China’s Nuclear War: Implications for the Security and Industrial Strategy of the U.S. and Other Technicolor Efforts
The Chinese government has been using some of the world’s fastest computers to target ethnic minorities. Beijing has used others to design and model nuclear bombs and next-generation weapons that would evade American defenses.
For instance, in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, where hundreds of thousands of minority Uyghurs have been interned and surveilled, a supercomputer built with chips made by Intel and Nvidia has been used to process footage collected from ubiquitous video cameras in the area. Both Intel and Nvidia have stated that they were unaware of misuse of their technology.
The U.S. government has sought to curb the flow of technology to projects like these in recent years, but those efforts have been frustrated by the wide availability of powerful microchips.
The export controls are part of an effort by the Biden administration to starve China of important technologies that are vital to U.S chip-making factories. The measures come as Beijing ramps up its aggression toward Taiwan, which produces almost all of the world’s advanced semiconductors.
Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said last month at the White House that the United States government had previously tried to stay ahead of competitors in certain technologies, but that approach wasn’t tough enough.
President Biden is going to an IBM plant in New York on Thursday to tout the company’s plans to invest $20 billion in research and development.
Following the news that Micron will spend $100 billion on a new computer chip plant in New York, there is another big tech manufacturing announcement this week.
The White House says that the announcement is part of a manufacturing boom caused by the CHIPS and Science Act, which Vice President Biden signed into law in August.
Biden has $52.5 billion for semiconductors today works starts to spend that windfall: How will we get that money out of the door?
While Biden is traveling to New York, a high-powered group will gather at the White House for its first meeting on how best to get that money out the door.
“We need a whole-of-government approach, and we need to get everyone on the same page to figure out how we’re going to deploy that $52.5 billion,” said Ronnie Chatterji, who is coordinating the implementation of the CHIPS act.
The White House says that the U.S. produces only about 10% to 12% of the world’s supply of semiconductors, and none of the advanced chips, whereas East Asia accounts for 75% of global production.
The White House wants to change that. The industry was invented in the United States. I mean, there’s a reason it’s called Silicon Valley,” said Chatterji, who was chief economist at the Commerce Department, and was part of former President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Chatterji’s team holds its first meeting with top White House officials and cabinet members on Thursday, including representatives from the Commerce, Defense and State departments. Chatterji said the goal is for everyone to understand our objectives and metrics.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/06/1126947495/biden-has-52-billion-for-semiconductors-today-work-begins-to-spend-that-windfall
Implications of the Inflationary Crisis for Semiconductor Production in the United States, and what it’s taught about the industrial sector
“That was one of the biggest drivers of inflation,” Chatterji said. One-third of the inflation increase in the year of 2020 was due to cars. We couldn’t get the chips we needed to build the cars. And when you can’t get the chips you need to build the cars, workers get furloughed and prices go up.”
Concerns about China’s economic, technological and military ambitions also fueled bipartisan interest to invest in semiconductor manufacturing in America.
But the subsidies represent a significant shift in thinking for Washington. Republicans and some Democrats did not agree with government interference in free markets. And there are concerns about wasteful spending.
“Time and time again with U.S. industrial policy projects, the government has good intentions, but ends up actually backing the wrong horse,” Lincicome said.
Lincicome says too often, the subsidies go to those who spend the most money lobbying — or sometimes projects end up in politically important regions instead of the places where they make the most sense.
There’s no guarantee bringing Semiconductor makers back to the U.S. will prevent shortages, as was the case recently with baby formula, which is made in the U.S.
The pitfalls of industrial policy is something Chatterji is aware of. transparency, goverance, and rigorously measurable outcomes are some of the qualities he said were important.
“We have to keep our eye on the ball of setting a foundation for all of industry to survive, including small- and medium-sized enterprises,” he said. The way we avoid that critique is to pick winners that benefit the most from industrial policy.
China and the Communist Party: A warning on the challenges confronting the P.R.C. and the United States in technology and astrophysics
“The threat environment is always changing, and we are updating our policies today to make sure we’re addressing the challenges posed by the P.R.C. while we continue our outreach and coordination with allies and partners,” he said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
Mr. Fleming also described China’s moves to build “a powerful antisatellite capability, with a doctrine of denying other nations access to space in the event of a conflict.” He said China attempted to change international technology standards to make it easier for individuals to be tracked and that it was trying to suppress dissent among its citizens living abroad.
The commerce ministry felt that the US move was a danger to global supply chain stability and called it a typical practice of trade protectionism. The complaint is the first by China against the US chip sanctions at the global trade body.
The Western allies have seen themselves as competitors to both of the world’s nuclear powers and have often been in conflict with them. Russia is clearly the more manageable of the two.
He warned of the dependence on Chinese companies that are related to the state, or that would have to turn over data on individuals to the Chinese authorities. He said that even the biggest businesses in China can no longer escape the Chinese state because of the way they work and the national security laws.
Mr. Fleming’s warnings about the strategies behind China’s investment in new technologies, and its effort to create “client economies and governments,” sound much like speeches given by his American counterparts for the past five or more years. He talked before the start of the Communist Party congress on Sunday in Beijing, where it is likely that he will be re-elected as leader.
Mr Fleming said that if the United States gets too far behind China in a series of critical technology, they will find themselves no longer in a position to keep their technological edge over Beijing.
He described China’s move to develop central bank digital currencies that could be used to track transactions as a shift that could also “enable China to partially evade the sort of international sanctions currently being applied to Putin’s regime in Russia.” He said that was one example of how China was “learning the lessons” from the war in Ukraine, presumably to apply them if it decided to move against Taiwan and prompted further efforts by the U.S. and its allies to isolate it economically.
It should be put in a better light. The sunny view of globalization that was the mainstay of Western policy has been destroyed by recent events. There is still a lot of bad actors out there despite global integration. Good actors can limit the ability of bad actors to do harm. The Biden administration is aware of some of the lessons.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way. The postwar world trade system has limits on tariffs and is seen as promoting peace. The secretary of state, Cordell Hull, was the father of the system. The European Union grew out of the 1951 Coal and Steel Community, established with the explicit goal of making war impossible by binding European industry together.
Foreign Policy, China’s Future, and the Progress of the Technological Progress in the 2049-Billion-Year Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation
For the past five years, Sun said Xi had largely focused on securing his third term, and part of that meant convincing his party to remove the term limit and break with tradition. His political agenda is likely to change from domestic to global.
“He’s able to focus even more on implementing his foreign strategy and operationalizing his vision of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Sun said. ” That inevitably will lead to more, I would assume, contest for influence and a contest for leadership with the United States.”
Sun is certain that “political loyalists of Xi” will be appointed to key positions in national security and foreign policy to help implement his vision.
Sun believes that China will have no system of checks and balances if there are people within the government who do not believe in China’s policies towards the U.S.
“With China, whether it’s on Taiwan or interdependence in technology or our views of the international order — those have all been there. Kennedy says that what divides us has been going on for a while. The lack of travel and lack of direct communication makes it almost impossible to solve those problems.
China’s strategy toward Taiwan has not fundamentally changed, Li said, but “there’s a perception that Beijing is more and more focused on no longer just deterring independence … but rather, compelling reunification.”
Li said that the perception has led to a situation of a catch-22, with the U.S. and China having different interpretations of what is happening in the Middle East.
“You get this tit-for-tat retaliation where there’s not a lot of trust … and sort of a back and forth where the U.S. views its actions as responsive to China’s actions, [and] China views its actions as a response to the U.S.’s actions,” Li said.
Meanwhile, the tech industry has become a larger priority for China, especially as the country moves toward the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by the centennial of the People’s Republic of China in 2049, in which Xi aims to make China a modern socialist country.
It is likely that this sort of competition between technological capabilities between supply chains will accelerate, as a result of the response from Washington and China.
That’s led to what Li said is essentially an impasse. Achieving it will be a test for both countries in the years to come.
The First Superpower Summit of the Second Cold War: Biden and the China-Pugoda-China Conciliatory Dialogue
SHANGHAI — The rare face-to-face meeting between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies will take place during what some are calling “the first superpower summit of the second Cold War”.
The last time an American President shook hands with a Chinese President was more than three years ago. Donald Trump was in the White House, the COVID-19 pandemic was months away and relations between Beijing and Washington, while experiencing friction over trade, were on much firmer ground.
Today, trust is running low, the rhetoric is increasingly antagonistic and disputes continue to fester in areas including trade, technology, security and ideology.
“There’s not going to be a joint statement of any sort here. A senior U.S. administration official told reporters this week that the meeting was not driven by deliverables. The president believes it is important to ensure the rules of the road are in accordance with the competition.
Since Biden took office, the two leaders have talked on the phone, but have been unable to reverse the downward slide in ties between the world’s largest economies.
“I don’t think one meeting is going to rescue or really even redefine the relationship,” says Evan Medeiros, a professor at Georgetown University and former White House China advisor. “If they’re lucky, if it goes well, maybe they can bend the trajectory a little bit.”
Biden said his goal for the meeting is to get a deeper understanding of the concerns and priorities of China’s leader, as well as lay out what each of the red lines are.
Those who play with fire will die. It is hoped that the U.S. will be clear-eyed about this,” Xi warned Biden over the summer, when the two leaders met virtually.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/12/1135287047/biden-xi-jinping-g20-meeting
The United States’ Response to Nancy Pelosi’s Visit to Taiwan, and an Expert on China’s Security Concerns after the Communist Party’s Reunification
And in October, the Communist Party chief again reiterated that China’s preference would be for “peaceful reunification” but repeated that the use of force remains an option.
Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan caused a lot of angst. Beijing responded with sanctions and large-scale military exercises around the island.
Biden will likely seek to reassure Xi that Washington’s long-standing policy regarding Taiwan has not changed, and that the United States does not support Taiwan independence. Analysts say Xi is likely to remain skeptical — particularly with the Republican Party projected to take control of at least the House of Representatives following the midterm elections.
“I think the Biden administration will be less flexible or maneuverable” on China, says Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University.
If he becomes majority leader, Kevin McCarthy wants to visit Taiwan. An expert from China warns that a move like this could be disastrous.
When Pelosi left, the Chinese lost face. A Chinese expert on international affairs who is not authorized by his university to speak to the media says they could take action next time.
Countering threats posed by China have been the focus of Biden’s foreign policy. The administration imposed export controls on the sale of cutting-edge microchips to China in October, in an effort to stop the sale to the country of equipment that makes them.
Chris Miller was the author of a book called Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology. “There’s really a lot of similarities, to be honest.”
Dialogue and cooperation in China after the 2011 Ubud meeting: a risk for the U.S. and the Chinese, and a warning from the Ubud summit
Experts think the Ubud meeting could make a commitment to opening more channels of communication if Biden and Xi can muster the political will.
In the wake of the Pelosi visit, Beijing cut three channels of dialogue and suspended cooperation in five other areas, including climate change. That came on top of already sharply curtailed contact between China and the United States.
Scott Kennedy is an expert in China at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Kennedy visited China this fall and claims he is “the only think tanker from Washington that’s been to China since the outbreak of the pandemic.”
There is a window of opportunity “to take a little bit of a gamble,” he believes, now that China’s Party Congress and the U.S. midterm elections are over.
But Zhu warns that nobody should expect too much from this summit. He says that a sincere discussion may help deepen understanding, but that’s not it.
Medeiros, the former U.S. official, says the current moment is dangerous — and in some ways, similar to the 1950s and early 1960s, when mistrust grew between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and they each “tested and probed” each others’ boundaries.
“After the Cuban Missile Crisis, both sides, because of that incredibly searing experience, internalized the belief that strategic restraint, often institutionalized through things like arms control agreements, was in their mutual interests,” he says.
Taiwan’s Technological Mission to China: The Case for a High-Energy Microchip Factory in the U.S.
TSMC is considered a national treasure in Taiwan and supplies tech giants including Apple
(AAPL) and Qualcomm
(QCOM). The most advanced components of the world are produced by mass, and are vital to the smooth running of every device.
Taiwan is not comfortable with the political and commercial pressures being applied to the world’s most important chipmaker to expand internationally. The company is going to build a facility in Japan.
“They’re like the Hope Diamond of semiconductors. G. Dan Hutcheson is a vice chair of Tech Insights, a research organization focused on chips. (The Hope Diamond is the world’s largest blue diamond, which now resides at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington.)
National security concerns are driving TSMC’s expansion, said Chen of CL Securities. But he believes the company will continue to manufacture its most advanced technology at home.
“The idea is that if Taiwan became a powerhouse in semiconductors, then America would have to support and defend it,” said Hutcheson. The strategy was successful.
According to Chiu, the chip giant is under political pressure to move its operations to the US. He cited the transfer of 300 people, including TSMC engineers, to the Arizona plant. There wasn’t a secret deal, nor an attempt to diminish the importance of Taiwan to TSMC.
It is similar to what happened in the 70s and 80s when manufacturing jobs were being moved from the US to other countries. Many local jobs were lost and cities bankrupted,” he said.
“It also suggests that TSMC’s customers are asking for more geographic diversification, which is something that wasn’t previously a key concern of major customers.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/09/tech/taiwan-tsmc-chips-hnk-intl/index.html
The China-US Consortium for Advanced Semiconductor Design: A Report on the First Round of the 2018 G20 G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia
Every electronic device has transistors, a crucial part of it. They are difficult to make because of the high cost of development and the level of knowledge required, meaning much of the production is concentrated among a handful of suppliers.
Chips are a growing source of tension between the United States and China. In recent years, Washington has turned up the pressure on China’s tech sector by limiting access to cutting-edge chip components and machinery.
The company needs the approval of the Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs to move its most advanced technologies abroad, which it is unlikely to give, but he thinks it would make economic sense.
Many experts believe that by the time 3-nanometer chips are being made in Arizona, TSMC’s Taiwan operations would be producing even smaller, more advanced chips.
A team of people do development work very closely together. You don’t want to make a mess of that. It’s not an easy thing to do,” he said.
The country’s commerce ministry filed a formal complaint against the United States with the WTO on Monday, according to a statement. Both countries are members of a trade body which has a mechanism for resolving disputes.
China filing a lawsuit at the WTO is to resolve its concerns through legal means and is necessary in order to defend its legitimate rights and interests, the ministry said.
The Beijing government tried to put a brake on the sanctions. Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with leaders from South Korea and the Netherlands, both key to the global chip-making supply chain, at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. Both countries have to boost cooperation in high-tech manufacturing and avoid the politicization of economic and trade issues.
In November 2018, just months after Washington hit Chinese telecoms giant ZTE Corp with an export ban, the Chinese government set up an industry alliance of companies and research institutes as part of efforts to design advanced chips. The group’s focus is on developing Risc-V, an open-source chip design architecture that has increasingly become a rival to Softbank
(SFTBF)’s Arm, the current global leader. Members of the consortium include the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Alibaba
(BABA), Tencent
(TCEHY), and Baidu
(BIDU).