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Biden's chip ban will fail, there are so many ways around it that they are only limited by the imagination and ingenuity of your opponent who ever that may be. The ban on drugs and illegal guns has been a huge failure that only proves this point. Supply and demand rule even when it comes to illegal goods and actions, but money talks and xxxx walks when it comes to money and actions. With direct experience in getting creative, I see China will get the chips for the critical uses, not as many as they want, but they will get them. There was a famous drug case where the arrested party proved to the feds he could acquire a Russian submarine possibly with nukes and got a total walk on heavy drug charges after he came back from Russia with photos and pricing. Any thoughts, comments or additions welcome.
It truly is a fool's errand. Hopefully there is an end game here but I have serious doubts. In Silicon Valley if you cannot compete then you play dirty. It seems like the US can't compete with China so we play dirty?
I keep hearing about geopolitical issues with Taiwan and China while North Korea and Russia have their finger on the nuke button. What am I missing here?
It will be far cheaper for China to circumvent the chip restrictions in numerous ways than go to war over Taiwan, which would be hugely costly to everyone and all would lose.
It truly is a fool's errand. Hopefully there is an end game here but I have serious doubts. In Silicon Valley if you cannot compete then you play dirty. It seems like the US can't compete with China so we play dirty?
I keep hearing about geopolitical issues with Taiwan and China while North Korea and Russia have their finger on the nuke button. What am I missing here?
Why would we actively give the Chinese the tools to compete and undermine us when they have so clearly treated us as an enemy for decades. They want to take our place in the world. Giving them high tech tools while they work to undermine us doesn’t make any sense
Why would we actively give the Chinese the tools to compete and undermine us when they have so clearly treated us as an enemy for decades. They want to take our place in the world. Giving them high tech tools while they work to undermine us doesn’t make any sense
Well, we used to be frenemies with China and now we are full on enemies. Is that really progress? As far as undermining the US, I think our politicians are complicit in that effort. Did we not learn our lesson from previous wars? Semiconductors are a critical part of society, not unlike oil. Trying to take semiconductors away from a super power is in fact a fools errand, and a potentially catastrophic one.
I remember hearing Gen. Collin Powell speak one time recounting the end of the cold war with Russia. His Russian counterpart said something to the effect of "if we end the cold war we will be out of our jobs". The threat of war has been used over and over to get politicians elected. In our industry we call it FUD - fear, uncertainty and doubt and with today's social media it is much easier to spread.
So sure, let's keep trying to restrict access to semiconductors (the new oil) and act indignant when a war breaks out. Like Ukraine, the US and others will "donate" billions of dollars to aid Taiwan in yet another costly war that will destroy the lives of millions. But hey, at least we see how competitive our weapons are without losing American lives.
It truly is a fool's errand. Hopefully there is an end game here but I have serious doubts. In Silicon Valley if you cannot compete then you play dirty. It seems like the US can't compete with China so we play dirty?
I keep hearing about geopolitical issues with Taiwan and China while North Korea and Russia have their finger on the nuke button. What am I missing here?
I'd be interested if you could expand on any specific holes that stick out to you?
This article seems to have a similar sentiment, and recommends
cloud providers implement “Know Your Customer” checks for any customers using large quantities of export-controlled chips. The thoroughness of checks should scale proportionally with estimated risk and computational intensity
The U.S. government should work with its allies to spread responsible screening practices internationally, much as the Financial Action Task Force has set international standards to prevent global money laundering and terrorist financing
the United States must work more closely with its allies and partners—Taiwan, the Netherlands, Japan, India, and South Korea—to coordinate export control enforcement. By sharing information and coordinating enforcement efforts, the United States and its allies can prevent rogue actors from exploiting loopholes in export control regimes and ensure that sensitive technologies do not end up in the wrong hands.
China isn't the only dirty player. Do you really think the US is clean? Spend time in China and you will hear the other side of the story. Same thing goes with Korea, Taiwan, Russia, etc...
Funny story. I did foundry work for an IP company a while back. We licensed to all of the foundries. Even though they all had internal development customers wanted our IP so the foundries had no choice. As it turns out, not to our surprise, the foundries had very similar products to ours in development but was a generation or two behind. On several occasions we were blatantly copied.
Bottom line: Assume there will always be dirty play so keep your hands clean and innovate to stay ahead of the competition, my advice.
China isn't the only dirty player. Do you really think the US is clean? Spend time in China and you will hear the other side of the story. Same thing goes with Korea, Taiwan, Russia, etc...
Funny story. I did foundry work for an IP company a while back. We licensed to all of the foundries. Even though they all had internal development customers wanted our IP so the foundries had no choice. As it turns out, not to our surprise, the foundries had very similar products to ours in development but was a generation or two behind. On several occasions we were blatantly copied.
Bottom line: Assume there will always be dirty play so keep your hands clean and innovate to stay ahead of the competition, my advice.
I didn't say anyone was totally clean. Nor do I believe that.
However, I'm curious how people can view the CHIPS Act as playing by the normal rules while chip sanctions aren't.
At the end of the day, it's simply a dispute about who sets the rules we all have to play by. Personally, I'd rather it was done on an international basis where all major countries involved signed up to common rules on subsidies (or lack of), product dumping, respect for IP, etc. But if that can't be had, having the US as the neighbourhood bully is probably preferable to a European than letting the Chinese run the show - there's at least some transparency and predictability and a partly functioning legal and IP system to fall back on.
You can't restrict anything really, look at prohibitions in the US, alcohol, drugs, prostitution, all have been miserable, costly failures that did far more damage than good and enabled the wrong people to get rich supplying their needs and police, courts, lawyers and prisons to have a huge, costly, disaster that accomplished little if anything. It is far better to work with reality rather than a fools errand. The only problem is you need an intelligent government and right now we are headed by a proven corrupt, lying idiot that is experiencing mental decay that is getting worse by the day.
This is a "Do something!" mentality that people get when they're confronting a big problem where they can't control the outcome. Climate change is the perfect example. We're about to get regulations in the US to make clothes and dishwashing machines much less efficient, because it'll save a modicum of energy over a decade. All these little things add up! (Not enough. The global impact isn't measurable. But we have to do something!) Technology restrictions on China are similar. China is going to use western technology to advance their military and societal control ambitions or develop their own. The restrictions are just an annoyance or speed bumps. But US leadership feels they have to do something that voters can understand.
www.wsj.com
