[HN Gopher] U.S. adds Chinese supercomputing entities to economi...
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U.S. adds Chinese supercomputing entities to economic blacklist
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 111 points
Date : 2021-04-08 15:58 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| poxwole wrote:
| Rather hypocritical since the best Supercomputers in the US are
| often used for military purposes. For example the ones at
| Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
| king_magic wrote:
| I think it'd be a lot more hypocritical if the US was actively
| locking _millions_ of people up into concentration camps.
| mike_d wrote:
| I doubt hypocrisy has ever seriously factored into a single
| geopolitical decision of any country.
|
| Interactions between nation-states are always driven by self
| interest. There is zero benefit in acting any differently.
| kube-system wrote:
| The entire point of sanctions is to exert a strategic influence
| over a rival.
|
| > "Supercomputing capabilities are vital for the development of
| many - perhaps almost all - modern weapons and national
| security systems, such as nuclear weapons and hypersonic
| weapons, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a statement.
| trynumber9 wrote:
| And? The US prohibited the export of all sorts of products to
| the Soviet Union because of their potential military
| applications. Why was China be exempt from these restrictions?
| China is still a one party, communist state. Perhaps they
| realized this fact again after the Hong Kong and Xinjiang
| crackdowns.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Launch a global plague, clamp down on democracy, abandon the rule
| of law, try to steal land and sea areas, run a genocide and begin
| an armed conflict with your nuclear neighbour?
|
| OK.
|
| Build a super computer?
|
| No, no, no!
| booleanbetrayal wrote:
| Just another anticipated symptom of the Long Term Debt Cycle
| decline for the US - https://www.principles.com/the-changing-
| world-order
| whomst wrote:
| Can you be more specific?
| 1cvmask wrote:
| There is a strangeness in the reasoning in the article. The claim
| is that these supercomputers pose a threat to the US but current
| purchases en route to China are exempted. Normally anything that
| poses a real threat would not create any exemptions.
|
| "The new rules take effect immediately but do not apply to goods
| from U.S. suppliers already en route."
| tw04 wrote:
| >Normally anything that poses a real threat would not create
| any exemptions.
|
| Citation please? Exemptions happen all the time for all sorts
| of reasons. Off the top of my head: if the goods in-flight were
| already invoiced and paid, and on the books for a publicly
| traded company, halting shipment and asking them to take the
| stock back could have massive ramifications to that company and
| the stock market as a whole.
|
| If the parts shipped so far aren't enough to actually complete
| the supercomputer build, why on earth would the government
| force that company to jump through all those hoops? In general,
| retroactively punishing previously legal behavior is frowned
| upon by most folks in all but the rarest circumstances.
| kube-system wrote:
| > Normally anything that poses a real threat would not create
| any exemptions.
|
| Define "real threat". Are we talking about an imminent threat,
| a potential threat, a long-term strategic threat, etc?
|
| The immediacy in which someone handles a threat depends on the
| details. For instance, high cholesterol and a heart attack are
| both a threat to someone's health. While you'd want to address
| both of those issues, one of them you might immediately call
| 911 for, and the other you might schedule an appointment for
| next week.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| The exact same reasoning could be applied to big American
| manufacturers: Boeing, Intel - all provide products to the US
| military and have very large business interest in China.
|
| Why doesn't China answer back with similar sanctions?
|
| It is honestly a bit of mystery to me. The best answer I can come
| up with is that the Chinese government is actually quite content
| with the US forcing Chinese companies to fabricate on Chinese
| soil.
| peytn wrote:
| CCP is sensitive to its unemployment problem and needs the jobs
| for stability.
| z2 wrote:
| China is mostly just a buyer of their products. Not buying from
| them just gives power to the remaining handful of competitors
| in these oligopolies. It's not like they can threaten to
| disrupt their production--I recall that the 787 has parts
| mostly sourced from the US, western Europe, and Japan, not
| China. For any joint venture in China, there's probably also
| clear value in keeping Boeing and Intel facilities operating...
| bobthepanda wrote:
| More importantly, China is still trying to jumpstart its own
| aviation juggernaut but is still using US suppliers, so it
| could very easily become an own goal.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| They're playing the long game.
|
| Most of these sanctions don't really work either. China will
| get what it wants some other way. The US will get to look like
| it acted. Everyone will be happy...
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| >Most of these sanctions don't really work either. China will
| get what it wants some other way. The US will get to look
| like it acted. Everyone will be happy...
|
| What are you basing this on?
| LatteLazy wrote:
| So, sanctions like these started in 2015 [0]. That was when
| the Chinese first topped the global super computer league
| (and that's for public super computers so presumably they'd
| been leading in private for a while?).
|
| The US banned exports to 4 Chinese companies that made the
| machines.
|
| So other companies spring up to fill the gap. This is
| problem 1: it takes very little time to setup a company, so
| sanctioning one is sort of pointless. You sanction
| PLA_Supplier1 LLC? Good thing PLA_Supplier1 LLC is
| interested in ordering the same kit!
|
| The result was a roughly yearly round of sanctions. Every
| year's new list of names is a list of the companies that
| bypassed the last year's sanctions...
|
| There is also problem 2: back in 2015 the computers used
| Intel parts but increasingly the Chinese are designing
| their own. They're not there yet, but they're making
| progress. TSMC still do most of the manufacture.
|
| So the question is: how long till Chinese hackers steal the
| latest designs or Chinese engineers reverse engineer the
| parts they buy on the grey market? AND how long until China
| sets up a TSMC competitor?
|
| I'm something of a hawk on China. I'm out on a ledge but
| here I am. I'd like to see real action on them for a long
| list of reasons. But before we can have real action, we
| need to drop the pretend action. Trump (what a turd) loved
| pretend action. Maybe Biden will be different? But this
| isn't that imho.
|
| Source on the original tariffs:
|
| [0] https://www.economist.com/business/2019/06/29/an-
| american-ba...
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| I was under the impression (mostly due to this podcast
| that talks about China's semiconductor history:
| https://chinatalkshow.libsyn.com/chinas-chip-dreams) that
| all of the big software companies that make chip tooling
| are outside of China and that a ban would be possible,
| but politically difficult.
|
| > AND how long until China sets up a TSMC competitor?
|
| From that same podcast it seems as though they've been
| trying for decades and have so far unable to do so and
| recent attempts(https://chinatalk.substack.com/p/billion-
| dollar-heist-how-sc...) have ended in massive fraud.
| stunt wrote:
| China's population is well over 1.4 billion. They need to
| create new jobs every year with the same rate that some
| countries do in a decade. I think it's pretty significant that
| they are able to run a country with that demographics most of
| whom were not even educated.
|
| China still benefits from its US relationship overall. The US
| does benefit too, but the US also wants to slow down their
| growth because it's a big threat to its power. I think
| everything else like human rights issues are just BS. We're
| partner with most of Arabian countries in the Middle East and
| we have active arms sell to them including Saudis which are far
| worst than China in terms of democracy and human rights.
| azurezyq wrote:
| > I think it's pretty significant that they are able to run a
| country with that demographics most of whom were not even
| educated.
|
| Citation needed :)
|
| As a Chinese native who has friends in almost all provinces
| across China, I just don't see Chinese is less educated than
| US. Same K-12 education for almost all (exceptions are rare).
| carmen_sandiego wrote:
| Eh, you're posting on HN in fluent English. Your personal
| friend group is probably nothing close to what's average in
| China. It's a straightforward sampling bias.
|
| Did you go to a Western university? A good one? And now
| work at some Western company? You can add atypical points
| for all of those.
|
| Most of the Chinese people I know are fine in terms of
| education, around the same as any other demographic. But
| most of them I know from a top European university, or from
| highly skilled work in China. Most of China is not like
| that at all.
| azurezyq wrote:
| I'm currently working in the bay area but I got my master
| degree in China and never attended any colleges in the
| west.
|
| I was born in a city ranked 45th in China by population
| (from wikipedia). K-12 is 100%. My grandpa lives in a
| very small village with annual income just a few thousand
| dollars, K-12 is also 100%. My close cousins come from
| the same small village, now bank staffs and doctors.
|
| I have friends who's family so poor that the roof got
| torn away by a typhoon. And I have friends whose parents
| are simply peasants.
|
| My friend group is definitely biased since I graduated
| from one of the top universities, but they are selected
| by exams, so many families are actually not wealthy. In
| China money usually cannot help you directly on exams,
| people need to study hard.
|
| Hmm, another thing I'm curious is that what gives the
| original post the impression that "Chinese people are
| uneducated". That's a rare heard haha.
| Daho0n wrote:
| >what gives the original post the impression that
| "Chinese people are uneducated"
|
| Propaganda? The stats I have seen all state that
| Americans are the uneducated ones in this comparison.
| azurezyq wrote:
| Maybe? Another possible explanation is that some people
| try to correlate income in USD to education levels.
|
| It's not a direct comparison since the cost for education
| is also cheaper in China. Also since K-12 is almost free
| (at least meals are not included 20 years ago when I was
| a kid), parents just send kids there.
|
| In recent years the trend is that even assembly factories
| require high school education, bachelor preferred...
| That's another interesting topic though.
| carmen_sandiego wrote:
| The top 45 cities are what, 200 million people? So 85% of
| Chinese people live somewhere more rural than where you
| grew up, and in China that's correlated with poverty and
| all sorts of negative things.
|
| This is exactly what I mean; the relatively advantaged
| Chinese are under the impression that they are the
| average. They're not at all. The average Chinese person
| lives no place they're likely to escape for the Bay Area.
| Most people can't even escape to a normal life in a tier
| 1 city within China.
| azurezyq wrote:
| Hmm, I just say from my personal experience. If you have
| numbers support "China is uneducated.", please paste the
| links.
|
| I mentioned my grandpa, he lives in a small village (1~2k
| people?), I would say it is something like rural Fresno
| maybe.
|
| If you can have supporting numbers, I can help explain.
| Daho0n wrote:
| You are basically saying you know better than someone
| from China and don't link any facts to back it up?
| carmen_sandiego wrote:
| Whether they're form China seems pretty irrelevant. You
| could very well make the opposite case that people from
| China know even less about its actual KPIs.
|
| It's trivial to pick a relevant metric and look up the
| median value for China. A quarter of the people there
| live on less than $5/day. They're not swanning off to do
| a Masters at MIT any time soon. They're not even able to
| move to the better cities within China, for the most
| part.
|
| This person is a total anomaly. Taking them as
| representative is quite ridiculous.
| cambalache wrote:
| I am really interested on your well researched work on
| this topic. Can you share a link to your book or
| articles? It is especially surprising given that last
| results indicate Chinese children consistently beating
| American(among the worst performers in OECD) kids in all
| academic categories.
|
| https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/pisa-test-
| chin...
| Layke1123 wrote:
| I am upvoting this because you will undoubtedly get downvoted
| for this kind of criticism against the capitalistic empire of
| the US, but let's not mince words. The US has been years
| ahead of China in human rights' violations as you directly
| mention. It's a shame that this website is more acknowledging
| of said fact.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| HN has a strong bias towards criticism of US policy, but
| that's actually good because we need to fix our stuff as
| well. It gets caught in the crossfire, sheds light and puts
| public eyes on shitty things we do in the USA. It's a win-
| win. City dwellers and highly educated people in the US (HN
| crowd essentially) are internationalized, but lately trying
| to be more fair to criticisms of CCP just for the sake of
| being "balanced". Truth prevails at the end of the day.
| What you're saying is true though. Are there 2 million
| people in reducation camps in the US based on ethnicity?
| thatcat wrote:
| No, but maybe more in prison for victimless crimes and
| those prisoners are disproportional of minority
| ethnicity.
| igravious wrote:
| > run a country with that demographics most of whom were not
| even educated.
|
| PISA 2018 results
|
| "The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment
| (PISA) examines what students know in reading, mathematics
| and science, and what they can do with what they know. It
| provides the most comprehensive and rigorous international
| assessment of student learning outcomes to date. Results from
| PISA indicate the quality and equity of learning outcomes
| attained around the world, and allow educators and policy
| makers to learn from the policies and practices applied in
| other countries. This is one of six volumes that present the
| results of the PISA 2018 survey, the seventh round of the
| triennial assessment."
|
| https://www.oecd.org/pisa/PISA-results_ENGLISH.png
|
| These latest results have various parts of China++ in #1
| position, the USA in #13
|
| ++ It is true that the sub-regions looked at are Beijing,
| Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang.
|
| The 2021 results have been postponed until 2022 for obvious
| reasons.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| China both needs these companies and has nothing to gain in
| attacking them.
|
| On other hand, the US are trying to slow China's rise by
| hurting key industries.
|
| This is a geopolitical struggle. The US cannot win because
| China is bigger than they are and so will overtake them sooner
| or later, but they can slow things down to maintain their
| dominance as long as they can.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > The US cannot win but they can slow things down to maintain
| their dominance as long as they can.
|
| They (the USA) fucked up Japan pretty bad. Throughout the
| 70s-80s the USA was fearful of the rise of Japan, their
| incredible ability to usurp American businesses, and their
| growing trade deficit surplus, which they then rolled back
| into US T-bonds. From an American perspective, Japan was in
| the 70s what China is today.
|
| In the early-80s, the Yen-to-dollar ratio was really high.
| This kicked off an inflationary asset bubble within the
| country that lasted for several years. Starting in 1985, the
| yen-to-dollar ratio collapsed, falling by half from mid
| Y=200s in just two years and reaching a low of Y=85 by 95.
|
| Japan entered the Lost Decade as a result of this situation.
| The lost decade became two, then the GFC happened, bringing
| it to three decades.
|
| It is suspected that this was the result of an intentional
| attack on the Japanese economy by US officials with the
| express intent to curb Japan's rising economic power.
| thereare5lights wrote:
| Japan doesn't have over 4x the population of US and a
| comparable amount of land.
|
| China has many advantages that Japan doesn't have. It's not
| a given that the same thing will happen.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Because China is trying to promote more trading -- which it
| benefits from. And she does need the products or connections of
| Boeing/Intel.
|
| If China breaks her compeletely from all major US
| manufacturers, it's equivalent to a declaration of the end of
| post-2001 world economy and can bring ripples across the world.
| China is not prepared for that, yet.
| bumbada wrote:
| >Why doesn't China answer back with similar sanctions?
|
| They want to, but they can't, yet. If you listen to CCP
| officials the long term plan is very clear: To transform China
| from an export driven economy to a internal market economy so
| they don't need others, but currently they need them.
|
| China currently can not consume what it produces. When I was
| living there I could not buy the cooking tool(blender) I
| wanted. I went to Europe, bought the Blender(manufactured in
| China) and brought it to China. There was not market in China
| for those and they went straight from the factory to the port.
|
| China is not the US, most people in China are very poor. The
| CCP is very powerful but the country is weak in many ways.
|
| In fact China is closing down a lot recently, expats are going
| out the country fast.
| mrtksn wrote:
| >When I was living there I could not buy the cooking
| tool(blender) I wanted
|
| Why though? Could it be taxes? I have a friend working in a
| company that produces all kind of daily use products
| exclusively to be sold in US supermarkets. From the samples
| she brings, some of the stuff is superb to anything sold on
| local markets. It's cheaper too, however they can't sell it
| locally because their company is structured in a Free Trade
| Zone, which means they are exempt from various taxes but they
| lose access to the local markets.
|
| It's not like there are not enough Turks who can afford
| Walmart hand sanitisers, it's simply that the producing
| company doesn't find it viable to restructure for the
| internal market as the price on the local markets won't be
| the same. They use imported chemicals, so items for local
| consumption will cost significantly more to produce and at
| that price point and with no strong brand they will not be
| able to sell.
| cambalache wrote:
| > China is not the US, most people in China are very poor.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddawkins/2019/10/21/china-o.
| ..
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-overtake-u-world-
| larges...
|
| I dont know what China you are talking about.
|
| China sheer size is enough to beat already the US in absolute
| numbers. The per capita numbers is way below but that gap
| will keep shrinking.
| Covzire wrote:
| China already enjoys a massively lopsided business advantage
| compared to the US. It's an uphill battle for non-chinese
| companies to operate in China, for one China requires that part
| of the ownership of the chinese venture must be owned by
| Chinese nationals, which means that the CCP also gets to sit on
| the board and see and influence everything they do. I can't
| think of any other major power that is this xenophobic.
| contingencies wrote:
| Foreigner running a (second) wholly owned venture in China
| here. While there are difficulties, the parent comment is
| certainly and completely wrong when it comes to ownership. I
| do not think China's approach to foreign economic immigration
| is particularly "xenophobic", and the regular people are
| exceptionally warm and welcoming. It's all the _other_ issues
| once you get here that do you in!
| SEJeff wrote:
| They did not require that for Tesla. The Shanghai is 100%
| American Tesla owned with no joint venture.
| refulgentis wrote:
| Yes, the way the CCP does enforcement there is the Hong
| Kong model: there's an entity 100% owned by Tesla called
| Tesla Shanghai that has a 50 year lease on a state owned
| factory, Tesla invests $700 mil, state invests $2 bill,
| when loans are paid off, Tesla can begin transferring
| revenue stateside
| blueblisters wrote:
| Wait so the gigafactory plant and machinery is
| technically owned by the Chinese? Or is it just the
| factory land?
| derivagral wrote:
| From this and prior reading I'd expect: they (TSLA) own
| the factory and things in it, but the land it sits on is
| leased from the state, perhaps in some proportion to the
| funds invested. I don't live there, just been a couple
| times.
|
| https://www.loc.gov/law/help/real-property-law/china.php
| SEJeff wrote:
| That's not a terrible model
| stereolambda wrote:
| I'm always thinking of companies who were making deals in
| Soviets almost a hundred years ago[1]. Obviously the
| capitalist leanings in the USSR were weaker after the 1920s
| and there are many differences, but I am not fully convinced
| it will look that different from a long term (many decades')
| perspective.
|
| I suppose these companies turned out okay? The fate of locals
| notwithstanding. /s
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrialization_in_the_So
| vie...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| My totally armchair geopolitical opinion is that they know US
| companies can simply go elsewhere. Nobody manufactures in China
| for their "expertise".
| threeseed wrote:
| Actually everyone does.
|
| China is not just a source of cheap labour. But a source of
| cheap labour highly skilled in manufacturing which other
| countries all but abandoned over the previous decades.
| unishark wrote:
| No they aren't very cheap anymore. You always can get the
| same manufacturing done elsewhere. It just may not all be
| available in the same country.
| thefounder wrote:
| >> Why doesn't China answer back with similar sanctions?
|
| Because it can't, yet.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| Sure not directly maybe. But they could go after Boeing or
| Nike or Starbucks.
|
| But my sense is that the ccp likes their "Sputnik moment".
| babesh wrote:
| Go look at how plane orders from China are shifting to
| Airbus.
| dragonelite wrote:
| There are other ways to hit the US in their wallet, like
| allocating new sales to their EU rival. Let them fight
| each other. Its a more elegant way of putting diplomacy
| and economic heft at work.
|
| Also COMAC should deliver their first model to
| (domestic?)customers this year. Then you also have a
| joint venture with a Russian plane company.
| refenestrator wrote:
| Own goal. We lost the chip lead because of outsourcing national-
| security-critical fab capabilities, and now we're telling China
| "don't make the same mistake we did -- develop your own
| capability".
| dtwest wrote:
| China already knows this, and has known this for a long time,
| they didn't need recent US actions to remind them.
|
| But I agree with your sentiment on the first point, what a huge
| strategic mistake.
| bllguo wrote:
| china is not a hive mind, it does not exert the kind of iron
| grip over their private sector that westerners think.
| external stimuli like these could potentially have the effect
| of aligning the government's interests and the private
| sector's interests more closely
| systemvoltage wrote:
| It kind of is a hive mind. Authoritarian governments can
| make swift, impactful decisions without much backlash or
| debate.
| dtwest wrote:
| Creating semiconductor fabs takes billions of dollars in
| investment and can only be achieved by a few very large
| companies, most likely with government support and
| coordination in any country that builds them. While it is
| true that China has a private sector with its own set of
| interests, the Chinese government is already working very
| closely with relevant parties in this particular
| circumstance.
| bllguo wrote:
| that's a good point, though i still think there's
| something to be said for the motivational effects of both
| parties now being pushed to do or die
| TheAdamAndChe wrote:
| Why do semiconductor fabs cost so much? Billions of
| dollars seems kind of overkill.
| analognoise wrote:
| The 5nm TSMC Arizona fab is projected to cost $12B
| between 2021 and 2029.
|
| https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/tsmc-confirms-5nm-fab-
| us
| dragonelite wrote:
| Its pretty much the cutting edge of engineering I'm told.
| TSMC is planning to invest like 20 billion this year
| alone to stay ahead of their mainland, south Korean and
| potential US rivals.
|
| Still I wouldn't be surprised that TSMC will be gutted by
| the US and get their tech stolen just to prop up failing
| Intel. That pretty much what super powers do, US has
| planned this really well making sure key component are
| all made in the US. Like the needed materials and the
| light source ASML uses for their EUV device.
| pkaye wrote:
| Didn't FinFET technology come through DARPA funding? Did
| TSMC steal that?
|
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/devices/how-the-
| fat...
| dh5 wrote:
| What's the alternative, to keep providing them with the
| knowledge and material?
| Leary wrote:
| The Biden administration shows that America First continues
| beyond the Trump Age. Long-arm jurisdiction along with a broad
| definition of National Security means that anyone anywhere in the
| world can be sanctioned.
| seneca wrote:
| Why would America First not continue with any American
| president? Any nations' leader not acting first and foremost in
| the interest of their own country ought to be removed from
| office.
| knowaveragejoe wrote:
| An obvious answer here is that "America First", as with any
| isolationist and protectionist policy, is explicitly bad
| economic policy in our globalized world.
| gh-throw wrote:
| Isolationism's probably not a great idea, sure, and there
| might be room to argue that protectionism is typically bad
| policy for the US, but the argument that protectionism is
| bad for all states in the modern economy, or that it's bad
| for every trade relationship the US maintains, is much
| harder to support.
| analognoise wrote:
| "Globalized world" is bullshit - quarterly profit driven
| mentality has reduced our manufacturing sector to the point
| where it's a security concern.
|
| Also, the globalized world (re China) was, at one point,
| looking like they'd liberalize and join the rest of the
| world - we would all rather trade goods than bullets. That
| has proven to be a mistake, and we're correcting it by
| investing in manufacturing and infrastructure here.
|
| "But the global economy" - nope. It turns out it matters
| where the factories are located, and we're trying to right
| the ship - finally!
| ENOTTY wrote:
| Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post wrote two in-depth
| articles on this topic over the past couple days:
|
| * https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/china-hyper...
|
| * https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/biden-admin...
|
| The TL;DR is that one of the sanctioned companies, Phytium,
| designs chips used in a Chinese supercomputer that the PLA's
| researchers use to simulate hypersonic weapons. The chips are
| designed using tools from Cadence and Synopsys (both American
| companies) and fabricated at TSMC.
| llboston wrote:
| The sad thing is, there is >0% chance that CCP will invade
| Taiwan one day using the weapon that TSMC help them build.
| zionic wrote:
| But they will pay for said weapon via the net economic
| extraction some boomer provided paying $300 instead of $400
| for his lawn mower
| aparsons wrote:
| Why boomer? Are millennials or any other generation looking
| forward to paying more to avoid Chinese-made products?
| [deleted]
| TheMagicHorsey wrote:
| I'm sympathetic to the view that China is a long term threat to
| Democracy. Their leadership is authoritarian and most people
| underestimate the monopoly that the CPC has over China's economy.
| China's leader is not quite, but very close to an absolute
| despot. He does not at this time have any credible opposition or
| balancing centers of power.
|
| The only thing constraining Xi Xinping from going the route of
| Putin or Kim is his own self control. That's not a long term
| stable situation.
|
| Having said all that, half-measures to contain China are
| pointless. We either should have free trade with China, or almost
| no trade with China. Our tech controls are highly porous. There
| is constant interchange in expertise and high tech goods. China
| is only about 5 to 10 years behind the West on any given
| technology that is commercially available. The only stuff they
| lag further behind on is stuff that is completely classified. And
| that stuff is a very small list of things.
|
| Arguably, China is already exceeding America's capabilities in
| many next generation military technologies like drones and
| cyberwarfare.
|
| The West has to make a decision ... either we go the free trade
| route and hope domestic competition takes down Xi Xinping ... or
| we withdraw completely from China and disengage as much as
| possible ... cold war style.
| dzonga wrote:
| Xi's point is - democracy isn't necessary for success.
| XiJinPing's thought is literally based on the idea that the
| future is a huge idealogical battle between socialism
| (socialism with chinese characteristics) and capitalism
| (corporatism). personal freedoms be damned till china gains
| it's previous position in the world. he doesn't want China to
| end up like the soviet union. once you read his manifesto
| you'll see the chinese singular goal.
|
| by the time, the west decides to disengage with china. china
| would be self sufficient and be able to engage with other
| countries.
| 0xFFC wrote:
| Very interesting comment. Can you elaborate a little bit more
| about Xi's ideas? And when would decoupling achieved? By that
| China is self sufficient?
| mc32 wrote:
| Hmmm and a reversal of roles vis a vis Russia and China. For it
| to work the EU, US, India and the RF would have to form a block
| to counteract China like Nixon and successors did with China
| and the precursor to the EU to counteract the then USSR.
| bumbada wrote:
| >The only thing constraining Xi Xinping from going the route of
| Putin or Kim is his own self control.
|
| I believe you have been brainwashed by American Media if you
| believe Putin is on par with Kim Jong-il.
|
| There is hysteria in US media because Putin defends the
| interest of his own country against the interest of others like
| the US.
|
| It seems pretty unreasonable for me to expect Putin to abandon
| Sevastopol and access to the black Sea,or the Mediterranean in
| Syria, but that is exactly what US media wanted from Putin.
|
| They wanted a Russian leader to follow US' interest. If the
| Russian president were to do that, he would be loved in the US,
| and hated inside Russia, while the opposite happens.
|
| BTW, China is a very complex thing, it is almost a continent in
| size, lots of people and it is rotten inside in many levels.
| The population is old and the system extremely corrupt in
| levels you can not understand in the West.
|
| >China is only about 5 to 10 years behind the West on any given
| technology that is commercially available.
|
| I don't think so.
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