China could face more semiconductor export curbs from the likes of the U.S. and the Netherlands to contain the Asian powerhouse's chip tech, analysts say.

The news continues to misrepresent export control regulations as some sort of ban. As I explained in my previous post, the restrictions are merely to secure mega profits for a select few licensed exporters while kicking out their competitors. In particular, preferentially giving license to American corporations at the expense of American allies.

The “loopholes” in the restrictions are also never explained. We’re just supposed to take it face value that “cHiNa iS BreAkInG tHe RuLeZ!!1”. From my reading of the US Dept of Commerce’s official Export Administration Regulations, the only “loophole” is that exporters can apply for a license and then they can export. The continuous portrayal of China as a bad faith trade partner is a propaganda tactic to cover up their own bad faith profit driven dealings—wanting to profit from trade with China while directing the American public’s anger at China for the hollowing out of the American chip industry.

The decline of imports is subtly portrayed as a win for the cover narrative that the sanctions are presumably to slow down or stop altogether China’s access to chips. In reality, this is probably due to China building up domestic chip manufacturing—I’ll credit the article for mentioning that revenue from domestic manufacturers rose 39% in the first half of 2023 compared to a year earlier. By presenting it this way, they confuse readers into thinking that this loss (the decline of exports to China) is actually a win.

  • darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    6 months ago

    Respectfully. I’m not sure I buy this. There might be some thinking there but I really think it is the return of chips as munitions that existed in the 90s and the US trying to hurt China’s ability to compete on AI and super-computing and in the defense space. It’s ill advised and doomed to destroy their domestic industries in the end but the evidence including NVIDIA (an American company) begging for export licensing, designing chips around the export ban only to have those then hit with an updated ban and the commerce secretary openly stating she wouldn’t allow them to get around such restrictions and would veto things next day if she had to in order to stop it.

    Terminating deals with Netherlands companies to knee them center mass I could see, but these things are attacking American companies.

    Along with the fact that there has been all this talk of “clean networks” I really think the US is going to try and cut China out, ban sales to them, then lock in as many countries as they can with talks of Chinese chips being a threat (like they did with Huawei) and possibly passing laws or regulations to the effect that countries (with a few strategic exceptions like India who are too important to lose and will be given exemptions) must choose. Either they get access to US chips, US technology, US high tech products and brands or they choose Chinese and those brands are banned from exporting technology above a certain level to them.

    Thing is US sanctions have always had these “loopholes” you speak of because the US wants flexibility to benefit themselves as well as not to drive strategic allies into the arms of others (and that’s what these are for, handing them out to India or in case it’s somehow otherwise beneficial to the plan, it’s not a back-door in 99% of cases just a situation where if you’ve been bribing the commerce secretary all their life and call in a favor they can get your little company a little exemption so you don’t have to deal with the hassle kind of thing).

    The fact is they hadn’t handed NVIDIA a blanket exemption as I’d expect they would if the goal was destroying foreign companies. In fact they’ve made life difficult and the NVIDIA CEO has complained that it’s going to badly hurt them in the long-run and that he doesn’t like it. I don’t think the CEO of NVIDIA is being deceptive on this. It makes no sense. What’s the point of a deception so elaborate it encourages the Chinese to invest in replacement for NVIDIA chips? They’re not going to shut all that down if the US one day says “just kidding haha, here” because they’re not about to be trusting of anyone acting like that. Just to fool their lapdog vassals? Not needed as we’ve seen with Russia the US merely needs say jump into the volcano and they ask at what degree of attack and it won’t work, the Chinese will have replacements by the time such an alleged ruse is dropped.

    I think what we are seeing here is in fact the industrial vs financial bourgeoisie. Finance being international in nature is fine cozying up to China and this means most tech companies. On the other hand the defense industry, the war-hawks, and the brain-poisoned politicians all have reasons to try and confront and destroy China and this is part of a strategy to do that. A portion of the bourgeoisie, the ones in control of most of the levers of government are convinced it’s necessary to destroy or really contain and restrain China and that short-term pain for that among some industries is acceptable to the whole for its health.

    White house advisors have talked about their desires for keeping China 5-10 years behind the US at all times. Not of being able to conclusively beat them or destroy them in the near future but of locking them in the past and making sure if you want the best you have to buy American.

    They underestimate China, they’re using an outdated playbook, they think they can get ahead and stay ahead. But it’s reasonable to assume they’re not lying. They usually tell the truth. I mean they’ve been happy to publish the truth for decades on everything including grand geopolitical strategy like their reasons for destabilizing the middle east/west Asia. Sure they don’t say it on CNN but they publish books, give talks at think tanks and basically are very candid about this stuff and always have been in order to get buy-in because there is division among the bourgeoisie and corporations and indeed among their thinkers on this.

  • miz@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    6 months ago

    BREAKING: USA cuts off supply of Sour Cream & Onion and is considering restrictions on BBQ

  • lorty@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    6 months ago

    I may be misremembering, but the restrictions on AI hardware was big enough for the CEO of Nvidia to complain. I don’t think it’ll impact China in the long term, but it’s a strange tactic if the ideal is to secure profits for American companies.

    • tired_of_sinophobia@lemmygrad.mlOP
      0·
      6 months ago

      I guess what I’m about to say might sound strange then, but billionaires can and often do lie to the public. Any real loss of revenue would be caused by China ramping up domestic production. I doubt Nvidia would have a hard time getting an export license.

      • bobs_guns@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        Nvidia is exactly the least likely to get an export license because their GPUs are the best for AI. The sanctions are mainly targeting Nvidia because their GPUs are seen as useful for military applications of AI.

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    6 months ago

    It’s pretty funny how these people have no imagination whatsoever, all they know how to do is double down on shit that clearly isn’t working for them.

    • tired_of_sinophobia@lemmygrad.mlOP
      0·
      6 months ago

      I enjoy clowning on capitalists as much as anyone but just like how capitalist wars aren’t about achieving military victories but rather securing business for the MIC corporations, the chip ban (which is not a ban at all according to the actual Export Administration Regulations) is about securing mega profits from trading with China for certain—American presumably— corporations at the expense of their competitors through preferential license issuances. Slowing down/stopping access to chips is merely a narrative crafted to portray China as a bad faith trade partner who’s always cheating or breaking the rules.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.ml
        0·
        6 months ago

        That’s likely the rationale behind the move, but the problem is that we already see US based companies starting to lose money because of it. This was a really good of the problems. Basically, chip development has very low margins and profitability relies entirely on selling large volumes. China used to be one of the biggest consumers for chips, and now US companies aren’t allowed to export newer chips there. So, their market has shrunk and now it’s not profitable for them to even bother developing new chips. What’s worse is that they’re now becoming worried that China will be flooding the world with older chips now that they’ve spun up their own foundries. Most of the chips being sold aren’t bleeding edge ones, but older variants that are still good enough for most applications.

        US has also been struggling with trying to get domestic foundries going, and at the rate things are going I expect China will end up leapfrogging the US in terms of bleeding edge chip production as well within a couple of years.

        The only play US really has here is to force their vassals to decouple from China entirely and then force them to buy chips and other tech from US. However, we’re already seeing anti-US sentiment growing in Europe, and pro US governments might end up getting kicked out of power in the near future.

        Overall, I think this is a really poor strategy all around, and it’s not going to produce the results that US is hoping for. It’s the same level of delusion that resulted in the debacle in Ukraine.