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Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

bbc.com

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Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#91

Post by _t9ow »

macleginn wrote: post #56
yanhangyhy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Good" is not a very objective term, but China does have 55 official minorities, coming from a long period of imperial expansion, so arguably it can be done. Don’t forget the history of Northern Wei, Yuan Dynasty, and Qing Dynasty – none of them were products of “Han Chinese imperialism.”

Qing Dynasty annexed Xinjiang, Taiwan, Tibet, Mongolia, as well as large chunks of Central Asia, and fought with Sikhs over Kashmir. Looks like a good case of imperial expansion to me.

The person you replied to wrote: none of them were products of “Han Chinese imperialism.”

This is correct, since the Qing Dynasty was led by the Manchus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty), not by the Han Chinese.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#92

Post by actionfromafar »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #53
NalNezumi wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'd like to believe this, I also know that CCP have as of late tapped in to a dangerous remedy for the dissatisfaction of their rule(economic slowdown): Nationalistic fervor. From my Chinese friends (and Hong Kong friends) it seems to be clear that the "century of humiliation" rhetoric is getting more prominent. Which includes rationalization such as "Japan and West (and Russia) humiliated us so it's our right…

Sure, nationalism definitely serves that purpose. But please consider: in the most recent conflicts/flare-ups, the initiator has actually been Japan, not China. Their new female prime minister is an extreme-right-wing politician who is not only provoking China, but also picking fights with South Korea and Russia at the same time, while pushing aggressively anti-immigrant and exclusionary policies. Her approval rating…

Not strange at all. China is powerful, thus scary.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#93

Post by KeplerBoy »

rich_sasha wrote: post #58
agentifysh wrote: post #30

isn't it risky to build this in a seismically active region? wouldn't somewhere that has almost no history of earthquakes like korea be better?

It would be darkly amusing if all chips come from either politically unstable Taiwan or seismically unstable Hokkaido. But then Japan seems amazing at producing all sorts of other delicate things, despite all of its soil being basically built out of earthquakes, so I guess they have this bit figured out.

Isn't Taiwan also seismically active? They are reports of earthquakes affecting TSMC fabs in january 2025 and april 2024.

Apparently these were not huge blows to their fabs, otherwise we would be talking about that day-in-day-out, but there's always a risk of that happening.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#94

Post by noselasd »

constantcrying wrote: post #75

As a European I have to say I am extremely jealous of a government with the willingness of doing something as radical as this. Europe desperately needs to secure its own semi conductor supply chain. Neither the EU nor any member states seems willing to do anything about this though. Europe still is in a position, where it feasibly could control 100% of the semiconductor value chain on the continent. But besides meani…

They are doing _something_ according to https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/european-c... . It'd be good for someone with more knowledge to summarise what this act means though.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#95

Post by SllX »

Braxton1980 wrote: post #79
noduerme wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not even a tough call if you had to lay odds on which would go offline first. Is "politically unstable" once again an acceptable euphemism for a small democracy being threatened with destruction by a totalitarian superpower? I thought we decided that was gauche. After, say, the German invasion of Czechoslovakia.

I don't think China wants to destroy Taiwan. They want it to be a part of China.

Right now there is no non-violent path to achieving that because Taiwan intends to violently and militarily resist if it comes to that. Probably with the aid of America, although I’m a lot less certain of that than 5 year ago, and it’s looking like it’s a lot more likely to be with the aid of Japan as well.

Also a success by the PRC would still result in the political destruction of the Republic of China and the subjugation of its people.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#96

Post by SllX »

agentifysh wrote: post #30

isn't it risky to build this in a seismically active region? wouldn't somewhere that has almost no history of earthquakes like korea be better?

Given Korea hasn’t been a Japanese colony since the War, and they want to build in their territory, options are limited.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#97

Post by mytailorisrich »

ivell wrote: post #90
yanhangyhy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once China solves the Taiwan problem they're going to turn their sights on Korea and Japan. China will not annex Japan or South Korea. As a Chinese person, I can assure you that this is not how our mindset works at all. Most of the Western media hype about this is deliberately designed to muddy the waters around the Taiwan issue. Taiwan is different: the vast majority of people there are ethnically Chinese, so reun…

> That cost is simply too high; no one in China wants to pay it China was happy to invade Tibet and assimilate it's population. Hard to believe that a government who claims all of South China sea, large parts of India (Arunachal Pradesh) does not want to expand. Or do you think people of Arunachal Pradesh are also Chinese?

Arunachal Pradesh is a historic part of Tibet and was part of the Qing Empire before the Chinese revolution of 1912.

When Tibet then broke away from China the Brits got what is now Arunachal Pradesh from Tibet.

Hence the ongoing Chinese claim but the days of any military actions are long gone.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#98

Post by laughing_man »

exe34 wrote: post #43
rfoo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China maintain the view that Tibet is part of China since the establishment of PRC, and they make this very explicit. Same for their border disputes with India. China never admitted that they believe it's not theirs. Mea while China does not ever say that Japan or Korea is part of China (and it's the only reason why they keep North Korea from collapsing despite it being super annoying). So, again, any example of Chin…

isn't that the same clever argument that Comrade Vladimir uses in Ukraine?

It's literally the same argument that every king, dictator, or president used to justify invasions in Europe (and presumably most of the world) since the end of feudalism. Even the Austrian moustache man justified his invasion of Russia based on myths of Aryan people having held that land in the distant past.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#99

Post by constantcrying »

Tade0 wrote: post #88
constantcrying wrote: post #75

As a European I have to say I am extremely jealous of a government with the willingness of doing something as radical as this. Europe desperately needs to secure its own semi conductor supply chain. Neither the EU nor any member states seems willing to do anything about this though. Europe still is in a position, where it feasibly could control 100% of the semiconductor value chain on the continent. But besides meani…

> Europe still is in a position, where it feasibly could control 100% of the semiconductor value chain on the continent. That's not possible. There are just too many different parts going into semiconductor production and they're scattered around the world. Case in point: the source of the best semiconductor-grade quartz is located in Spruce Pine, North Carolina and while there exist alternatives, for cost-competetiv…

While it may be true that cost advantages are in that specific quartz, it is not some irreplaceable product. It absolutely would be possible to use other quartz, which would require more processing and increase costs.

Do you have any actual examples of things which could not be in sourced into Europe? I am very aware that for many reasons, among them costs, semiconductor fabrication is spread globally. But is there an actual reason why it would be impossible to have every single one of these pieces in some capacity in Europe?

Europe is continually moving further apart politically from both the US and China. Relying on the US for supplies and betting on Chinese, Taiwanese peace seems increasingly foolish. How can Europe secure itself in such an environment, without its own semiconductor supply chain?

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#100

Post by laughing_man »

constantcrying wrote: post #75

As a European I have to say I am extremely jealous of a government with the willingness of doing something as radical as this. Europe desperately needs to secure its own semi conductor supply chain. Neither the EU nor any member states seems willing to do anything about this though. Europe still is in a position, where it feasibly could control 100% of the semiconductor value chain on the continent. But besides meani…

Isn't Europe the source of almost all the tooling that goes into brand new fabs?
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