Chinese semiconductor thread II

[Wrought]

I’m not - it’s an extension of this argument he made 2 years back (

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). The BBG article doesn’t give good context

Yeah I agree lol.

Hence my point on whether the export controls are “working” depends on your orientation?
- Are they “working” to improve US-China relations and thicken commercial relationships? Absolutely not
- Are they “working” to freeze China’s semiconductor industry? Absolutely not
- Are they “working” to keep the U.S. technological lead “as large as possible”? Maybe

I am familiar with Sullivan's original remarks, and he did a decent job of making his case at the time. If you had walked into this thread unprompted and made the argument of your own volition that US export controls are working, as per specific definitions of "working," then you might have gotten a lot of pushback but you would nonetheless have a leg to stand on. Because you could make a pretty decent case that export controls are in fact achieving results better than any reasonable alternative course of action available to the US. You might not necessarily be right, of course, but you could not trivially be proven wrong.

My issue here is that, in the face of a frankly laughable interview, you immediately leap to his defense by offering better points and highlighting past statements rather than confronting the topic of immediate relevance. That is not good-faith argumentation.

 

[manqiangrexue]

I am familiar with Sullivan's original remarks, and he did a decent job of making his case at the time. If you had walked into this thread unprompted and made the argument of your own volition that US export controls are working, as per specific definitions of "working," then you might have gotten a lot of pushback but you would nonetheless have a leg to stand on. Because you could make a pretty decent case that export controls are in fact achieving results better than any reasonable alternative course of action available to the US. You might not necessarily be right, of course, but you could not trivially be proven wrong.

Nah, they had a great thing going. Nobody can stop China marching forward but the thing is you don't need foundational tech to march forward in amicable situations. Foundational tech is unprofitable and can be neglected without ill effect but only when everyone works together. That was China's one hidden weakness. Keep selling to Chinese companies at great prices keeping China dependent and under the illusion that it leads in tech while all the foundations were out of Chinese control. Some in China even said that there is nothing to fear because Western firms must keep selling for their own preservation and the preservation of the global chain, which became demonstrably untrue and would have been a huge miscalculation if made at a critical time. That would have been a dangerous situation for China if shit hit the fan. That the US threw this away thinking they can slowly strangle the largest and most talented/hard-working population in tech is the biggest blunder of America's fall to China. It is on par with with Carrier through Taiwan Strait wake-up call that wiped away all Chinese illusion that we could be afford to be militarily lazy in a civilized world, thus embarking us on the path to building a military that could directly defeat the US in Asia.

 

[Wrought]

Nah, they had a great thing going. Keep selling to Chinese companies at great prices keeping China dependent and under the illusion that it leads in tech while all the foundations were out of Chinese control. Some in China even said that there is nothing to fear because Western firms must keep selling for their own preservation and the preservation of the global chain, which became demonstrably untrue and would have been a huge miscalculation if made at a critical time. That would have been a dangerous situation for China if shit hit the fan. That the US threw this away thinking they can slowly strangle the largest and most talented/hard-working population in tech is the biggest blunder of America's fall. It is on par with with Carrier through Taiwan Strait incident that wiped away all Chinese doubt that we could be afford to be lazy, embarking us on the path to building a military that could directly defeat the US in Asia.

While I'm personally inclined to agree, you could at least make an argument that Chinese progress was eroding the US technological lead to unacceptable levels and that doing nothing would see their advantage slowly erased altogether (much the same way it has for other technologies). So the US was faced with a use-it-or-lose it choice, and decided to use it. It may or may not be true, but you could at least argue it by pointing at Huawei and YMTC and market share and R&D numbers and so forth.

My point was that if the other guy made such an argument it would be respectable, because he was staking out his own position and defending it as best as possible. Instead of playing at being some kind of PR rep who only speaks up to defend dumb remarks from US officials.

 

[tokenanalyst]

Would be good to discuss this further. The range of 55-7nm feels like a quite telling point of capabilities

That is the range for Single Patterning, Double Patterning and Self Aligned Quadruple Patterning Immersion Lithography

 

[manqiangrexue]

While I'm personally inclined to agree, you could at least make an argument that Chinese progress was eroding the US technological lead to unacceptable levels and that doing nothing would see their advantage slowly erased altogether (much the same way it has for other technologies). It may or may not be true, but you could at least argue it by pointing at Huawei and YMTC and market share and R&D numbers and so forth.

Yes, this progress was outwardly distressing to the US, thus causing them to launch the trade and tech wars but actually, that lead was hollow, at least at some critical points. Counter to the idea that the tech war would defeat China by targetting these hollow points, it ended up giving China ample time to fill them in and finally embark on solid growth that would overtake the US anyway, this time without the vulnerabilities.

My point was that if the other guy made such an argument it would be respectable, because he was staking out his own position and defending it as best as possible. Instead of playing at being some kind of PR rep who only speaks up to defend dumb remarks from US officials.

It doesn't matter if he's talking for himself or other people. He's wrong; I pointed it out and he cannot rebut. He used to try and fail; he realizes that he's outclassed now so he can't even try.

 

[Wrought]

Yes, this progress was outwardly distressing to the US, thus causing them to launch the trade and tech wars but actually, that lead was hollow, at least at some critical points. Counter to the idea that the tech war would defeat China by targetting these hollow points, it ended up giving China ample time to fill them in and finally embark on solid growth that would overtake the US anyway, this time without the vulnerabilities.

It doesn't matter if he's talking for himself or other people. He's wrong; I pointed it out and he cannot rebut. He used to try and fail; he realizes that he's outclassed now so he can't even try.

While I again agree about the outcome now, nobody could see the future when this started. I'm sure you remember many insiders were very concerned back in 2022. It was not guaranteed that reality would turn out the way it did, and arguing the case that the US had a reasonable expectation of a more favorable outcome at the time would be difficult, but not impossible. Counterfactuals cannot be proven or disproven by definition.

 

[MortyandRick]

Hence my point on whether the export controls are “working” depends on your orientation
- Are they “working” to improve US-China relations and thicken commercial relationships? Absolutely not
- Are they “working” to freeze China’s semiconductor industry? Absolutely not
- Are they “working” to keep the U.S. technological lead “as large as possible”? Maybe

That's just mental gymnastic BS and word play.

The US and co already stated that their goal was to limit China to 14 and not allow FinFET, which they've FAILED! Now saying Huawei is a sub par device even though it's sold millions with 7nm chips and has satellite phone capabilities and extremely fast download and upload speed, while being sanctioned is just pure cope, no matter how you try to spin it.

 

[manqiangrexue]

While I again agree about the outcome now, nobody could see the future when this started. I'm sure you remember many insiders were very concerned back in 2022. It was not guaranteed that reality would turn out the way it did, and arguing the case that the US had a reasonable expectation of a more favorable outcome at the time would be difficult, but not impossible. Counterfactuals cannot be proven or disproven by definition.

Yeah, if he (referring to anyone claiming US sanctions worked) were to say that they thought it would have went better but it didn't, there wouldn't have been any argument. His claim is that they still might have had a favorable outcome for the US, which is laughable. You also said that the US had no better option; I showed that they did, but they chose wrong. And the notion that one could box off and choke a STEM population as large and accomplished as China's (and they know what Chinese people can do because all the best STEM students in the West are Chinese) was a very poor and unintelligent bet to begin with. The weakness of a democracy is that leaders must satiate the simple and primal desires of the population in order to stay in power; here, the US population saw a surging China and wanted to lash out. They didn't have a plan, so lashing out was what the politicians needed to do for votes.

 

[gelgoog]

“Stockpiling is a challenge but there’s a clock on it,” Sullivan said in the interview. “And not only because of servicing and components, but because of degradation of the capability of return. So it is absolutely not too late for us to up our game collectively on semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and that’s what we’re driving to do.”

Idiotic. I guess they did not learn from their failure when they sanctioned Russia's airline industry, or Huawei, or SMIC.

China's own semiconductor manufacturing equipment industry is growing at over 30% annual growth rates. Eventually they will not need imported tools at all. Will likely happen over the next four years.

 

[Wrought]

Yeah, if he (referring to anyone claiming US sanctions worked) were to say that they thought it would have went better but it didn't, there wouldn't have been any argument. His claim is that they still might have had a favorable outcome for the US, which is laughable. You also said that the US had no better option; I showed that they did, but they chose wrong. And the notion that one could box off and choke a STEM population as large and accomplished as China's (and they know what Chinese people can do because all the best STEM students in the West are Chinese) was a very poor and unintelligent bet to begin with. The weakness of a democracy is that leaders must satiate the simple and primal desires of the population in order to stay in power; here, the US population saw a surging China and wanted to lash out. They didn't have a plan, so lashing out was what the politicians needed to do for votes.

I said that it's possible to argue that export controls are working better than any reasonable alternative. You said doing nothing would be better, which I agree with, but I would also not call that a "reasonable alternative." For the exact same reason that you described, there was huge political pressure on them to do something, anything, even if it ended up being counterproductive.