Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Near-Collapse of ZTE May Be China’s Sputnik Moment

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 127 posts

Re: Near-Collapse of ZTE May Be China’s Sputnik Moment

#21

Post by obelix_ »

shasheene wrote: post #4

I think history will suggest that the end of Deng Xiaoping's long-term strategy of "hide our capacities and bide our time" around 2015 was too premature to meet the government of China's long-term goals. The moderate amount of international goodwill that existed seems to have completely evaporated and been replaced with significant amounts of suspicion following the events of the past few years in the region. Because…

Idk I think US has bigger problems than whether it's semiconductor tech gets stolen. Social media and the news media have created such a dysfunctional environment that I am finding it increasingly hard to believe constructive debate/solutions on anything are possible until the underlying environment producing the dysfunction is cleaned up. If not we are just going to get more and more leaders from both sides propped up purely for skills to pander.

Re: Near-Collapse of ZTE May Be China’s Sputnik Moment

#22

Post by friedman23 »

Zafira wrote: post #15
shasheene wrote: post #4

I think history will suggest that the end of Deng Xiaoping's long-term strategy of "hide our capacities and bide our time" around 2015 was too premature to meet the government of China's long-term goals. The moderate amount of international goodwill that existed seems to have completely evaporated and been replaced with significant amounts of suspicion following the events of the past few years in the region. Because…

I agree this policy is likely folly and that China showed its cards far too early, but I also believe that the Western policy of hoping that welcoming in China would lead to greater democratic freedoms was one of arrogance. The current landscape of trade deals and international law is clearly Western focused and to believe that other cultures are simply going to happily go along with that logic in the long run seems…

> and to believe that other cultures are simply going to happily go along with that logic in the long run seems foolish

This framing is problematic. It's not other "cultures" that are resistive to the idea of liberalism and democratic ideals, it's the despots that lead and control those governments that are resistant. How many non Western cultures have thrived under democracies with individual liberties? Japan, a country with a culture that cares little about individualism is one of the most prosperous nations ever.

Re: Near-Collapse of ZTE May Be China’s Sputnik Moment

#23

Post by adventured »

dmode wrote: post #17
xevb3k wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I’m mistaken, your list contains both semiconductor companies with and without fabs. I think for this discussion semiconductor companies with fabrication facilities are more interesting. How much fab is still done in the US?

I believe almost no Fab manufacturing happens in the US anymore. This is why the article seems a little hyperbolic to me. I understand US companies lead in chip design, but if Asian companies are manufacturing the chips, how long will it take to reverse engineer? To add to this, many engineers working for these American Giants are Asians and can be poached back. Look how it little it took for Chinese manufacturers to…

> I believe almost no Fab manufacturing happens in the US anymore.

That's incorrect. The US has four or five dozen fabs. It's one of the largest fab manufacturers globally, along with Taiwan, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea. The US is likely to grow its domestic fab manufacturing over the next decade, thanks to the new lower corporate income tax rate and tighter restrictions on IP exportation (those two things lured Broadcom home).

> how long will it take to reverse engineer?

That's where China faces a problem: that only works if you have no plans to integrate further into the global economy.

For the most part, the EU, North America, South America, Australia/NZ, Japan, South Korea, etc. isn't going to buy your stolen semiconductor tech.

If you're going to steal semi tech and use it as your own, at best you can only sell it domestically.

Re: Near-Collapse of ZTE May Be China’s Sputnik Moment

#24

Post by JumpCrisscross »

zeth___ wrote: post #20

If Chinas leadership was smart they would push for open source commodity ics. Opensource always wins and they could do a run around the US where old technologies like x86 die and all the experience built around then becomes irrelevant.

> Opensource always wins

Zero evidence of this claim at any level.

Re: Near-Collapse of ZTE May Be China’s Sputnik Moment

#25

Post by analognoise »

zeth___ wrote: post #20

If Chinas leadership was smart they would push for open source commodity ics. Opensource always wins and they could do a run around the US where old technologies like x86 die and all the experience built around then becomes irrelevant.

If it was smart, wouldn't the people who possess the knowledge and talent to turn sand (silicon) into borderline magic (modern nanometer fab) currently be doing that?

They aren't. So they are themselves either 'not very smart' or the contributions from 'open sourcing' is not actually very valuable. I think it's the latter.

Re: Near-Collapse of ZTE May Be China’s Sputnik Moment

#26

Post by Zafira »

friedman23 wrote: post #22
Zafira wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree this policy is likely folly and that China showed its cards far too early, but I also believe that the Western policy of hoping that welcoming in China would lead to greater democratic freedoms was one of arrogance. The current landscape of trade deals and international law is clearly Western focused and to believe that other cultures are simply going to happily go along with that logic in the long run seems…

> and to believe that other cultures are simply going to happily go along with that logic in the long run seems foolish This framing is problematic. It's not other "cultures" that are resistive to the idea of liberalism and democratic ideals, it's the despots that lead and control those governments that are resistant. How many non Western cultures have thrived under democracies with individual liberties? Japan, a cou…

I am not arguing democratic ideals are bad. Obviously these norms and standards can be introduced to any culture and assimilated over time. What I am arguing is that the method that seems to have been used to get people to accept them doesn't work, was never going to work, but mostly that forcing the construction of certain legal/cultural rights onto groups as part of some international framework was bound to have issues. It has been done in a very sort of, "To join our club, you have to believe that this thing we made up is a universal truth."

As an example, the concept of authors' rights is something that is enforced through the Berne Convention and the original signatories in 1887 were shockingly all Western (or Westernized) nations. Acceptance of it is a WTO membership requirement. The existence of authors' rights is not a thing in some cultures and it is orthogonal to democratic values, but in order to play ball in the global arena, you have to agree that it is a thing.

Re: Near-Collapse of ZTE May Be China’s Sputnik Moment

#27

Post by endtime »

obelix_ wrote: post #21
shasheene wrote: post #4

I think history will suggest that the end of Deng Xiaoping's long-term strategy of "hide our capacities and bide our time" around 2015 was too premature to meet the government of China's long-term goals. The moderate amount of international goodwill that existed seems to have completely evaporated and been replaced with significant amounts of suspicion following the events of the past few years in the region. Because…

Idk I think US has bigger problems than whether it's semiconductor tech gets stolen. Social media and the news media have created such a dysfunctional environment that I am finding it increasingly hard to believe constructive debate/solutions on anything are possible until the underlying environment producing the dysfunction is cleaned up. If not we are just going to get more and more leaders from both sides propped…

> If not we are just going to get more and more leaders from both sides propped up purely for skills to pander.

While I share some of your concerns about the media, isn't this (just an uncharitable way of stating) the entire purpose of democracy?

Re: Near-Collapse of ZTE May Be China’s Sputnik Moment

#28

Post by ac29 »

dmode wrote: post #17
xevb3k wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I’m mistaken, your list contains both semiconductor companies with and without fabs. I think for this discussion semiconductor companies with fabrication facilities are more interesting. How much fab is still done in the US?

I believe almost no Fab manufacturing happens in the US anymore. This is why the article seems a little hyperbolic to me. I understand US companies lead in chip design, but if Asian companies are manufacturing the chips, how long will it take to reverse engineer? To add to this, many engineers working for these American Giants are Asians and can be poached back. Look how it little it took for Chinese manufacturers to…

Almost all of Intel's fabs are in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si...

Re: Near-Collapse of ZTE May Be China’s Sputnik Moment

#30

Post by maskedSlacker »

analognoise wrote: post #25
zeth___ wrote: post #20

If Chinas leadership was smart they would push for open source commodity ics. Opensource always wins and they could do a run around the US where old technologies like x86 die and all the experience built around then becomes irrelevant.

If it was smart, wouldn't the people who possess the knowledge and talent to turn sand (silicon) into borderline magic (modern nanometer fab) currently be doing that? They aren't. So they are themselves either 'not very smart' or the contributions from 'open sourcing' is not actually very valuable. I think it's the latter.

Valuable for who? Open source (at the margin) is more valuable for everyone--except the inventor, for whom it is not as valuable. So the inventor keeps the design proprietary, and keeps more money for themselves.

But, as is often the case, decisions that are optimal at the margin can often lead to suboptimal outcomes in aggregate.

I'm not convinced that's the case in IC fabrication, but its not impossible.

Post reply on HN