US wants ASML to stop servicing China-owned chip equipment ASML is again at the center of chip wars controversy with reports that Washington wants the Dutch government to stop the company servicing and repairing chipmaking equipment it has sold to customers in China. According to Bloomberg, the move is part of a broader push by the Biden administration to tighten up export …
Not going far enough yet.
China has expressed intent to attempt to annex Taiwan by force. The US cannot let that happen, because Taiwan produces most of the world's best chips. The alternative to sanctions working is war.
The EU needs to get on board with keeping China from trying that.
China is the biggest threat to the world today. I wish that weren't the case, but Xi has put the world in a very dangerous position.
(Icon for what happens if sanctions fail.)
Here is the problem. The US Govt officially recognises the 'One China' policy which means officially the US says Taiwan is part of China. VERY few countries actually officially recognise Taiwan as a country in its own right.
However the US has made noises about protecting Taiwan from invasion, which irks China and the US politicians who are shagging CCP spies.
It is all a bit of a geo-political shitshow.
Neither side can afford to back down and that's what makes this situation so dangerous.
If the U.S. were to back down China would proclaim to have defeated the U.S. and claim world hegemony. This would undermine the U.S. influence in both Asia in Europe since its promises for nuclear protection will be cast in doubt.
Ergo: the U.S. can never allow this scenario to occur. China *must* back down or a nuclear war will be inevitable.
face-it : China will not back down from Taiwan anymore than Russia didn't back down from Ukraine. Actually, Ukraine is a demonstration to the Taiwanese of what awaits them if they don't go voluntarily with China : "see, do you think the USA will be better able to protect you from us than they were able to protect Ukraine from Russia ? We might have a hard time invading you but your country will be destroyed "
Or we can accept the 1/2 century old international policy of recognizing that Taiwan is part of China and let them sort it out. You (*) already buy your iPhone made-in-PRC, why would you be worried that the CPU also comes from PRC ?
(*) my phone comes from Korea
Someone failed calculus in high school.
Slowing or retracting growth (read: a decreasing or negative second derivative) does not mean the function has reached its maximum. A linear function has a second derivative of zero everywhere yet is always increasing.
The US GDP function's derivative reached its maximum in 1942 and has declined ever since, yet the US economy is still constantly growing. There is nothing different about China going from absurd levels of annual growth to normal levels of annual growth.
Slowing or retracting growth (read: a decreasing or negative second derivative) does not mean the function has reached its maximum. A linear function has a second derivative of zero everywhere yet is always increasing.
That pedantic calculus part does not refer to anything in my post. I talked about deflation and population crash. Not GDP growth. Who are you responding to?
Ukraine does not have TSMC. That may push US to step in, regardless who / which party is in power in the US.
Unless US wants TSMC to die / get captured by China. Even if the TSMC infrastructure is destroyed, China will suddenly have 1000s of experienced fab engineers who can "assist" in getting China's own fabs to a better level.
The US sucks at occupations. The US is very, very, very good at winning the shooting war part.
Iraq was defeated in less than 3 months. The battles were incredibly lopsided, 139 American deaths, over 30,000 Iraqi deaths. Iraq was considered to have a reasonably capable army before the war, over a million troops. The US sent less than half that many.
At that loss ratio, not even China can sustain combat for very long. And Chinese equipment is mostly based on the same crappy Russian designs that done got blowed up good in Iraq.
Something to keep in mind :
Pass few wars that US has been in, they have been mostly attacking. So most / some of the local population saw Americans as aggressors.
If US actually steps in to defend Taiwan, I think most, if not all of the local population will be happy with US helping with the defence, and be supportive of whatever actions US took in Taiwan.
The only reason Russia hasn't backed down from Ukraine yet is Putin knows that he's unlikely to be able to survive if he does. Ukraine is actually a pretty good demonstration that just sending US weapons is enough to fight Russia to a standstill, grind down their people and equipment (as of yesterday 421,430 Russians dead, 6,695 Russian tanks destroyed or captured, 26 ships and a submarine destroyed by a country that doesn't even have a navy), and eventually retake the temporarily occupied territory.
Xi gets to keep living as long as he does not attempt to invade Taiwan. And he can't actually invade, Taiwan is an island so Xi can't march troops in and there aren't enough landing ships, the US won't just send weapons, Japan can't afford to let it happen any more than the US or Europe can, and they're rearming. China doesn't have the capability to get past one US carrier battle group, the US has 11 with 3 more under construction.
And Taiwan is a democracy. They've made it very clear that they do not want to be governed by the fascist mainland government.
China will keep blustering. There won't be an invasion.
I'm inclined to agree. Russia desperately needs Sevastapol; it's the only port from which Russia can possibly project significant naval power to the Mediterranean, Africa, southern Asia, etc. And that means Russia desperately needs Crimea, and desperately needs a way to keep Crimea supplied. That's the entire reason for this war. And now the war has aggravated that by pushing Sweden and particularly Finland into NATO, because Finland is a huge threat to Russia's Arctic naval presence, and Finland + Sweden to its Baltic naval routes. Putin painted himself into a corner.
I am concerned that Russia will win its war of attrition only because it has to, or accept that it's become a second-rate power with severely reduced access to much of the globe. Another leader might swallow that, but I can't see Putin doing it. He's severely and eternally wounded over being abandoned (as he sees it) by his country when the USSR collapsed while he was a KGB officer in Dresden. He's too obsessed with his own imagined greatness and superiority to previous Russian and Soviet leaders that he can't concede. And Russian national mythology glorifies massive domestic casualties, from their experiences in the Napoleonic Wars and WWII. (What the actual Russian people think may be a different story, but it takes a lot to overthrow an autocrat in a very large and sparsely-populated country with a modern military.)
For China, on the other hand, Taiwan is a political token. Sure, the CCP would love to have control over it, but its independence isn't an existential threat. China knows it can wait and see if the situation moves in its favor, too. They're good at waiting for other nations to lose interest. They did that with Tibet, with Falun Gong, with Hong Kong... It's a strategy that's paid off for them. Right now things are going moderately well for Xi. Presumably he acknowledges the economic and population obstacles looming on the horizon, but figures he can continue to do pretty well for himself as long as he provides enough bread and circus. Agitating over Taiwan (without doing anything irrevocable) is part of the circus.
At any rate, that's my impression, from reviewing more learned opinions.
Russia didn't "desperately need" anything. If they hadn't antagonised all their neighbours, they could have rented those ports in exchange for a bit of natural gas. Oh - and they were a second rate power in the 80s: now they're an international joke.
The only thing that China should learn is: be nice to Taiwan and they'll be nice back. I suspect they're too arrogant for that, though...
Yes but if Ukraine joined NATO or the EU (or even started the process) then they would likely be pressured into kicking Russia out of the Crimean ports at some stage due to some sanction or other, which would have placed Russia in the same position except now Ukraine was now unassailable as it had too many new allies.
It was really "now or never" for the invasion (plus or minus a few years) and with the fallout and economic problems of COVID Putin probably thought this was his best chance, which was backed up by all his yes-men around him in power (because that's what yes-men do) who had been actively lying to him the whole time about how the Ukrainians were waiting to welcome the Russians with "bunches of flowers" and that they wouldn't resist at all etc.
China would never destroy Taiwan the way Russia is destroying Ukraine. China views Taiwanese as brothers who have lost their way. Russia (at least the Kremlin and those who go along with things out of fear) views Ukrainians as subhuman.
But China's LEADERSHIP feels that way, not just the people, so they don't want to destroy Taiwan and kill a bunch of people. They aren't looking for Lebensraum, they don't want bombed out land and a bunch of bodies. Putin on the other hand is fine with that, so long as the bombed out land is occupied by Russians and he has Black Sea ports.
> The Chinese want the skills & the equipment so they can hold the world to ransom whilst making loads of money out of it.
And the US wanted the cheap labour and less regulated environment policy to produce high tech whilst making loads of money out of it. Of course China may ONLY produce the products, not watch, learn and then getting better at it. The last part is the actual reason why that 24/7 anti-china propaganda is running in US television. Only brain washed people are easy to control with classical instigator tactics. I am German, ask how I know and how it ends.
Oh, and you just woke up a month old thread, so I fell for your instigator tactics as well **sigh**.
The US recognizes the 'One China' nonsense because that's what Taiwan still wants for now. The minute Taiwan declares independence the vast majority of the world will recognize them.
Unfortunately, the best time for Taiwan to declare independence was about a decade ago. China still cannot take Taiwan by force, but they can make a huge mess now, a decade ago they didn't have the capability to do that.
Blame Nixon for the current situation. If he hadn't flipped US recognition of which China the 'One' was, China wouldn't have had the ability to control the world's factories, and wouldn't be anywhere close to being capable of invading anybody but Russia.
The trick is, there is no formal defination of what "One China" means - Taiwan controls the whole of Greater China, or China (CCP) does.
That ambiguity allows most countries to agree to that policy. But I understand China is trying to push it's preferred meaning.
Problem is, Taiwan ISN'T a country in it's own right. The Taiwanese government still claims to be the only legitimate government for the entirety of China, including Taiwan. Which means that recognizing Taiwan and it's government by extension means saying that the communist rulers of China are illegitimate.
Taiwan would do well at some point to say: "Screw this, we release our claim on the mainland and this island is where we live now" as it would make international relations far less complicated but that's unlikely to happen.
The problem is that Xi has vowed to reunite Taiwan with the mainland during his tenure. That's a dangerous promise to make since it makes backing off very difficult without losing face.
A war is almost inevitable unless the Chinese people replace their leader with someone who doesn't uphold this vow.
> China has expressed intent to attempt to annex Taiwan by force.
Oh, you mean the current version of the Cuba crisis where a foreign power is using a little island right in front of your own house. Only this time it is not the Russians using Cuba, it is USA using Taiwan, so a bit reversed. Of course China has to act on such a provocation, just like USA did 60 years ago, didn't it? China wouldn't be so pushy if the US wouldn't be so. It is the old finger-pointing game. On both sides. Again.
Zhou, USA never said they would make Cuba another state. Your comparison is flawed.
You're using a similar argument as Putin who claims he cannot have NATO countries at its borders and now has two more of them.
Care to explain why China has so many enemies around it? Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan, Korea? Too much bullying maybe... Even Russia is worried about Xi's ambitions.
ASML doesn't necessarily have to sell less machines with these sanctions, only to different customers.
We need to be on the lookout for the Chinese trying to work around these sanctions. I've heard rumors the Chinese are setting up shell companies in Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines and producing chips and exporting them back to the mainland.
Every company that receives these machines must prove beyond a doubt that they're not directly or indirectly controlled by the Chinese!
We need to be on the lookout for the Chinese trying to work around these sanctions
that's actually easy: buy ALL machines that AMSL is able to produce and set up semiconductor fabs ourselves. Here. Why don't we do that instead of preventing other people from manufacturing stuff that we manufactured before ? I'm really fed-up with such lazy pussycats
Because no-one is willing to work the very very very very long hours for low wages that the Chinese and Taiwanese are, nor are most of the requirements for water, power and space available "over here". And there's no-one willing to spend the hundreds of billions to build new fabs here and support them with a guaranteed long term support plan in place either.
Most EU and US "support" for new fabs amount to peanuts and hollow hand waving. When it comes to planning something that'll cost a company tens of billions to build and billions a year to run they want very solid and hard commitments that will allow them to be certain that fab will remain economic and workers will remain available.
The fabs being proposed in the US are mired in politics and squabbling.
Micron's proposed fab is to be built on wetlands and the locals are moaning (maybe legitimately so)
https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/04/micron_fab_environmental_scrutiny/
Another fab is planned for somewhere with almost zero spare water.
I agree with your post but the last line is hilarious. What do you propose: a kill-switch in all chips so that one orange-tinted redneck in an office somewhere can hit the switch at will?
Whatever happened to "free market"? Is the US so certain of it's pending demise that it will attempt to strong-arm any and all parties to conform to their way or no way? So is the world to accept NASDAQ to rule from now on? Name one country China has invaded in the last century, then list all the countries the US has invaded.
I'd propose if the US wants to stop anyone selling anything to China, the US to buy it themselves. Pat could use a coupe of EUV's right? KLM Cargo ships anywhere...
I'm not entirely sure the US is in a position to even be able to force ASML to do anything in this regard. The EUV systems they blocked previously hold "Technology of US origin" and can thus be export controlled.
The slightly less advanced DUV systems they're selling now, afaik, hold no such tech, and thus no such restrictions on export are possible from the US. The only way they'd manage this is if they strong-arm the Dutch government into withholding export licenses that should be granted based on the laws and regulations as they are (and which would require government agreement to change)
I feel the rule for international politics is" whatever works" or "how much can I get away with?". I really genuinely don't think many of the things that happen internationally have much of a legal basis.
As a lot of the components and designers for ASML machines, and the components for EUV machines especially, are controlled by the US government or manufactured in the US I'm guessing that is how they plan to exert some level of control.
As an example for the powerlessnes of international law we could look at China's claim on the sea area around China. Legal no, but backed by their military it's a kind of a reality?
“The Biden administration is pressing allied nations .. to impose additional measures to prevent Beijing from advancing its chipmaking efforts”
A short sighted effort at economic sabotage by the US chip industry. That will only inspire China to make and sell their own chips.
True, just as China cutting tech-related mineral exports to the US will encourage the US to diig their own. Maybe it's better if all of these complex trade relationships are about opportunities rather than needs.
Side note about Taiwan - don't forget that people live there. The people should be more important than politics.
https://archive.navalsubleague.org/2012/a-century-of-american-submarine-propeller-design
The design was held in great secrecy by the Navy, but Toshiba sold propeller milling machinery with accompanying computer programming to Kongsberg Ltd. of Norway which in turn sold it to the Soviets. That government used the computer data to rapidly begin a program to imitate research of the US Navy.
Trying to strong arm ASML (via the Dutch government) into walking back on signed maintenance contracts would possibly lead China to use its anti-sanctions legislation which would put ASML and the Dutch government into a very, very delicate situation.
I think they have never used it before.
The EU has similar legislation but only used it once (against US sanctions no less).
Sanctions (imposed unilaterally and without consultation) were always an executive overreach and bound to fail from the get go.
It is just a question of time before they rebound on US semi-conductor interests with a vengeance.
The financial consequences were also there from day one through lost revenues and new Chinese competitors being spawned across the semiconductor board.
Trump's sole consideration was 'not on my watch', so it will be hugely ironic if he wins another term during which Huawei progresses beyond the impact of his very own original sanctions and makes advances on technology while avoiding US technology interests completely in the process.
Nothing new is happening here with regards to chip fabrication developments . Huawei began investing in chip self sufficiency in 2019 through its Hubble investment arm, investing in over 40 strategic chip making/design companies. It has expanded on those efforts ever since and now the Chinese government has upped its game (which already had grand goals).
It also saw the start of a 'de-Americanisation' program, which by last year, had seen them re-design over 14,000 components and boards. It is very likely that many non-US interests are also on a mission to do the same to free themselves of the shackles of unilaterally imposed sanctions after the fact. Just like these rumoured efforts being applied to ASML.
Huawei completed its gigantic MetaERP initiative too.
R&D hasn't suffered (the opposite is true) and in ICT they remain stronger than Nokia and Ericsson - combined. They successfully diverged into the automotive sector and their cloud and storage intentions are clear - and growing. The Digital Silk Road will surely provide them with almost unlimited access to developing markets and the Global South already represents 80% of the world's population. BRICS+ will be an issue for the G7.
They are cooking up a huge ration of Humble Pie for the US to gorge on.
By then though, the Hawks will be long gone or incapable of remembering why they did what they did. Their names (Trump, Pence, Barr, Biden, Yellen, Cotton, Pompeo etc...) will be remembered though, for a short-sightedness that will be the fodder of think-tanks long into the future.
And then there is HarmonyOS and EulerOS too.
It was madness when it all started and it is madness today. The only difference is that China is five years closer to reaching its goals.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
