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Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

reuters.com

191–200 of 452 posts

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree these stories should not be overblown, and have been a regular occurrence. It isn’t a worrisome escalation. But it is incorrect to say they are happening because the ADIZ extends over Chinese territory. The repeated incursions are out over the ocean, most commonly over the SW corner of the ADIZ which is not over mainland China. China is doing it intentionally, and is both testing and prodding Taiwan.

To be clear, though, under international law China has every right to fly in those areas . Just like when we fly/sail 12 miles off Russia, or send ships past the islands China's making in the South China Sea. When we do it, it's a "freedom of navigation" exercise. Yes, it's testing air defenses, but it frustrates me when officials breathlessly act like it's a big deal.

With military aircraft? I don't think that's covered by international law, it doesn't sound right. Any country would object.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#192
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much onshoring did orange man actually do? According to St. Louis FRED - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP - basically nothing > call him an idiot! And you were and still are right to do that!

Love him or hate him, if you don't think Trump caused a monumental, almost overnight shift in both public and governmental opinion towards going back to promoting American manufacturing, bringing jobs back to America, and finally fighting back against China for their decades of taking advantage of us... you're letting your bias do all the talking, and that's sad. You'll note that in his debates, Biden took some lines…

Bernie was saying the same things before Trump showed up - this is a general trend, not caused by anyone in particular.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#193
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, though, under international law China has every right to fly in those areas . Just like when we fly/sail 12 miles off Russia, or send ships past the islands China's making in the South China Sea. When we do it, it's a "freedom of navigation" exercise. Yes, it's testing air defenses, but it frustrates me when officials breathlessly act like it's a big deal.

With military aircraft? I don't think that's covered by international law, it doesn't sound right. Any country would object.

Yes, with military aircraft. ADIZs have no (international) legal standing; international law says countries control airspace only over their territory, which means the same 12 mile limit ships are subject to. Other countries have every right to fly or sail up to that 12 mile limit.

Again, Taiwan's ADIZ extends over China.

When we fly close to Russia, they send fighters up to escort. We do the same when they fly planes near Alaska.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/26/politics/russian-fighter-jets...

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/us-fighter-jets-intercept-ru...

> The Russian aircraft were in the ADIZ north of Alaska for about 4 hours, according to North American Aerospace Defense Command, which said the planes came as close as 50 nautical miles to the Alaskan coast but did not enter U.S. or Canadian airspace. The ADIZ extends 200 miles from the U.S. and Canadian coasts, but territorial airspace only extends 12 miles from the coast.

In fact, the US explicitly says "nuh uh!" to other countries' ADIZs... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Defense_Identification_Zon...

> Moreover, the U.S. Navy's Commander's Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations states the ADIZ applies only to commercial aircraft intending to enter U.S. sovereign airspace, with a basis in international law of "the right of a nation to establish reasonable conditions of entry into its territory". The manual specifically instructs U.S. military aircraft to ignore the ADIZ of other states when operating in coastal areas...

Here's a US RC-135 surveillance aircraft violating the Chinese ADIZ to get about 20 miles from the mainland. https://twitter.com/SCS_PI/status/1373886128177041410

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#194
post #37
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we saved some money by shuttering all our factories and outsourcing everything, so, who's to say what the right answer was. (/s)

"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road.

Gee, one might almost reach the conclusion that unregulated free markets are bad...

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a Chinese raised in China myself, this happens pretty regularly since years ago. I don’t think Winnie the Pooh has big balls to attack Taiwan in recent future. China has too much to lose right now.

But China is too much coupled with the western economy to even sanction effectively. I think CCP must be watching this to see the cost and benefits Russia gets for invading Ukraine, which would definitely influence their decision even more than Afghanistan would have. If the cost for Russia is too low, then they wouldn't be risking much.

China does not want to get involved in major conflicts. They will be opportunistic if/when they have a chance to take power, but they are not as risk tolerant as Putin. Only since 2016 or so have they started to come out of their shell to take advantage of relative American weaknesses.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#196

I've found the reason (I think) 90% of the world's semiconductor-grade neon production is concentrated in one country. Per this German government whitepaper about the noble gas industry: the USSR massively overinvested in neon capacity in the 1980's, in order to build space-based excimer laser weapons. Ukraine's extant plants date (probably) to the 1980's; they're responsible for a global oversupply that's persisted…

Did the US have a similar project? I'm aware of Project Excalibur, but I think that was significantly more ambitious (nuclear powered x-ray laser) and wasn't developed nearly as far.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#198

I've found the reason (I think) 90% of the world's semiconductor-grade neon production is concentrated in one country. Per this German government whitepaper about the noble gas industry: the USSR massively overinvested in neon capacity in the 1980's, in order to build space-based excimer laser weapons. Ukraine's extant plants date (probably) to the 1980's; they're responsible for a global oversupply that's persisted…

[deleted]

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#199
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love him or hate him, if you don't think Trump caused a monumental, almost overnight shift in both public and governmental opinion towards going back to promoting American manufacturing, bringing jobs back to America, and finally fighting back against China for their decades of taking advantage of us... you're letting your bias do all the talking, and that's sad. You'll note that in his debates, Biden took some lines…

Bernie was saying the same things before Trump showed up - this is a general trend, not caused by anyone in particular.

Politicians of all sorts have been saying lots of things for decades. The fact is, nobody as influential or as powerful as Trump ever actually did anything about most of them. In particular, the anti-China anti-offshoring sentiment.

It took Trump yelling about it from the rooftops for over 5 years, and getting over half the population as passionate about it as he was, and then Trump actually doing things about it while in office, for things to actually happen and be set in motion.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#200
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t think Winnie the Pooh has big balls to attack Taiwan in recent future. Not disagreeing with you, but I think people generally incorrectly assume that a dictator with absolute power thinks and acts rationally.

Ironically, I think the above statement is irrational. Why does being a dictator automatically make you more irrational? Absolute power has no direct causal bearing on human intelligence. It does not make you more irrational or more rational. There are plenty of examples of good kings, bad kings, good emperors and bad emperors throughout history both for ancient china and plenty of other civilizations. Modern China,…

> Why does being a dictator automatically make you more irrational?

Lack of constructive feedback paired with that all your thoughts including irrational ones are amplified through the echo chamber.

It's easy to get caught up with weird ideas (and the more power you have the weirder it might get because you have to solve more complex problems and have much more vast capabilities). If you don't have external feedback you need to be much more resilient to irrationality than under normal circumstances.

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