metrics. The new reality is the world is watching the US losing the war against Iran, depleting critical weapons inventories that need China’s supply chain to be rebuilt.
- gaigalas 3mo ago
  When the French used colorful obsolete uniforms in WWI, it was a skill issue. They had all the time in the world to modernize, but got cocky and made a terrible mistake. The US made their military supply chain too complex, and in several points tied to private interests more than national security. It's not just the rare earths (that is a lame excuse), it's how insanely bloated the supply chain is due to too many hands on the pot. That is the major US vulnerability right now, and not letting that go (those private interests controlling a lot of stuff) is choking the US. Most importantly, the war on Iran is asymmetrical, so it's not about having a powerful military. It's more a failure of soft power than strength. That soft power loss was also a skill issue (ostracized many international allies, etc). It's more like the US broke its own toys and doesn't want China to fill the power vacuum it has put itself in.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]

HSO 3mo ago

> They won't be grateful to us, they won't be dependent on us, they won't be supplicants. Oh no!!! And yea, to think china will be ``equivalent`` to you is such a westoid delusion i dont even know what to tell you maybe keep dreaming

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]

Haven880 3mo ago

There is this thing called payback. Chinese has a history of ultimate payback. The infamous very first one written down was eunuch Zhao Gao wiped clean entire Qin clan of Qin dynasty. WIPE CLEAN. When Deng met up with Thatcher, he gave her ultimatum to cede or army will march in that afternoon. That was just right after She won the Falkland war. USA will get Chinese payback. The only way to stop this is to invoke friend and savior role. Unfortunately, USA is playing the ultimate sore loser card with a generous dose of bullying. Be worry. Be very worry.

lostlogin 3mo ago
> USA will get Chinese payback. The only way to stop this is to invoke friend and savior role. Unfortunately, USA is playing the ultimate sore loser card with a generous dose of bullying. Be worry. Be very worry. Watching Trump try to use tariffs while China holds the cards has been actually hilarious.
arjie 3mo ago
Were we going to get payback for this latest economic war? Or for the last one? Or for supporting Taiwan in the 80s? Or for the Korean War? That’s the thing with this payback notion. It’s always justifiable. You just rewind to an appropriate time. No leader of the present can do anything about the fact that we killed two hundred thousand Chinese soldiers under Mao’s command in the Korean War. There was never going to be a friend and savior role. Given that we had the Korean War there was always going to be this convenient thing to rewind to and blame. Zhao Gao was always going to be conveniently rewritten to be a payback story. Even if he wasn’t described as a eunuch until later. That’s the thing with civilizations. They have these motifs that are post-hoc justified. If China wishes to threaten us in the future, and no doubt they will have the ability to fight us on even terms and perhaps even on uneven terms, they will simply seek an appropriate past. After all, note that Zhao Gao’s story is one of supposed alignment with revealed misalignment afterwards. It’s not like he came out an enemy. He worked through subterfuge. Should we have decided to ally with China in the 2000s, doubtless when they turned on us they would easily tell the tale of revenge for the Korean War for which they pretended to be allies until at the last moment they revealed themselves as plotting revenge! Just like Zhao Gao ended the Qin dynasty you will say, proudly. President Xi Jinping has referenced the Thucydides trap many times. To start with, dismissive of this idea, and now warnings that it is still avoidable. It won’t be revenge for the Korean War or for this latest economic escapade that will be the cause of any conflict with China. But when it comes, whatever story the Chinese public needs, the Chinese leadership can deliver. If revenge is what you want, you’ll get that story.