China seethes as U.S. chip controls threaten tech ambitions

Well, the promise was that as China became more middle class it would become more democratic and liberal. In fact, it became more autocratic and threatening. What does it expect? Just whining about “containment and suppression" and "preventing its development" just sounds like the bully pretending to be the victim. It's a popular strategy with authoritarian types.

“China won’t swallow everything. If damage occurs, we must take action to protect ourselves,” the Chinese ambassador to the Netherlands, Tan Jian, told the Dutch..."

“I’m not going to speculate on what that might be,” Tan said. “It won’t just be harsh words.”

This sounds like a familiar situation prior to WW2 where Japan complained loudly that the United States was blocking Japan's access to vital raw materials for it's industries and that it had no choice but to launch a preemptive attack on Pearl Harbor on the US naval fleet there. Today many in Japan still believe in this hypothesis.

Hey China you've been spouting off for years how advanced in technology further than the rest of the world. So make them chips yourself. Surely a nation that (snicker, snicker) went to "the dark side of the moon" and (snicker, snicker) has "hypersonic" missiles (egads not that, snicker, snicker) can make chips.

AsTime GoesOnToday  05:19 pm JST

This sounds like a familiar situation prior to WW2 where Japan complained loudly that the United States was blocking Japan's access to vital raw materials for it's industries and that it had no choice but to launch a preemptive attack on Pearl Harbor on the US naval fleet there. Today many in Japan still believe in this hypothesis.

Which part are you calling a hypothesis? That the US sanctioned and embargoed Japan before Dec 7th 1941 is no hypothesis it's a fact. Anyone in any country versed in the subject of WWII knows this.

"On July 24, 1941 Tokyo decided to strengthen its position in terms of its invasion of China by moving through Southeast Asia. Given that France had long occupied parts of the region, and Germany, a Japanese ally, now controlled most of France through Petain’s puppet government, France “agreed” to the occupation of its Indo-China colonies. Japan followed up by occupying Cam Ranh naval base, 800 miles from the Philippines, where Americans had troops, and the British base at Singapore."

"On July 26, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt seizes all Japanese assets in the United States in retaliation for the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China."

"President Roosevelt swung into action by freezing all Japanese assets in America. Britain and the Dutch East Indies followed suit. The result: Japan lost access to three-fourths of its overseas trade and 88 percent of its imported oil."

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/united-states-freezes-japanese-assets#:~:text=President%20Roosevelt%20swung%20into%20action,percent%20of%20its%20imported%20oil.

As to whether Japan made the right choice in attacking the US at Pearl Harbor is a matter of personal opinion.

The U.S. government, starting under then-President Donald Trump, is cutting off access to a growing array of tools to make chips for computer servers, AI and other advanced applications

Credit where it's due. Trump was certainly not as bad as he is made out to be by a certain cohort.

He was not worse than Nixon who shook hands with China, and Clinton who pushed for China to join the WTO.

I know how china is feeling. We have a shortage of chip and the costs have doubled in some fish and chips shops. But this season the farmers are growing double the amount so in theory the price per serve should half soon.

@OssanAmerica you are correct in my incorrect usage of the verbiage 'hypothesis.' I agree with your explanation of the historical context at the time. Sorry, maybe I should have just said 'reasoning.' And yes, all the major powers were actively involved in some of colonization including Japan who was following the norms of the times. Incendiary provocations of any sort combined with threats never to lead to positive outcomes.

AsTime GoesOnToday  07:42 pm JST

@OssanAmerica you are correct in my incorrect usage of the verbiage 'hypothesis.' I agree with your explanation of the historical context at the time. Sorry, maybe I should have just said 'reasoning.' And yes, all the major powers were actively involved in some of colonization including Japan who was following the norms of the times. Incendiary provocations of any sort combined with threats never to lead to positive outcomes.

Agreed. However, I do not see a parallel between the actions of nations leading up to WWII and what is happening now. It is China that has made the integration of geopolitics and business, where all products have a dual miiitary/civilian dual use. That the West which now recognizes China's latent bellicose intent is de-coupling from China in areas that are crucial for national security is a far cry from cutting off needed supply of oil and metal. Both of which China has.

China seethes?

Good. Makes me smile.

The question is, who would benefit from WW3?

There are several ways to trigger it:

(1) Invasion of Ukraine (already happened).

(2) Invasion of Israel.

(3) Invasion of South Korea.

(4) Invasion of Taiwan.

Whoever would benefit from WW3 would now focus on provoking invasions of Israel, South Korea and Taiwan.

And, yes, the situation does indeed resemble the blockades of WW2.

“I’m not going to speculate on what that might be,” Tan said. “It won’t just be harsh words.”

Provoking PRC could push them to take side with Russia in the Ukraine conflict, as well as provoke invasions of South Korea or Taiwan.

So, if someone benefits from WW3, it is going according to their plans.

*China *seethes...

*Furious at U.S. efforts that cut off access to technology to make advanced computer chips, China’s leaders appear to be struggling to figure out how to retaliate *

Nice objective reporting as usual. No one would assume that this reporter is trying to use world events to engage an emotional response against a particular country, or get the impression that said reporter is attempting to portray a certain country as an irate, impatient child.

LOL the only thing China can do is swallow its tongue and try to protect itself from suffocating. Their is no need to send out threats and the laughable harsh words just don't act on the threats and harsh words and sit down and relax.

China won’t swallow everything. If damage occurs, we must take action to protect ourselves,” the Chinese ambassador to the Netherlands, Tan Jian, told the Dutch newspaper Financieele Dagblad.“I’m not going to speculate on what that might be,” Tan said. “It won’t just be harsh words.”

Well, the promise was that as China became more middle class it would become more democratic and liberal. In fact, it became more autocratic and threatening. 

The U.S. was sure wrong about that wishful thinking. Why did they assume that?

China already dominates the semiconductor supply chain and in the upstream raw materials, supplies 70% of the silicon; 80% of the tungsten; and 97% of the Gallium; and in the downstream product, provides half of the circuit board. 

Moreover, the market for chips above 14nm makes up 70 percent of the semiconductor market and which is rapidly increasing with EV vehicles. Those chips can now be mass produced at a price point in China that other countries find difficult to match by scale of production. 

While advance advance processes below 7nm is important, it is NOT decisive. Market share below 7nm is only 2% of the semiconductor market.

Hey China you've been spouting off for years how advanced in technology further than the rest of the world. So make them chips yourself. Surely a nation that (snicker, snicker) went to "the dark side of the moon" and (snicker, snicker) has "hypersonic" missiles (egads not that, snicker, snicker) can make chips.

It doesn’t really make sense. It’s like saying China is seething because it can’t make high end sports cars like a Ferrari or. Lamborghini when it’s making all the other cars. They control the market. Monopoly is not good for completion. China’s cornering the market and that’s not what we want.

The article is not telling you the bigger picture.

I can't pick which of the latest hypocritical moans coming from China is the funniest. Is it...?

-The "tech powerhouse" who openly brags about soon dominating everyone with "its" tech and computer chips...until it's revealed that the Chinese simply aren't capable of doing that without foreign tech and assistance? Or...

-The "innovative" China who completely closes off its entire country to all foreign social media services, while creating copy-paste rip-offs for the domestic market...then complains that the US might block a single Chinese company, Tik-Tok, due to Chinese laws that REQUIRE such companies collaborate with the dictatorship's plans of domination? Or...

-The "peacemaker" China who whines about supporting an invaded Ukraine against a far larger and more vicious neighbor...while China threatens war against Taiwan, builds artificial islands armed to the teeth in disputed waters, uses domestic "fishing fleets" to harass and intimidate all of its Asian neighbors, claims exclusive use of entire bodies of international waterways, and picks fights with India along its borders?

lol. Yes, it's nonstop, silly slapstick coming from the greasy hypocritical clowns "running" China. Oh well...

Face it Biden has no power and his chip ban is another own goal. This has been the response to his attempt to contain China:

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is visiting China. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, will follow on a longer-planned trip on April 4.

Gernany’s BMW CEO met with BBC Xi and made commitments as VW continues to profit in China.

And the Dutch Foreign Minister says, I quote, “the US should not expect the Netherlands to blindly follow the US.”

Joe McDonald doesn’t address the lost market for American chip markets. Who’s going to pay for that?

Print more money.

Europe is not stupid. Americans might think they are but their economy is tanking. Why would they want to obey the US and cut off ties with their number one trading partner?

a certain country as an irate, impatient child.

That seems to be the image it likes to project of itself, it seems to me and many observers. Tantrums are regularly thrown. Or sometimes it is the stern parent rebuking a child. It's like those are the only models for interaction available. It's immature in the extreme.

I’m satisfied to be old. I doubt I’ll be around in 10 years or less when the push for global dominance comes to shove. All of the technology and infrastructure of the past 100 years will go away within hours in the next war. Tribalism and nationalism have done this over and over throughout history.

This may backfire. A digital Cold War with two internets, one China-facing, one US-facing would be a nightmare. It might be good for Japan if they could bag a sanctions exclusion and function as a digital bridge, but that doesn't look likely. Cutting JP and SK off from China caps their economies and ensures they stay US vassals.

Nevertheless, global economic growth would be hammered, so expect economic and political destabilisation. Wars will then break out and cohere into WWIII. If you have kids from teens to 30s, they may be conscripted for Ukraine-style warfare by your Glorious Leaders. Historically we trade and tour other nations or make war on them. I prefer the former: More money and fewer dead people.

It may backfire technologically too. There is a CPU revolution in the offing, and this could prod China into taking strides into it before the West. In design terms, CPU development has largely involved making them smaller. The next generation of development will be much more interesting.

Frankly, AI is mostly hype and we have fast enough processors for most of what we do. As governments now spend their days banning new tech and cutting supply chains, it's questionable how much value lies in ever more powerful chips anyway.

Making processor chips requires some 1,500 steps and technologies owned by U.S., European, Japanese and other suppliers.

The innovators are not required to share their hard-earned knowledge, particularly with those who are not their friends

Europe is not stupid. Americans might think they are but their economy is tanking. Why would they want to obey the US and cut off ties with their number one trading partner?

Because Europe is not stupid - they don't believe that China is a friend to them; at best a necessary evil to trade with. They don't share the same views on way of life. Europe may not "de-couple" with China like the US is doing, but they are "de-risking"

"EU should de-risk, not decouple, from 'hardening' China: Von der Leyen"

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/EU-should-de-risk-not-decouple-from-hardening-China-Von-der-Leyen

A hardening of China's position from an era of reform and opening to one of security and control requires Europe to "de-risk" diplomatically and economically, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday.

China, she said, was becoming more repressive at home and more assertive abroad, replacing an era of reform and opening with one of security and control, where companies in China were required to assist state intelligence-gathering operations.

Von der Leyen said it was not viable to decouple from China, but it was vital to focus on reducing the risks posed to Europe.

Economically, the European Union needed to "rebalance" the relationship and reduce its reliance on China for key inputs, such as lithium and other critical minerals.

The EU, von der Leyen said, already had a range of measures to counter economic distortions and protect its security interests, but the bloc should also look at the high-tech it shared with a changing China.

Moreover, the market for chips above 14nm makes up 70 percent of the semiconductor market and which is rapidly increasing with EV vehicles. Those chips can now be mass produced at a price point in China that other countries find difficult to match by scale of production. 

While advance advance processes below 7nm is important, it is NOT decisive. Market share below 7nm is only 2% of the semiconductor market.

Many places can produce the less advanced chips - replacements can be there if China gets cut off because the new higher price points would make the cost of production viable

(LIke what happened with rare earth metals when China broke business contracts and suddenly banned exports as trade protectionism - other mines in the West became viable again)

But more advanced systems require more advanced chips - like quantum computing, AI (such as that requires hordes of tensor cores of Nvidia GPUs), military precision, etc.

Look at Russia - not having the advanced chips to produce enough tanks to keep up with the rate it's losing tanks in the battlefield:

"Russia Is Losing Tanks X10 Faster Than It Can Make Them"

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-demand-tanks-outstrips-production-by-factor-of-10-report-2023

Russia has just one tank factory churning out 20 tanks a month, with demand outstripping production by a factor of ten, says report

Russia is losing around 150 tanks a month in Ukraine, and is becoming reliant on refurbished vehicles.

It may be one of the largest tank manufacturers in the world, with Fortune estimating that it has 30,000 employees, but each month it is only able to produce tanks in the double digits, The Economist said, citing Russian media outlet Novaya Gazeta.

Tank production is harder than it was in the 1940s, when the Soviet Union was churning out vehicles, largely because modern-day tanks are more complex to build and far more sophisticated, according to The Economist.

A shortage of parts, particularly semiconductors, has hampered Russian production, The Economist reported.

This is what I call a START, its long overdue that the West needs to start seriously re-evaluating what it does wrt China. The West has created the monster that China has become, it should have been obvious about 30yrs ago that investing in China was NOT going to make a China that was a better, more open, more democratc, the West should have started to cut investments in the early 2000's.

We are all now paying the price & it could get much much higher at any point in time, BUT the monster that China has become MUST be faced.....will it be now or later, the later we wait the higher the price that WILL be paid, scary times likely await!

Actually, these controls will only encourage China to develop their own technologies, then they won't need what the West has to offer. And they will probably do it better than the West anyway. And the West sinks in the horizon.

What the public might see is China not giving the U.S. batteries for EVs.

That might be a good thing for innovation.

gokai_wo_maneku

Actually, these controls will only encourage China to develop their own technologies, then they won't need what the West has to offer...

Yep we saw how that worked out for the former east Germany we might get to see history repeat itself.

By now I shouldn't be shocked that many here cheer on a policy that denies Chinese scientists and engineers the resources to do high end research on climate change, materials science, civil engineering, medical research, agriculture science and a host of other areas which benefit not only the Chinese people but the world as a whole.

Xavier, have you ever visited a major research university in the US (likely Europe as well). Do you see all those PhD candidates in the sciences and engineering doing research? A huge chunk of them are Chinese nationals. This has been the case for at least one generation now.

Your image of China is stuck in the Mao era from 50 years ago.

Because Europe is not stupid - they don't believe that China is a friend to them; at best a necessary evil to trade with. They don't share the same views on way of life. Europe may not "de-couple" with China like the US is doing, but they are "de-risking"

I wonder what friendship has to do with this? I never understood the need “to be friends.” Who cares if you’re my friend or not China says. Buy my products and hand over the money. I don’t care what your religion or government is or even what made you decide to invade another country; if you’ve got oil and I need oil, let’s deal.

IMO, China couldn’t care less if Europe does not “believe China is a friend to them” or not because China is not a friend to begin with nor is she trying to be a friend. That’s all talk. China is only looking for business partners.

Some here also have mentioned Russia and China aren’t really friends. I could not agree more. They have a common enemy. And do you think China would be friends with Russia if Russia didn’t have oil?

How about the “friend” of the US, Japan, who is in the G7 circle of friends but continues buying oil from Russia and supporting Putin’s war? Some friend.

China is much more straight forward and honest as opposed to Japan sanctimoniously sanctioning Russia but makes exceptions for oil. Europe btw is buying lots of oil too and supporting Putin’s war. I like how China thinks if I’m going to buy oil then I’m going to be quiet about their war as opposed to the West that talks and talks keeps preaching but sends money to Russia to “fund the war” by buying oil.

As for “decoupling like the US is doing,” they can’t and they aren’t. The two economies are too intertwined. They are the top two trillion dollar economies and you just can’t ask entities that’re trying to drive up share prices to do the opposite. You can’t ask corporations to voluntarily take millions of dollars of losses.

Ford has announced a project to team up with China to mine and process lithium. Apple, Tesla Proctor & Gamble, Tesla, Buick are not decoupling.

Europe is realizing America has had a good run. That’s why Ursula is going to be in Beijing April 5th to the 7th.

By now I shouldn't be shocked that many here cheer on a policy that denies Chinese scientists and engineers the resources to do high end research on climate change, materials science, civil engineering, medical research, agriculture science and a host of other areas which benefit not only the Chinese people but the world as a whole.

I guess it comes down to the fact that it isn't just those things they use the tech for its also weapons biological, mental, hyper-sonic nuclear and likely a whole host of other types of weapons.

@James We had a whole export control regime during the Cold War which targeted certain industries and companies. Biden has taken it to a complete different level. You may cheer that on, but I think we as a human species have a brighter future if we choose to avoid Cold War II.

@Xavier

You read articles. I have access to economic trade data based on transactions. They serve different purposes.

My analogy on high end sports cars and cars works. Some here scoff and say China can’t even make a Ferrari. I’m saying they make their own cars and they sell quite a lot more cars than the Ferraris you sell. And you will be selling even fewer Ferraris because you are being banned from selling Ferraris to the biggest market in the world.

Another point is normal productions are more than sufficient. Not all of us have a Ducati but a Honda or a Yamaha is more than sufficient. 14 nm is good enough and China can make equivalents of 7 nm. You can buy a Polo shirt at the Ralph Lauren flagship store on Omotesando in Harajuku or you can buy a Uniqlo polo shirt. The latter serves the purpose. It’s the scale of production. They make such a huge batch of chips that the price per unit is incredible and unmatchable.

Many countries make semiconductor chips. I’m speaking of market share. I short, American chipmakers have the advanced technology but it is a small percentage of the total overall chips market.

A case of cause and effect here! If China was more democratic with democratic elections and respect for human right and not have territorial ambitions. None of this would be happening! CCP only has itself to blame for what is happening!

The article is not telling you the bigger picture

The bigger picture is China has been preparing for or initiated decoupling since 2016. Or even earlier if you count civil aviation. Made in China 2025 was exactly what deciupling entails, no more western supply chain into chips, high end manufacturing.

China bought technology, know how, from the likes of Idra (Tesla gigacasting), Pirelli, Brembo, etc., precision machining from Germany, chips making from Japan......even car making know how from GM. Even how to make tomato paste...

So don't think it's not a two way street, but China thinks the west didn’t notice and was counting on more transfer (theft, coercion...).

China was always going to decouple and dominate, it's worked for two decades, why change. That's why politicians in the free world had to pivot, else their existence is/will be threatened. CCP = total control, no room for other branch of politics.

I’m speaking of market share

Then you've musunderstood the objective, which is to deny China access to 'advanced' processing power, NOT JUST CHIPS MAKING.

Surveillance, AI, military intel, etc. requires processing, lots of it. Hence why server chips, optics, long range precision etc., have been put on tge export control list, not just advanced chips making.

My prediction is, soon enough, especially if China play hardball, China will be denied aviation related products too, their single aisle C919 still relies heavily on western supply chain, and the indigenous portion is horrible going by report/rumours of ice testing in Canada.

Either the CCP or China's economy is going to collapse, that is what Chinese people have to choose, because the CCP has declared they want their power and control to be exerted well beyond the borders of Han China, their track record proves it over Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, even South Caucasus.

Apple, Tesla Proctor & Gamble, Tesla, Buick are not decoupling.

Europe is realizing America has had a good run. That’s why Ursula is going to be in Beijing April 5th to the 7th.

Apple does not have manufacturing assets in China, they contract out to a Taiwanese company, who is rushing to find capacity in India, Vietnam, and even USA. That is also why Foxconn's founder has consulted with ALL US presidency since Obama.

Tesla is wholly owned by Tesla parent company.

Ursula is a thief and a conniving one at that, she serves the elite families of Germany, stealing from the rest of Europe. The China Export vs Conformite Europene saga demonstrates in plain view Ursula is a shameless thief, stealing safety standards of Europe to give China a gateway to send non-compliant, unsafe goods to Europe.

China is only ever good at dominating supply chain because of misplaced trust, no more. But hey, if you want to be customer of slave labour, Russian energy, debt exploitation, and coercion, no one cares, just don't get upset when tariffs is imposed on such goods.

China has the same problem that all industrialized countries face. Raising wages mean their labor isn't as cheap on the world market as it was 5, 10, 15 yrs ago. In that time, their labor costs have gone up 8x.

Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico are much cheaper and aren't US-hostile. So, while multi-national companies had been using China for labor, those other countries, with cheaper labor costs, are more attractive for new factories. China will be left with old factories to make cheap commodity electronics.

What China needs to do is to have quality and customer service become the primary aspect of their manufacturing. I've dealt with Chinese manufacturing a few times. We provide specifications, get samples that follow those specs, then they start producing. Slowly, features that are in the original specs stop working as tiny, but important, parts are removed from their manufacturing. The main features work, usually. After complaining and getting no satisfaction, we decided it wasn't worth dealing with vendors who are always trying to skim to increase their profits 0.5% with each manufacturing run. We'd rather pay 20% more to a vendor that doesn't screw us and doesn't require that we validate every since item received for full functionality. Japan solved this issue long ago, by having contracts that specify tiny amounts of items not meeting specifications can cause the entire lot to be rejected at no cost to them. Zero failures, period.

The U.S. was sure wrong about that wishful thinking. Why did they assume that?

Engagement worked for South Korea and Taiwan. If you look at their respective histories both nations suffered harsh military dictatorships but the US cultivated them with trade and helped defend them. Both nations suffered major atrocities by their Army's that led to uprisings and democracy movements. Today both nations are considered to be model democracies but in decades past one might have written them off as hopelessly autocratic with no democratic future. I admit I did at one point, only to be happily proved wrong. Who could forget the massive pro-democracy demonstrations in Seoul 40 something years ago?

The upshot is that contact with the Chinese to date may still result in the original desired outcome of a more democratic China. Pretty much everyone in China has a family member or three in the US, Canada or Australia. They all WeChat back and forth every week, maybe every day and know the truth about the outside world their family members experience. They visit abroad and their family visits China. Lots of Chinese students have studied in those nations. The cat is out of the bag so to speak and the Great Firewall is porous. The CCP will do something at some point that enrages the people of China and the outcome will be like the uprisings that overthrew the military dictatorships in South Korea and Taiwan. Citizens not subjects.

My analogy on high end sports cars and cars works. Some here scoff and say China can’t even make a Ferrari. I’m saying they make their own cars and they sell quite a lot more cars than the Ferraris you sell.

Another point is normal productions are more than sufficient. Not all of us have a Ducati but a Honda or a Yamaha is more than sufficient. 14 nm is good enough and China can make equivalents of 7 nm.

You are missing the point of these trade restrictions. To have the best performing weapons systems you very much need the equivalent of Ducati or Ferrari level technology. It is leading edge tech that gives western arms their superiority over Soviet inspired weapons. Ferrari vs Lada or FAW. Ducati vs a Ural or a Chang Jiang. To achieve the kinds of all domains information superiority, sensor fusion and AI in weapons you need to prevail on the modern battlefield

Good enough doesn't win battles in the modern battlefield. The Iraqis, who greatly outnumbered coalition forces btw, found that out the hard way, and the PLA Generals were watching CNN just like we were when then General Colin Powell showed the video of "my counterpart's office in Baghdad" right before all the windows blew out from two PGMs. The PLA was equipped and organized much like the Iraqi Army was and to see the US, Brits and French steamroll them in 100 hours really got their attention! The Chinese have been scrambling to catch up to western tech ever since, stealing through cyber theft what their own industry and universities cannot develop locally. Cutting off their access to the most advanced technologies will set their military back tremendously at a critical time when they might be (some will say the are) getting ready to go to war over Taiwan. The west will never be able to outnumber the Chinese, nor did NATO ever outnumber the Soviets and Warsaw Pact forces but with superior technology and tactics it is still possible to win. But you can't let China match western tech.

’Then you've musunderstood the objective, which is to deny China access to 'advanced' processing power, NOT JUST CHIPS MAKING.

Of course it is curb the development of Chinese chips and to disable their chipmaking technology. The US is attempting to contain China's chip development with EDA tools but China reported Huawei's chip unit collaporated with their domestic EDA companies to create a batch of domestic EDA tools and all all of them have been replaced by Chinese domestic EDA tools above the 14nm process. Bill Gates has repeatedly emphasized that the United States's approach cannot stop China from developing powerful chips. They tried it with GPS and the International Space Station. China just goes and makes its own and will continue to develop the Comac C919 in the example you gave.

China was always going to decouple and dominate, it's worked for two decades

Yes, it does go both ways: teach me how to fish instead of me buying fish from you and when my wings harden, I will leave the nest and decouple (because I just saw what looked like a kingfisher.) With their own EDA tools, they would not have to rely on Cadence, synopsis or Mentor Graphics. Articles here don't show the underlying developments and won't tell us both Samsung and TSMC have adopted Chinese Eda tool software on a large scale showing Chinese Eda tools have begun to go global. They still don't have the lithography machines but give it a year or two. 28 to 14.

You can’t ask corporations to voluntarily take millions of dollars of losses.

I am told that I am way off on this. It is billions of USD and not millions.

It’s the scale of production. They make such a huge batch of chips that the price per unit is incredible and unmatchable.

As an example, one terabyte solid-state hard drive (SSD) are the cheapest pricewise and are coming from China which is 100% China made with no competition from Samsung or others.

You are missing the point of these trade restrictions. To have the best performing weapons systems you very much need the equivalent of Ducati or Ferrari level technology.

I agree with you. I tapped that post on my phone while walking from the station to my house. See the response above to Sh1mon M4sada.

It is leading edge tech that gives western arms their superiority over Soviet inspired weapons. Ferrari vs Lada or FAW. Ducati vs a Ural or a Chang Jiang. 

Thanks for adding Chang Jiang and you are segwaying from business market share to the ultimate pupose of US enhampering advanced chips making and military technology for China. I will just add that carriers and its entourage ships approaching China don't stand a good chance against forces and milssile bases on land and China is not interested in war and expansion but just does not want to be choked off by another two decade long embargo by the US.

Do warships have armor? What are the ratio of total missiles on your carrier entourage versus missiles from all the silos up and down the coast of China? What happens when ships run out? Are they sitting ducks? Can they respond to Hypersonic missiles?

As for choking points, China is courting Iran with an eye on the Straight of Hormuz. If we look at the Straight of Malacca, those Costco Shipping cargo ships don’t just go from point A to point B and then back again. They hit as many ports along the way as possible. So if the Americans arrest all shipping headed for China, they would also be strangling the rest of East and Southeast Asia.

The bottom line is that blockades of this scale would be the biggest disruption to international trade since the last world war, and the world has gotten far more interconnected since then. It would be another case of US making another own goal or unforced error like the sanctions against Russia and China.

Do warships have armor? What are the ratio of total missiles on your carrier entourage versus missiles from all the silos up and down the coast of China? What happens when ships run out? Are they sitting ducks? Can they respond to Hypersonic missiles?

Even the armor on a Iowa class battleship of WWII would not stop a modern high energy penetrator warhead like the BROACH warhead used with JSOW, JASSM, LRASM or Storm Shadow cruise missiles. Instead modern warships rely on compartmentation and excellent firefighting and dewatering capabilities. An example would be USS Stark that was hit by two Exocet missiles fired from an Iraqi Mirage F-1 but who's crew controlled the fires and brought her back to the US under her own power.

As for missiles, if you study the history of the use of anti ship missiles in combat, the majority were defeated by electronic warfare, either jamming or spoofing their seekers. There is only one recorded instance of an anti ship missile being shot down by kinetic means, a Silkworm fired at USS Iowa that was shot down by a British DDG using a Sea Dart missile. All the many of missiles fired by Iranian forces at US Navy ships during Operation Praying Mantis or the nearly four dozen missiles fired at Israel missile boats by Egyptian and Syrian missile boats during the 1973 war were defeated by EW. During the Falklands war four of the seven Exocets fired by the Argentines at the British were defeated by EW, and one that did hit a ship, the MV Atlantic Conveyor, had been seduced off one of the British aircraft carriers by EW and subsequently acquired the Atlantic Conveyor (Exocet and other modern subsonic cruise missiles can often re-attack if they miss their target or are seduced off it by EW).

With the arrival of AESA radars in the fleet like AN/SPY-6 the Navy gains the ability to use a focused beam of high energy from the radar to scramble the electronics of incoming missiles. Some aircraft AESA radars can do this as well.

We had a whole export control regime during the Cold War which targeted certain industries and companies. Biden has taken it to a complete different level. You may cheer that on, but I think we as a human species have a brighter future if we choose to avoid Cold War II.

Not sure I agree the World tried it with China for 50 years and look where it is now a dictator who has given himself the rights to rule for life and they still commit human rights violations every day.

They tried the cold war with the Soviet Union and that crumbled. and then they welcomed the remaining leaders as democratic and then Putin got in charge and reverted everything back to communism so I doubt what you suggest would work as it has proven not to.

WAH