Near-Collapse of ZTE May Be China’s Sputnik Moment • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by kinsomo » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 1:57 PM UTC

dnomad wrote: post #78

gkanai wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I expect the Chinese to go through the expensive and long process of owning the entire stack, micro chips, and up. None of America's allies have chosen to "go through the expensive and long process of owning the entire stack" - America's allies use Windows, Android, Qualcomm, Intel, etc. If China really does want it's own home-built silicon running it's own written-at-home operating systems, they need decades and t…

There's certainly no need to write custom operating systems. China already happily customizes Android and Linux extensively across a wide range of devices. You can see this today just by walking down the street where there are street lights running linux. As for silicon China doesn't have much choice in the matter. Their dependence on American silicon may in fact be their greatest security risk. It's clear that the U…

> Their dependence on American silicon may in fact be their greatest security risk. It's clear that the US and its allies will weaponize this advantage (see Stuxnet)

Please elaborate on this point, my understanding is Stuxnet relied purely on software vulnerabilities (to spread and to take control of the centrifuges). I don't think it used any hardware backdoors or anything. If it did, I'd have expected the roar to be enormous, probably several times what we just had with Spectre/Meltdown.

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

#82

Post by merpnderp » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 2:09 PM UTC

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…

Everyone always says things are dysfunctional or bad but never says how. Manipulating people through social media has been a thing since there's been social media. Only today more people are aware of it than ever. Same with news agencies with axe's to grind. Journalists have been using their barrels of ink to push their angles since there has been newspapers. Today more people are aware of it than ever.

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

#83

Post by merpnderp » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

vetinari wrote: post #58

endtime wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Democracy assumes constructive attitude towards debate. Today we are getting it's better to be wrong with our side, than right with the opponent partisanship instead.

Are you sure you just don't disagree with people and can't imagine that they'd disagree with you because you're so obviously right, so they must secretly agree you're correct, but continue with a charade? Otherwise you need to provide some clear citations to how millions of people could know they are wrong but continue with their positions out of spite.

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

#84

Post by mistermann » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 2:19 PM UTC

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…

That article, as do so many others, rests its reasoning on a whole bunch of premises that are not facts, and there is not the slightest whiff of uncertainty throughout the entire piece. Granted it's an opinion piece so one shouldn't expect too much, but so much of what one reads in the "news" these days is written similarly: some actual facts, but plenty of opinions presented as fact. I believe much of our post-secondary educational institutions are similar. It's no wonder hardly anyone can tell the difference between fact and opinion anymore.

I'd argue this intellectual Achilles heel is one of the fundamental enablers of the political/gender/etc wars going on right now in Western societies, and this large and growing lack of social cohesion may ultimately play a crucial element in the "China vs US battle for #1 superpower". Anyone who projects into the future based on the premise that Western Liberal democracies are simply unbeatable (Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others) would benefit from even mild reading of history.

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

#85

Post by rasz » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 2:26 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #16

Animats wrote: post #5

China has an official plan, "Made in China 2025".[1] It's about moving up the value chain. Key areas are semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and aircraft engines. China is still way behind in wafer fabs, but SIMC is coming along. Wikipedia says they're at 40nm, which is not close to the state of the art, but is good enough for much consumer electronics. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025

They're at 28nm and building 8 core x86 chips that don't look terrible. https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/zhaoxin/microarchitectures/wuda...

No they arent, those are all on paper, also "The architecture and SKUs were officially unveiled at a conference on December 28, 2018" looks like they also make time machines.

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

#86

Post by JKCalhoun » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 2:32 PM UTC

varjag wrote: post #57

nvarsj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite the opposite. Instead, the floodgates have been opened to anyone, like the Russian government, with free access to powerful media platforms if you have the capital. Prior to that the mass media was in the hands of only a few, all based in the US. Control of the masses has been API'd. Basically, China should have bought more Facebook ads.

Looks like you both argue for the same thing. In times before, news distribution was subject to editorial process and basic standards of journalism. Not that it wasn't without own issues, but it helped sort out outright lunacy, bigotry and conspiracy theories. Distribution in 2010s bypasses that and mass media are now secondary to social network rumour mills. The political outcomes worldwide and deterioration of West…

Not sure they are arguing the same.

"Editorial process and basic standards of journalism" is not "cultural elitism" — it's what we had, lost, and now desperately need again.

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

#87

Post by analognoise » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC

zeth___ wrote: post #37

analognoise wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They were the first movers so they cornered the market with an inferior product. Now that China has no hope of capturing the market to extract rents the next best alternative is to make extracting rents impossible, destroying the business model of the US companies who rely on said rents. In terms of a trade war this has all the downsides of dumping products on the US firms with none of the downsides to the rest of th…

'Inferior product...rent seekers' - Yeah, that's why the Soviet Union started the silicon revolution, and why the Chinese currently lead the field, right?

They open sourced their fabs, and random farmers on collectives would come home (while starving) and make improvements in fab technology by candlelight.

If only they had you to guide them, with your advanced knowledge of economics, trade and process technology.

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

#88

Post by fulafel » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

nrp wrote: post #8

fulafel wrote: post #2

> In return, the company — once a symbol of China’s progress and engineering know-how — will be allowed to buy the American-made microchips, software and other tools it needs to survive. Aren't most mobile device SoC/ASICs made by non-US companies like TSMC and Samsung?

The fabrication of SoCs for mobile is mostly at TSMC in Taiwan and Samsung in Korea, but the ownership of the chips is American. TSMC manufactures the die, but it's fair to say that Qualcomm is the one "making" it since they own the IP and do the front and back end design-work. Similarly, you can say Apple makes the iPhone, even though final assembly is done at Foxconn or Wistron.

Yes, Qualcomm is US, but then there's Samsung at the high end and Allwinner & Mediatek at the mid/low end. ARM is also non-US, and some modem IP is also non-US. So it's not a controlling stake.

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

#89

Post by vetinari » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 2:47 PM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #83

vetinari wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy assumes constructive attitude towards debate. Today we are getting it's better to be wrong with our side, than right with the opponent partisanship instead.

Are you sure you just don't disagree with people and can't imagine that they'd disagree with you because you're so obviously right, so they must secretly agree you're correct, but continue with a charade? Otherwise you need to provide some clear citations to how millions of people could know they are wrong but continue with their positions out of spite.

It's not only in politics, but also in business, sales, at job, etc. Have you ever witnessed a bubble in opinions in some company, group, etc? Job's RDF was a harmless form of this :)

Many have internalized their position and they won't secretly agree. They won't even realize why they disagree, and won't consider objective facts. Some tiny minority may be aware of that, but many have economic incentive to continue their position, that mortgage won't pay itself after all. Thinking too much about it just makes it harder.

I'm trying to stay in theoretical level and not provide any specific examples except the RDF, because they could be too political/divisive/controversial, and I don't want to argue the specific cases or take sides, but point out to the phenomenon itself.

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

#90

Post by gumby » Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 2:48 PM UTC

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…

> The moderate amount of international goodwill that existed seems to have completely evaporated and been replaced with significant amounts of suspicion...

Are you in the USA? Because I'm sitting in Malaysia (who historically has a fraught relationship with China) where China is greeted with a mix of suspicion and opportunistic welcome (knowing that any cash or other assistant will have many strings attached)... basically the same way people think of the USA.

In other words: no change; no international good will to lose.