AMAT, basically is collateral damage. The Americans did that to themselves. They sacrificed their own. They expected the Dutch and Japanese to sacrifice their own too.
If the US government deemed AMAT to be collateral damage, then Netherlands, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, their companies are all candidates to be collateral damage too.
Then, this game became interesting.
China attacked Micron.
The Americans were outraged. They condemned this Chinese move, and vowed to work with their allies to prevent them from selling to China, to back-fill the lost Micron business.
But as we see today, the Americans caved in on that.
What gives!?
This is my impression, and I got no idea what the Americans are thinking. Or doing for that matter. Some bizarre belief in some weird game theory maybe?
What seems to have happened here, is like what happens in a chess game, Western or Chinese chess, where sometimes your rook or che or pao, gets trapped.
China by banning Micron, trapped the Americans, exposing the divisions in their alliances, and exposing the toothless American policy.
The reason I think the Americans caved in to the Korean and Taiwan demands, is that they realized their bishop got trapped, and do not want to lose their rook either. So they cave and cut their losses this time.
In their minds, the Americans believe they need Korea and Taiwan, and altogether fight China in the American lead tech war. Therefore, they had to keep Korea and Taiwan happy.
The problem is that by caving in, that means lost their trapped rook or bishop. Losing such a piece means more difficulty in subsequent moves on the chess board, and makes it more difficult to win the game.
Incidentally, just wondering out loud here, if this tech war turns into a war of attrition, such as I will buy less tech from you lowering your business, then this definitely favours China.
Why?
The Americans have something to lose, while China IC is still relative small, but growing exponentially due to domestic demand, created by you know what.
Bwhahahahahahahahhhaaaa!
