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Arm China Has Gone Rogue

semianalysis.substack.com

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Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#141

Post by hintymad »

vkou wrote: post #120
hintymad wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an honest question: why could China catch up to the western countries in many verticals and even become the dominant player, while in history the western could stay lightyears ahead of developing countries, no matter how hard the developing countries tried, with or without government interference or industrial espionage? What's changed?

> What's changed? Colonialism ended. The west was not light years ahead of, say, India, when it was first colonized. In the process of colonizing it, India's industrialization was stopped. Countries didn't somehow fall into 'developed' and 'undeveloped' buckets by divine fiat. The latter tended to be invaded by the former, with the occupiers focusing more on wealth extraction, than development. Once that parasitic re…

I'm not sure if we can attribute the gap solely to colonialism. Chinese rulers back in 1890s thought the products of industrialization were simply exotic crap. They despised STEM and didn't have a single school teaching STEM (there were a few such schools due to the Western Affairs Movement, but they were not created by the government). I don't think this level of barbarian culture was caused by colonialism.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#143

Post by drumhead »

denverkarma wrote: post #64

So when is the western world going to wake up and realize that China is a cutthroat competitor that does not respect western law or traditions, cannot be trusted, and intends to dominate the world? This seems especially troubling for the tech world as IP is easily copied and the only thing that really protects it is the legal system, which China has shown over and over they don't care about.

They were distracted by their "clash of cultures" wars in the middle east. They failed to fully identify China as the main threat to democratic nations and allowed the transfer of capital and technology to go on unhindered. The lack of democracy and human rights wasnt a real issue to them because China wasnt considered to be a future threat. There was the naive belief that democracy would be the inevitable outcome of economic growth and a growing and more affluent middle class.

But people care primarily about their economic well being, and whatever system delivers it is what they'll be happy with. There are no huge movements calling for democratic reforms in well off non-democracies like Saudi Arabia, or the Gulf states. And even in democracies like Hungary or Poland the slow slide to a more authorotarian government hasnt got the majority of people worked up, as long as their personal circumstances arent too badly affected. Democracy is only that thing which is demanded when they want to change their circumstances for the better, otherwise its forgotten or undermined when the good times are rolling.

Will China win? No I dont think they will, they dont have the ability to change course peacefully or quickly enough under an authorotrian system. They let momentum carry them in straight lines until they crash into a wall. Our problem is that we're stuck with a rich and technologically advanced threat that we built. Trump for all his faults did the right thing by starting the economic war with them, Obama was quite happy to let the status quo of technology, capital and job transfers continue unabated.

But we havent learnt our lesson and we risk making the same mistakes with India. The western nation are looking for another low wage, low cost manufacturing base, and they're going all out on India. But we can see the authorotarian and less democratic direction the government there is taking everyday. Yet all our major tech companies and planning to build and invest in capacity over there. Until we end up with another rich and technologically nation that isnt a friend of democracy.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#144

Post by mercy_dude »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #98
denverkarma wrote: post #64

So when is the western world going to wake up and realize that China is a cutthroat competitor that does not respect western law or traditions, cannot be trusted, and intends to dominate the world? This seems especially troubling for the tech world as IP is easily copied and the only thing that really protects it is the legal system, which China has shown over and over they don't care about.

Western businesses will never care. They don't care that the chinese destroy the planet. They don't care that the chinese manipulate the quality of the products they manufacture on their behalf. They don't care that the chinese sell counterfeits at huge markups in markets developed countries couldn't care less about. The only thing they care about is money. They'll never stop doing business with China until it stops…

> Western businesses

Western business and the ruling class that are in bed with the said corporate world.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#145

Post by reaperducer »

monocasa wrote: post #33

I'm not sure what anyone expected when we cut China off of chip IP. We did the same thing in the US, we had a policy of just straight up encouraging people to memorize patents before they immigrated over, and paying for their family to immigrate with them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater

So, you contend that because the United States did something questionable 200 years ago, it's OK for China to do it in modern times.

Got it.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#146

Post by jbhouse »

It's almost like China wants to make sure nobody ever lets them near useful IP again. This just seems counterproductive for them in the long run, though if you understand geopolitics better than I do, please help my understand how this is a good long-term strategy for China

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#147

Post by mokus »

This article repeats “安谋科技” so many times but as far as I can tell, doesn’t mention even once how I might attempt to pronounce it or recognize when anyone else mentions it in the future. Can anyone at least provide a transliteration?

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#148

Post by jackcosgrove »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #100
landryraccoon wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Highly centralized (command & control) and mercantilist systems tend to do well in the short term, but struggle and founder in the long term. That sounds like a prayer to me. What evidence is there that China can't win? How are you certain that authoritarian regimes can't both gain and keep dominance over timescale of decades or centuries? Consider that the dominance of democracy is a relatively short term thing on…

We've been down this road with the Soviet Union during portions of the cold war, when folks in the West thought that high Soviet GDP catch-up growth would translate into sustained non-catch-up growth and meant non-authoritarian governments were doomed. It didn't work out that way. Democracy isn't assured, we could easily vote it away in the West. But there is definitely a pattern whereby enormous cutting-edge economi…

All those centuries of authoritarian rule also coincided with technological and economic stagnation. That might not be causal, but I think it is. The industrial revolution came after a number of liberalizing political movements in northwestern Europe.

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#149

Post by sennight »

bserge wrote: post #136
sennight wrote: post #122

I remember when bitcoin miners were transitioning from FPGA to ASIC... I nearly threw out my back from laughter when the Chinese deceitfully copied the masks with abandon, while also delaying fulfillment with longer and longer burn in tests.

I don't get it, all current ASIC miners are from China.

lol, gee - wonder how that happened? There have been a few non-Chinese sourced chips decapped that predate the Chinese offerings, but as soon as some idiot uploaded his design to a Chinese fab in an attempt to undercut the competition...

Re: Arm China Has Gone Rogue

#150

Post by random314 »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #139
random314 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soviet Russia had a much smaller population and market size than China.

And China has its own problems, including hugely problematic demographics and an export-fueled economy that is still highly dependent on trade with the West.

Your reasoning is based on narratives which I personally always discount.

Economists expect China to overtake the US economy in size by the 2030s. This can obviously either accelerate or decelerate and there will be hindsight reasoning in any case. Nevertheless, I don't see any of your narrative based arguments substantive.

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