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Beijing criticises Netherlands’ move to block ASML exports to China

reuters.com

61–70 of 149 posts

Re: Beijing criticises Netherlands’ move to block ASML exports to China

#61
post #46
post #2

I wonder if these actions will have the opposite effect. China will only more invest into producing their own. And I think we should not underestimate them. Could be good for competition though.

As other have said this is already happening with Huawei and SMIC. And this is DUV, not EUV. China has already poured billions into it, and will continue to do so until it is somewhat cost neutral. 98% of smartphone outside of Apple and Samsung are Chinese brand. Their domestic market will be the first to use some of these chips, to use the term HN may have heard of it, To eat its own dog food. It isn't just Foundry…

What does lifting mean here?

Re: Beijing criticises Netherlands’ move to block ASML exports to China

#62
post #30
post #2

I wonder if these actions will have the opposite effect. China will only more invest into producing their own. And I think we should not underestimate them. Could be good for competition though.

Maybe they can develop their own high-tech fabrication technology to catch up, but I wonder how they will manage and accelerate the progress. The West has IP laws to incentivise R&D by the free market. In China, IP law enforcement is hit-and-miss. Small entities risk having their research getting used by others for free so it would be up to big entities that are well-connected to the centers of power to do the R&D. R…

This is less and less the case. IP protection in China has been improving for years.

Re: Beijing criticises Netherlands’ move to block ASML exports to China

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter if it was ethically justified or not. The fact remains that the assets were frozen by the US government which runs contrary to the notion that the US allows unrestricted capital movement. Today it's Russians' assets, yesterday it was Afghanistan's central bank's assets and tomorrow it can be any other country

I assume you'd deliver fuel to the Japanese Empire until they directly attacked you. Or maybe even later, after all deals have to be kept right?

I assume you would be fine with the US assets being frozen by the rest of the world for unprovoked aggression on Iraq?

Re: Beijing criticises Netherlands’ move to block ASML exports to China

#64

> Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Tuesday urged the Netherlands "to be impartial, respect market principles and the law, take practical actions to protect the common interests of both countries and their companies and maintain the stability of international supply chains". This amuses me greatly. I had no idea China is explicitly pro-market capitalism.

China has been pro-market since the 80s. But they don't view markets as fundamentally incompatible with socialism. Their approach is to utilize markets and to further open up, but to step in when the market fails. In other words: yes to markets, but use it as a tool and don't trust it blindly.

For example the recent real estate bubble pop was intentional. They've recognized for a decade that the real estate market is dysfunctional and that people shouldn't invest all their money into a rent-seeking unproductive dead-end. Instead, they want the market to redirect their money to advanced technology like advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI, etc. And that's happening now.

Re: Beijing criticises Netherlands’ move to block ASML exports to China

#65
post #61
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As other have said this is already happening with Huawei and SMIC. And this is DUV, not EUV. China has already poured billions into it, and will continue to do so until it is somewhat cost neutral. 98% of smartphone outside of Apple and Samsung are Chinese brand. Their domestic market will be the first to use some of these chips, to use the term HN may have heard of it, To eat its own dog food. It isn't just Foundry…

What does lifting mean here?

I think being the first big buyer from these companies, thus lifting them to the upper market.

Re: Beijing criticises Netherlands’ move to block ASML exports to China

#66
While many people are likely more knowledgeable about this topic than I, I stumbled upon this Bloomberg video titled "This Is How Huawei Shocked America With a Smartphone" by chance a couple of weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08myo1UdTZ8. It provided some helpful context for me, and I thought it might be valuable for others as well.

Re: Beijing criticises Netherlands’ move to block ASML exports to China

#67
post #2

I wonder if these actions will have the opposite effect. China will only more invest into producing their own. And I think we should not underestimate them. Could be good for competition though.

It is just a delaying tactic. ASML is 5-10 years ahead in their technology so it will take a while for China to catch up. Which will grant the USA some extra time to build its own chip industry and not be dependent on two or three other countries.

Yes, though it's not only about delaying China so the US can catch up in semiconductors, but also about trying to delay China so that they miss their window of opportunity to invade Taiwan.

Xi's aim is to reunify Taiwan with the mainland sometime in the 2020s. The US is trying to deter that using a comprehensive deterrence strategy - military, diplomatic, economic. Hence new US bases in northern Philippines, US supporting Japan in changing its constitution to enable more military buildup, US increasing arms sales to Taiwan, US SSBN publicly docking in Korea, AUKUS, Quad, improved diplomatic relations with India, general derisking/decoupling and relocating of supply chains to Vietnam, Mexico, India, etc.

The ASML and Nvidia bans are just a part of an overall comprehensive delay and deterrence strategy, primarily aimed at thwarting Chinese ability to deploy advanced AI in the near term that could be useful in an attack on Taiwan and potential war vs the US & allies in the next few years.

Yes it does incentivize the Chinese to more quickly develop indigenous advanced chip manufacturing capabilities, but that was happening anyway and everyone including the US knows it can't be stopped at this point. But it's about throwing as many wrenches into Xi's invasion plans and 2020s timeline as possible, and this is just one of many.

Re: Beijing criticises Netherlands’ move to block ASML exports to China

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is just a delaying tactic. ASML is 5-10 years ahead in their technology so it will take a while for China to catch up. Which will grant the USA some extra time to build its own chip industry and not be dependent on two or three other countries.

It's not -just- a delaying tactic. It's a trade. Without these sanctions, China will likely soon develop chip design talent that's at the cutting edge, but they'll fab with TSMC (and thus use the entire Western-dependant supply chain). This means that China's chip manufacturing ecosystem will remain poor, unpopular and underdeveloped. With these sanctions, China's chip design talent can't fab cutting edge chips. But…

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Re: Beijing criticises Netherlands’ move to block ASML exports to China

#70
post #2

I wonder if these actions will have the opposite effect. China will only more invest into producing their own. And I think we should not underestimate them. Could be good for competition though.

Unfortunately for the Chinese it's extremely tricky for even private capital to pick the winners in these spaces. I'd guess there is almost zero chance the Chinese government giving out free cash beat the market and even build the right stuff. Can they even build the light sources or optics for these devices. Don't Zeiss make the flattest mirrors ever made for this? There's probably hundreds of technologies that are as close to magic as you can get in the ASML lithography systems, I'm skeptical of even companies in the US being able to copy this for a long time.

By the time the Chinese catch up (if ever) the next generation of chip development will be coming online such as High NA and we are even starting to experiment with XRay lithography.

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