
Strange game
The only wining move is not to play
China's main semiconductor trade organization has released a statement opposing the alliance between Japan, the Netherlands, and the US to restrict chip exports to the country. "CSIA opposes the act of interfering in global trade liberalization, distorting the balance of supply and demand," said the China Semiconductor …
The problem here is that the main instigator does so with a massive dose of self interest. I'm not a fan of China, but I also dislike dishonest conduct and the US is rather transparently engaging in falsifying competition.
The real reason behind the efforts to impose restrictions on China are simply because the US presently cannot compete. This became very clear during the whole Huawei affair where the company was blackballed mainly because it was years ahead in 5G tech (which also disproved the meme at the time that they stole the IP - from whom, as everyone was behind), and to date it remains the only company whose firmware was formally screened and found to be free of backdoors - evidence rather lacking for all other gear. "Trust us" - not ever, thank you.
I am thus disappointed that especially the Netherlands have sacrificed their neutrality to help damage global competitiveness because it disincentivises companies to innovate - other than in political games..
They way I heard it described was as violent white folk rallying to keep the black folk out of their neighbourhood and letting their mates across the river know they must support them if they know what is good for them.
Todays enemy is of course yellow not black and in addition to the red one they previously rallied against.
My immediate thought is how much more attractive an invasion of Taiwan now seems for the Chinese government.
"If we don't have the industry here, we'll invade there - either we get to take over the industry (we win) or it gets destroyed (less capacity, so suddenly they need us - and we also win)"
I suspect other factors will come into play, but I don't find it reassuring personally.
Note that the Dutch and Japanese companies mentioned don't make chips. They make the tools required to make chips, and maintain a constant presence in the fabs to keep them running. If China invades, those tools will no longer be available and all China will have is some useless factories.
"CSIA opposes the act of interfering in global trade liberalization, distorting the balance of supply and demand," said the China Semiconductor Industry Association.
Well, they should blame Winnie the Pooh. Russia has been using trade liberalization to bolster and modernise its army, so they could attack Ukraine.
We can see the same being done by China, manoeuvring around Taiwan and threatening their independence.
China also expressed approval towards Russian Nazism and you could see many Chinese officials would love to have done the same in Taiwan.
That being said, I think there should be no chips for China for foreseeable future. They should clear up their conmunist party from bloodthirsty imperialists first and then we'll see.
Ideally they should disband conmunist party altogether.
If China feels that Western semiconductor restrictions are causing serious harm to the world economy, there is an obvious alternative open to them to resolve this. The United States is putting restrictions on the sale of Western technology to China because this technology could be, and has been, used by China for mililtary purposes.
So all China has to do is abolish its military, and then there would be no reason for sanctions. This would eliminate a lot of the friction between the United States and China, particularly after regime change.