Michael Schuman has a degree in Asian history and political science. Is he qualified to write about semiconductors?
In the article, he quotes Gregory Allen, James Goodrich, and Dan Hutcheson.
Gregory Allen, the director of the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has a degree in political science. James Goodrich, a senior adviser to the Rand Corporation on technology and China, has a degree in comparative politics and East Asian history. Dan Hutcheson, the vice-chair of the research firm TechInsights, has a degree in economics. These are the guys in charge of America's industrial policy? Seriously? You really can't make this shit up...
For those of you who don't want to read the article, Schuman essentially argues that China should perpetually rely on "Western" semiconductors
Not really such a thing as Western semiconductors to begin with. Some of the tooling used in China have western origin, rather easy to rip and replace or in the worst case repossess if the situation demands.
China is the largest semiconductor producer by far in both thinner and thicker nodes. Korea is 2nd. Essentially, only Eastern semiconductors exist as marketable products.
All China needs to do is to (ironically literally) friendshore most of its semis production away from Taiwan province back into the mainland, where it can be safely put under lock and key. Then, if it feels spicy, it can strongarm Korea's minor capacity out of business or harrass them into selling less to US.
China lacks a market price competitive EUV machine, but it has all the components and knowhow to make one in house, if the pricing can be pushed down sufficiently. In an emergency, it can also repossess and reverse engineer the ones they purchased from the west.
The future should trend towards one where all major components for modern technology would be held more closely guarded by China only. The rest of the world will send resources and in return recieve developed goods, which they can customize locally, but China should never again let any country such as US have influence in the core production. In this way, industrial production will be concentrated into the country with current and historically best efficiency/innovation capacity. The examples of such critical products being advanced materials, electronic appliances, batteries, solar panels/energy generation etc.
China (greater Asia region) being the industrial heartland to a global hinterland, where the latter will still benefit massively by achieving high income living quality due to cheap commodities, tourism and resource sales. It's better than any deal US gave the third world in the decades where they were the more dominant power.
