Free trade not quite as dead, 'but it's in danger' says Morris Chang:
Globalization is over, at least for the chip industry, and this will mean higher chip prices, according to semiconductor contract manufacturer giant TSMC. Despite this, the company's founder said he supports US actions to slow the development of China's chip technology.
The Taiwanese chip company is caught up in the ongoing semiconductor battle between the superpowers, where the US is trying to prevent China from getting access to cutting edge technology that might be used by its burgeoning military. At least, that is the reason given.
At an event hosted by Taiwan's CommonWealth Magazine in Taipei, retired TSMC founder Morris Chang said that efforts to contain China were leading to a split in the global supply chain that would likely increase prices and could have an effect on chip availability.
"There's no question in my mind that, in the chip sector, globalization is dead. Free trade is not quite that dead, but it's in danger," Chang said.
[...] It has already been noted that US efforts to isolate China are leading to an undoing of the distributed global supply chain infrastructure that has built up over the past few decades.
Richard Gordon, practice vice president for semiconductors and electronics at Gartner, told us earlier this year the outcome may be a world divided into China-centric and US-Europe-centric networks of supply chains and a greater self-reliance within those blocks.
Meanwhile, TSMC is also discussing subsidies with officials for the German state of Saxony about a new fabrication plant the chip giant is aiming to build there, despite publicly stating in December that it had no plans to site any facilities in Europe.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Mojibake Tengu on Sunday March 19, @09:40PM (10 children)
TSMC is heavily dependent on ASML. Why? Strangely, none of their "Taiwanese" technology is Taiwanese. Nor the provided "Dutch" technology is Dutch.
A bit of history:
https://www.eetimes.com/u-s-gives-ok-to-asml-on-euv-effort/ [eetimes.com]
It's a political, not technological situation. Well known as Thukydides trap since ancient times.
The core concept behind unilateral globalism is that the USA will not tolerate any other superpower (like Germany, or Japan, or China, or, ehm, Russia) to advance significantly in chip technologies.
But they can tolerate small, easily controllable vassal countries to obtain and use such technologies, just for workforce outsourcing purpose. But only if it stays under American control.
In the case of ASML, the original target was Japan, then most dangerous opponent to U.S. economy. Up to about 2010, Japan was the 2nd strongest economy in the world.
The trick done with ASML was quite clever: EUV/DUV research was started at DARPA in Reagan era. Though when the technology was finally completed, about before 2000's, the U.S. chip industry already ceased to exist because of
greedhuman workforce outsourcing. Cheap and experienced engineers do not grow on trees or cacti. So, DARPA made the transfer of completed EUV/DUV technology to ASML, as described in the above linked article.But the actual production of chips was not allowed in Europe, that would make Europe too much strong. It had to be established in other vassal states, namely Taiwan and South Korea. Small, dependent countries without own significant resources and with overwhelming U.S. military presence.
It's all clear transparent as divide and conquer strategy.
At that time, Japan was still superior in chip industry, with chip fabrication based mainly on Nikon and Canon technology. In next 10-15 years, with TSMC strategically positioned next to Japan, Japanese fabrication tech providers industry collapsed, destroyed by ASML. Japan was denied to access the new technology.
In Europe, electronics industry was completely demolished in that era. Germany's courtship with AMD was broken. Nokia and Ericsson died, marginalized. Siemens abandoned mainframes industry. In Russia, sovereign Elbrus project dependent on TSMC was corrupted by Jewish bankers and bankrupted.
Why, why the Germany cannot simply install those Dutch machines from ASML in the Dresden original GloFo fab, detached from AMD?
Because it's Verboten!, by Americans. Look what happened to gas pipes the overlords did not liked...
Now back to TSMC. Morris Chang was part of this game, no doubt. He knew and understood everything. He served and played American side.
But now, he seeks an escape route not just for TSMC, but for all his homeland:
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwans-apec-rep-met-chinas-xi-talked-chips-with-harris-2022-11-19/ [reuters.com]
In all Hua Xia civilization, everyone and his grandfather understands the simple truth when the hot war between insurgent island and continental motherland finally happens, the island has no chance to survive.
Peaceful reunification is the only sane option for people. In current situation, TSMC is just a hostage, not a player:
https://www.semafor.com/article/03/13/2023/the-us-would-destroy-taiwans-chip-plants-if-china-invades-says-former-trump-official [semafor.com]
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19, @11:49PM (2 children)
But why does there have to be a war? Why can't China accept Taiwan? Why does China want Taiwan island?
I'll be honest, you're talking out your ass big-time here, but you only know what news media wants you to think is knowledge. One of many things you seem to either don't know, so you shouldn't be so opinionated, or you're conveniently ignoring, which makes you even more of an ass, is that there are treaties and other military and political agreements between FRIENDLY countries. Countries who behave with aggression, especially ones who KILL innocent citizens, need to be restrained. There are many, like me, who would absolutely support flat out killing the aggressors. The world has made so much progress in medicine, energy, art, music, on and on, and monsters have caused so much death, destruction, and major setback for humanity and civilization. I'm not sure what self-conceived contest you're trying to win, but if things come to nuclear war, you may have significantly underestimated your contrived enemy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20, @02:10AM (1 child)
Partly at least for the ocean around it.
The USA also likes to encourage and start wars. So even if China wasn't trying to start a war there could still be wars.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 21, @01:15AM
Indeed. One can't talk about China's problems without whatabouting some irrelevant US meanness that excuses it somehow.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Monday March 20, @04:52AM
Note here that "ancient times" are 2012 [wikipedia.org]:
In reality, Sparta and Athens were comparable powers of same age. What happened was that Athens made some strategic changes that would have moved the power balance significantly - for example, building huge city walls that considerably weakened Sparta's military advantage on land or the huge hegemony that would have marginalized Sparta and its allies, if it had been uncontested.
And that really is what the so called trap is about. There's some change that in the long term would create a large shift in power. An established military-oriented power uses its military power in the usual way to attempt to prevent the shift. We hear about the failures, not the successes. Sparta failed in the long run to hold Athens back. Athens in turn failed to hold Syracuse back. But we're not hearing about the successes - such as ancient Assyria's ability to keep its neighbors in line for hundreds of years. Absent Assyria's incessant wars, its neighbors would have grown powerful enough to take out Assyria. But they never united to the point where they could and for a long, long time they would repeatedly rebel only to be defeated piecemeal.
This worked until Assyria got attacked by a power outside its range of influence - Medea, which quickly grew powerful by absorbing the remnants of Elam which had recently been clobbered by Assyria in a particularly genocidal war and then joined forces with Babylon to destroy Assyria.
That's the trap in action - a "hot war" is viewed both as inevitable and easily winnable (if the latter weren't true, then the aggressor would try something more subtle). And war has great uncertainty, I would never make absolute claims like the above. Sure, Taiwan is too small for a naive Ukraine-style defense solution to work. Merely giving them a lot of advanced weapons will not drive off a force that might be a significant fraction of Taiwan's entire population, including children. But there's enough military force throughout the world that an incompetent invasion could be beaten off at great cost to China. It depends on how surprising the invasion is and how quickly they can move that force. In theory, it'd take a few days to take over Taiwan completely. In practice, China could lose ten million people (which are a lot of people even for China) in that short stretch of ocean without landing a significant force on the Taiwan beach. It depends on what sort of defenders they end up facing and how competent and prepared they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20, @06:12AM
What insurgent island?
It's not that easy to invade from the ocean. Could cost the invader a lot like in D-Day etc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings [wikipedia.org]
If Taiwan can sink a lot of the ships trying to bring troops etc in then that would weaken the invasion by a lot.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by inertnet on Monday March 20, @08:28AM
Because they realized that ASML was way ahead of them. Not the other way around, as you're suggesting.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 20, @04:02PM
I am skeptical that the USA is (primarily) concerned about outsourcing the workforce.
I think the USA might be more concerned about outsourcing the environmental damage. Outsourcing the slave labor conditions may be a secondary benefit.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday March 21, @02:57AM (2 children)
Minor nit, it's been known as Thucydides trap since some US political analyst made up the name a few years ago and then retroactively applied it to various instances throughout history that he thought were examples of it. It's not really something I'd want to cite in support.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday March 21, @03:03AM (1 child)
And having read a bit more of the OP's post it starts veering off into the weeds (or possibly just weed) more and more until it hits:
at which point we're now in far-right la-la land and I stopped reading. For anyone else who's made it this far, the OP is just a pile of rightwing conspiracy-theory bollocks. 88!
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Wednesday March 22, @03:16PM
Actually, I hold the problem "Which ones are worse: Teutons, Saxons or Jews?" undecidable, but you fit the set closure for me. More of the same.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 4, Informative) by oumuamua on Sunday March 19, @10:06PM (7 children)
The real reason is China's GDP is on course to surpass the US and that is a threat, as explained here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXov7MkgPB4 [youtube.com]
and here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTO6IoZ3VaDrQt-RJZsbG6nB [youtube.com]
There are comparisons with Japan from the 80's when US companies leveled up their game to compete and formed brands like Saturn:
https://autotrends.org/saturn-brand-life-and-death/ [autotrends.org]
Eventually Japan's economy imploded ending the economic threat.
For China, the US has abandoned trying to compete and is switching to containment. The US is hobbled by bipartisan bickering. There is no bipartisan drive to improve US competitiveness but there is bipartisan consensus to stick it to China. This is unfortunate. Watch as world tensions rise and billions pour into defense that could have gone into improving infrastructure, education and healthcare.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 19, @11:08PM (6 children)
It's already happening. Joe Obiden gives Zelensky billions every other week it seems. He sure as hell won't put any billions into Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, or to replace any worn out bridges across the Mississippi, or any of the rivers that feed into the Mississippi. And, all these years, we've been told that Republicans are warmongers, and Democrats are all about social needs and wants.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20, @12:54AM (1 child)
LOL. Yes, right, all of those indeed have been long time Republican funding priorities. /s
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20, @12:59AM
You entirely missed the point. The point is that Obiden is funding a war, while entirely ignoring all those programs that Democrats claim to champion.
(Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Monday March 20, @04:54AM (3 children)
He is putting trillions into Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Bridges sure, but it's not a new thing that vital infrastructure gets slighted. There's something wrong with the narrative.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 20, @05:13AM (1 child)
Citations?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-anti-growth-policies-will-slash-medicare-social-security-tax-revenue-by-400-900-billion-report/ar-AA18Lgj0 [msn.com]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Monday March 20, @06:24AM
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 20, @05:17AM
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/us/politics/biden-budget-social-security.html [nytimes.com]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RedGreen on Sunday March 19, @11:07PM
Makes me laugh if by distributed you mean we took all your jobs and moved them to a murdering bastard single country of China so we could take advantage of slave labour and virtually no environmental restrictions. All so the corporate parasites can make even more money than they already were by screwing over their fellow man in their home countries. Then they wonder why people are pissed and ready to rise up and kill the lot of them scummy bastards.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 19, @11:35PM (3 children)
I've been anti-globalization all along. Where has globalization got us? Huh - we're dependent on supply chains that stretch all the way around the world, many times. Something gets screwed up in in Far North Fuckistan, and suddenly no one can get their Razzle Dazzle Widgets anymore. And, oh yeah. Russia decides to invade some eastern European shithole, and suddenly half the world is threatened with starvation?
The powers that be can just stuff globalization up their asses, sideways. Every nation should strive to be just as self-sufficient as they can possibly be.
Free trade zones will fit up their asses along with their globalization. All that has been good for, is to bludgeon the masses, or consumers, to comply with mostly nonsense rules. Trump trashed that Pacific trade thing for good reason - it only benefitted the megacorporations.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20, @03:29AM (2 children)
Ever notice how, if you do something for awhile, surprise, surprise, you get better at it? That kind of specialization is the reason that globalization and distributed supply chains make sense--assuming all the players play fair (yes, this is a very big assumption). More efficient production should make things better for everyone...and once standards of living come up in the so-called third world, the current situation of cheap labor in certain countries will fix itself.
Also, by:
> Russia decides to invade some eastern European shithole...
I'm assuming you mean Ukraine where they happen to be pretty successful at growing certain field crops. Since Arkansas also seems to be good at this (along with the other mid-west states) perhaps your state belongs in the same category?
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 20, @04:46AM
Well, maybe. But, Arkansas hasn't had the CIA, NSA, Koch brothers, and more meddling in Arkansas, overthrowing corrupt governments, so that they could install their own corrupt governments. Nor has the president of the United States literally dumped tens of billions worth of arms into Arkansas in the past two years. Although . . . that same president has made veiled threats to use tens of billions worth of arms against 2nd Amendment advocates, in Arkansas and elsewhere.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Monday March 20, @04:57AM
This is the huge thing missed in the anti-globalism narratives. We are make things much better for many billions of people right now through globalism.