back to article Where there's a will, there's a way to get US chips into China

US trade restrictions have made it harder for Chinese companies and government agencies to get their hands on advanced semiconductor technologies, but apparently not impossible. Over the past few years we've tracked a number of shady chip busts, some quite bizarre such as smuggling processors in prosthetic baby bumps, or …

  1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Vanity

    Governments have de facto trained an army of specialists in smuggling of prohibited goods.

    If they can get devil's lettuce across the planet faster than legitimate courier of your choice, then they can get them chips too, provided there is good profit to be made.

    Since the destination state wants them, you won't read the news that someone found GPU in their bananas.

    1. rcxb Silver badge

      Re: Vanity

      Illegal smuggling causes a MASSIVE price increase, which is nearly as good. It's not as though a single chip slipping through the blockade will unlock the secrets of the universe... They are needed in huge quantities.

      If it would cost you 10X as much to buy a car as your neighbors, what are the odds you'd still buy one?

  2. Tron Silver badge

    Sanctions - not the best tool in the box.

    Given that Trump is on course to be their next leader, I'd consider the US to be a country of concern. It won't be long before he starts squeezing primary competitors - Europe, Japan, South Korea and Australia - until they squeak. European NATO members are going to have to crack open those piggy banks, and the US will no doubt be exiting the Paris Accord again. It's like watching a team yo-yo between the premiership and the championship.

    quote: the number of advanced semiconductors smuggled into China remains fairly small.

    The ones you are counting are the ones that get caught. Somewhere, someone will be running a secure back channel, buying in bulk, relabelling each processor. US sanctions have made chip smugglers national heroes in the Middle Kingdom and ensured they get funding. As well as making domestic chip production a primary goal.

    Sanctions have a tendency to backfire. The economic hit and shortages from sanctions on Russian energy, timber and other resources will be the icing on the Brexit cake that does for the Tories, as well as seeing several other European regimes slide in the polls. Other consequences are becoming apparent. Russia is flogging cheap energy to all-comers, and in doing so, pulling them away from the Western (often ex-colonial) sphere of influence. Many Global South nations have a tribal component. Democracy was imposed upon them as a political good at independence. But with high levels of corruption many would be happier to run with a Russian or Chinese political system and bag that cheap energy, Chinese tech and Chinese cash. And all that cheap Russian energy, buying friends, will see a net increase in fossil use. Ironically, the West could have destabilised Putin's regime in months for millions. Now it is paying billions for a forever war, and losing Cold War 2, so many resource rich nations being on the other side of the fence. I guess Plan B will be WWIII, so buckle up everyone.

    1. Catkin Silver badge

      Re: Sanctions - not the best tool in the box.

      What do you believe Trump will do that's a new cause for concern, what prevented him from doing it in his first term and why would that preventative mechanism no longer be in effect in a hypothetical second term?

    2. martinusher Silver badge

      Re: Sanctions - not the best tool in the box.

      What we call a democracy in the West is really an oligopoly, we hear it expressed in concepts like "we've got the best democracy money can buy" and "whoever you vote for the government always gets in". It really hangs together only because we've been trained from birth to think of "the others" as some kind of prison camp modeled on 1984. Although this illusion still works for many there's far too much interaction with 'them' for this model to hold true, especially in other parts of the world where media is less cohesive. (I presume you've read the recent Guardian article about the CNN journalists complaining about tight editorial policy over the Gaza war?)

      The forever war thing is the way we make money. Its no secret that Ukraine's lobbying efforts in DC are underwritten by defense contractors.

      As for 'back channels', chips are about the same volume/value as illegal drugs so they're likely to be just as lucrative. We've not done a particularly good job at interdiction of things like fentanyl so I'd guess a shipment of chips.....easy peasy.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sanctions - not the best tool in the box.

        Don't say 'we', you aren't one of us Vlad.

  3. rcxb Silver badge

    Where there's a will, there's a way to get US chips into China - Buy 'em, rent 'em, smuggle 'em

    Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew. Lovely big golden chips with a nice piece of fried fish.

    1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: Where there's a will, there's a way to get US chips into China - Buy 'em, rent 'em, smuggle 'em

      It put the theme to Bread into my head..

      Gotta get chips

      gotta get now

      Cross the world

      by boat & customs flout

      Gotta find them

      get us our share

      Smuggling chips

      round the world by air

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Kennedy blockaded Cuba. Just sayin'

    Just don't do that while still bombing Iran or Iraq or Yemen.

  5. EricB123 Silver badge

    Same, same

    Sounds like the "war on chips" is going about as well as the "war on drugs".

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