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U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

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Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#161
post #145

One thing that I really like about the Trump administration is that finally the WH has decided to act against the systemic threat posed by China. Can someone who is well versed in politics shed some light on if this is a trump specific phenonemon or had there been a sea change and the dems are now on board too ?

A systemic threat to what? It's own people? Is that our problem? [1] Uncooperative neighbours? We, here in the US, have posed, do pose, and continue to pose a threat to uncooperative nations across the entire world. Our domestic economy? All problems with it are entirely of our own doing. Globalization killing the middle class? That's not a China problem, that's a domestic political problem. And yes, general tariffs…

> I don't consider that unipolar hegemony to have ever been a good thing for most people outside - or inside the US.

The same. I am greatly encouraged that we are moving back to a multipolar world and that the USA's untrammeled power is being challenged. And that it being challenged will be good for the US American people as well.

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The threat from China has been existent and ignored for the past 30 years, the same 30 years that China rose from 3rd world country to the superpower it is today. The change in attitude began with Trump. He was to first president to bring the threat of China to the mainstream political discourse. Since then, China is so objectively a threat to the U.S. economically, militarily and through their direct actions of mani…

Thank you. Can you recommend some books on the subject? Or related subjects ?

When China Rules the World by Jaqcues and AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee are both very good.

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What will happen if they cut off the us entirely and force asian countries to cease trading with it What happens when we do it to them? China is powerful, sure. But they aren't more powerful than the western world. We'll win that fight. (Well, by "win" I mean suffer less damages). Western companies are also already pretty cut off from the Chinese market. Cutting them off even more so is unlikely to have as huge if…

I don't think the US can anymore. What Trump did was idiotic. There was a lot of power that world thought the US has, but doesn't seem to have. By issuing all these threats and not being able to follow through with them Trump essentially showed the world that the US isn't as omnipotent as everyone thought it would be. Subsequently Asias reaction to absolutely do not do any business with Huawei as the US ambassador as…

Although it seems like a lot, the US reaction was maybe a 2/10 before trump and dialed up to a 4/10 after trump.

There’s MUCH more the US can do if they really wanted to. Consider:

1. China is an export-driven economy.

2. The majority of trade flows through ocean trade routes.

3. The US navy patrols and controls the majority of water routes around the world.

But, extreme escalation on either side could push this beyond an economic dispute and no party wants that.

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#164
post #144

So far, china has only retaliated defensively against the us. I wonder what will happen when china decides to go on the offensive the same way the us has and hit were it really hurts? What will happen if they cut off the us entirely and force asian countries to cease trading with it (i.e. using the same strategies used to isolate iran or turkey). Successful military intervention is unlikely since china is a nuclear s…

> What will happen if they cut off the us entirely and force asian countries to cease trading with it What happens when we do it to them? China is powerful, sure. But they aren't more powerful than the western world. We'll win that fight. (Well, by "win" I mean suffer less damages). Western companies are also already pretty cut off from the Chinese market. Cutting them off even more so is unlikely to have as huge if…

Nah this is not true, we actually sell more stuff to China than the other way around. They've just not yet really tried to retaliate. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-12/the-1-4-t... Tariffs hurt yourself first before anyone else. But if shit really hits the fan they no doubt will.

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#165

Wow, interesting to see Hikvision on this list, I own several of their cameras (and keep them isolated on a separate VLAN), but once you know them, you see them everywhere, they have a huge hold in the video surveillance market. Wonder if their main Chinese competitor, Dahua will pick up their market share in the US or if there's a more local competitor. Huawei's HiSilicon fab makes purpose built ICs for these things…

Dahua also on the list.

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#166

If you really want the Palantir of the Chinese, check out Novogene. Then ask yourself why they have a CLIA- and CAP-approved lab in Sacramento. Then ask yourself, what shameless, desperate, or just clueless physicians and researchers are allowing their patients' genomes to be sequenced by an asset of the Chinese Communist Party. https://en.novogene.com/technology/quality-control/lab-certi... https://www.linkedin.com/…

As far as I can see everyone of importance is Chinese, the locals are all sales and admin?

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#167
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's basically one company making all this fentanyl. We know where it is, we know where the CEO lives. He's walking around free and in the open in China.

You are wrong to blame an entire country for our addiction to fentanyl. The facts are: 1. Fentanyl has legitimate pharmaceutical uses. 2. There are many, many, many legal manufacturers of Fentanyl, across the world, including Bayer, Johnson&Johnson, Meiji Seika Pharma (Japan), and yes, Chinese manufacturers. Some legal fentanyl ends up getting diverted into illegal channels. 3. There are also many, many, many illegal…

And yet in August we seized a Chinese shipment of fentanyl large enough to kill an entire state's worth of people. When China actually does something beyond lip service, then I'll believe you. Let's not forget, every major industry in China is controlled by the party. Whether it was a controlled substance in China is irrelevant to whether or not they're literally killing us by the tens of thousands a year.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/opioid-crisis-fentanyl-china-m...

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#168

One thing that I really like about the Trump administration is that finally the WH has decided to act against the systemic threat posed by China. Can someone who is well versed in politics shed some light on if this is a trump specific phenonemon or had there been a sea change and the dems are now on board too ?

The threat from China has been existent and ignored for the past 30 years, the same 30 years that China rose from 3rd world country to the superpower it is today. The change in attitude began with Trump. He was to first president to bring the threat of China to the mainstream political discourse. Since then, China is so objectively a threat to the U.S. economically, militarily and through their direct actions of mani…

I agree with most of your points. However, about this ...

> The threat from China has been existent and ignored for the past 30 years, the same 30 years that China rose from 3rd world country to the superpower it is today.

... I'm moved to note that it was Kissinger, as part of the post-WWII globalization effort, who helped China industrialize.

As I understand it, the idea is that war is less likely among nations, at comparable levels of economic and technological development, whose economies are strongly linked through trade.

The Soviet Union had helped China develop militarily, with tanks, ships, planes, missiles, and nuclear weapons. But it did a shit job, overall. So diverting China from ideological military confrontation to economic interdependence seemed like a smart move.

Longer term, though -- as you argue -- we have an overall stronger adversary than the Soviet Union would likely have become. They could have, with our help, destroyed modern civilization. But they arguably would have never dominated the world as the US has since WWII. As China may.

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#169
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aren’t necessarily bad for American workers. American manufacturing is high skill and involves precision equipment and manufacturing. What would have moved to Vietnam would have been more basic textiles and cnc/molding. Not sure why everyone glorifies basic manufacturing work like it’s the pinnacle of American labor.

> Not sure why everyone glorifies basic manufacturing work like it’s the pinnacle of American labor. War requires a lot of basic manufacturing capacity, and geopolitically those aren't good things to lose.

> War requires a lot of basic manufacturing capacity

A lot (if not most) of military machinery is still manufactured in the US. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman build our planes. General Dynamics, Oshkosh, and others build our tanks. Raytheon makes some of our missiles. In fact, here's full list of who's building our defense tech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_defense_... -- As you can see, it's mostly home-grown and home-based American companies. We've done a very good job of keeping our most critical and sensitive manufacturing jobs inside the states.

It's mostly consumer goods manufacturing that's moved abroad. I don't see any particular benefit in bringing it back stateside. Making things in low-wage countries like Vietnam or China dramatically slashes costs for the consumers, allowing us American consumers to live a more lavish lifestyle. Forcing consumer goods to be manufactured in the U.S. would dramatically drive up their prices, and in effect be an indirect tax on the American consumer. Moreover, the U.S. is nearly at full employment. Who's going to staff the factories that will make consumer goods? With the extreme hostility to immigration we have under the folks in charge now, I don't see any new immigrants being let in to work at these new factories. Companies would be forced to build fully automated factories (due to labor shortage), and there'll be jarring period of high consumer goods prices while software engineers write code for new robotic/automated manufacturing of basic goods. Maybe in the end, this newly written software will (with its development cost amortized over time) allow us to undercut the prices of even low-wage human-requiring manufacturing and become a reigning manufacturer of all sorts of things -- but that benefit feels fairly remote, far-fetched, and hard-to-achieve.

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#170

One thing that I really like about the Trump administration is that finally the WH has decided to act against the systemic threat posed by China. Can someone who is well versed in politics shed some light on if this is a trump specific phenonemon or had there been a sea change and the dems are now on board too ?

Unfortunately Dems are NOT on board.

I remember one of the earlier debates and, when asked, I think most (all?) candidates had China much later in their priority list, after issues like healthcare, immigration, economy, Russia and so.

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