this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
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That’s because they are serious about it. Chip fabrication will likely determine the victor of the next 25 years in world politics.
But they are buying mature-node equipment, says the article. That doesn't mean shit other then more cloning and counterfeiting.
China started their high-speed rail network by buying German trains, today their trains are faster than Germany's and their rail network is more extensive and cheaper.
They're investing in education, every step of the supply chain, and their chip companies, and bringing in foreign experts and equipment to fill in any gaps. That's how you get an advanced semiconductor industry.
Trains are one thing, modern chip fab is a completely different. Buying older equipment is not going to get them anywhere but into the production of chips that have been on the market for 10 years already.
This is one industry where each generation has hard limits for manufacturing.
TSMC didn't start by building current nodes, they started out 10 years behind and caught up, and eventually surpassed over decades.
There is a bit more history behind TSMC. You left out the bits where they partnered with other companies, like Philips, that gave them access to proprietary information. They continued building relationships with other large companies and investing back into their own business.
China isn't doing that. China has had access to older fab equipment for years but still fails to truly innovate. If US companies could trust China enough not to steal modern tech, there could be some real benefits to having fabs in China. The world kinda figured out never to send proprietary information to China years ago. Companies still do and doesn't take long for a thousand clones to pop up on Ali Express shortly after.
Don't you remember all the articles about how China had made unexpected advances last year?
I remember they finally were able to make a ball point pen all by themselves in 2017.
When I actually start seeing products that aren't contaminated with fake ICs or are actually grounded properly without hyper-strict foreign supervision, I'll change my tune. Until then, there isn't an article in the world that will convince me that China is actually innovating or taking steps to make quality products.
I don't like genocidal governments tho, can you deny a uyghur genocide really quick so I can clap like an idiot over trains and microchips?
It's been decades, if the US was capable of building a high speed rail network, they would have done it. We tried and failed. There's 3 HSR lines, one of which doesn't even average 60 miles an hour, but theoretically could do 180 if it wasn't for the highways and NIMBYs.
Edit: There is 1 HSR line, the one in California is still being planned, and the brightline isn't HSR.
Every year they close the gap by spending hundreds of billions on schools and infrastructure, while we spend hundreds of billions on prisons and bombs.
Great example of another tech that is slowly bankrupting China because of it‘s overly excessive but poor implementation. One trillion dollars of debt and rising for a network that is barely used in most parts.
Did you just make that up? According to wikipedia (it cites a chinese-language source I can't read), average occupancy was increasing until 2016, where the statistics end.
But we can infer later occupancy from other statistics:
Passenger trips per year increase every year, with a drop in 2020, but it went back up to 3.68 billion in 2023, 1.6x what it was in 2019 and 3x what it was when occupancy had increased to 72%
There's issues, such as that it tends not to run through city centers, but lack of occupancy doesn't seem like one. In any case, cheap intercity transit is a public good that benefits the whole country. Being able to travel 800 miles in 4 hours for 40 bucks is incredibly convenient.
What next, are you going to claim China is full of ghost cities because building enough housing that everyone can afford it is bad actually?
No you see China's economy has to be failing, if it isn't then it would be a good market to find businesses to invest in. If a large enough segment of the small capitalists -- for whom the great superstructure of American cultural reproduction is geared toward -- began investing heavily in Chinese industry and saw large enough roi, they would structurally oppose anti-Chinese domestic policy. Not to mention other economic consequences like creating a more robust and durable class of small capitalists. If small capitalists felt greater economic security as a result of Chinese investment, it would damage not only the foreign policy aims (war) of a large segment of the ruling class who wants to destroy Chinese (lets call it) political republicanism and raid it for its resources and labor a la early 90s Russia; it would also threaten ideological temperament of small capitalists who inform aspiring small capitalists and legions of lumpen workers, who always feel the pressure of capitalism's natural tendency to crush their classes during economic downturns. If these layers don't feel threatened by China, if the west can't successfully blame them for problems we created, then those layers whose exploitation is so crucial to the various profitability schemes of the ruling class might be more amenable to social democracy or maybe even socialism.
The hate that westerners feel toward China is part fear that we will lose our social status, and part hatred of the conditions that allow Chinese markets to operate successfully and independently of our ruling class. Therefore, the Chinese economy must collapse, any day now...
Ideology is a hell of a drug
None of what you said is even related to the one trillion (and rising) debt in any way. Why don't you stay focused on the argument but instead dump random facts into the discussion?
By the way you literally just have to type "china highspeed rail debt" in any search engine of your choice and get bombarded with facts about it. Why didn't you even try?
Who are they in debt to? Mostly their own state-controlled Industries. So when China is 1 trillion in debt to their productive capabilities they are failing, but when the US is 35 trillion in debt to international finance capital (via the federal reserve) that's a healthy economy.
You said "the network that is barely used in most parts."
I looked it up and showed you that it's used so much they're continuing to expand capacity along most routes.
I didn't bother to address the railroads being run at a deficit because the neoliberal brainrot it requires to think that mass transit must extract a profit is painful to even imagine.
Do you think public roads, buses, and subways should be run for profit too?
Or that there's a huge amount of legit demand for mature node chips and it makes sense to own the supply for it.
The 5000 microcontrollers you inyeract with each day, by and large, do not need 5nm processes.
We saw a few years ago how relatively cheap, commodity-grade, low-complexity chips suddenly become vital when you can't get them and they have unfinished cars piling up at the assembly plant.
That's great and all, but you missed the theme of this thread.
China has been the king of bulk products for years. Saying that recent investments will alter world politics in 25 years is a bit strange. Saturating markets is what China does best.
Competition is going to make things cheaper and the global markets has significant effect in world politics. Why do you think US defends Taiwan so much? because of the kindness in their hearts? Get real.
This has been proven time and again throughout history. It's probably a bit strange because of your prejudice.
The rest of us can't wait for competition to make it affordable at large and not being bound by monopolies. Everyone gets to choose where to buy the chips from. If that doesn't alter world politics you're too out of touch from reality.
Everyone wins except people like you. I guess.
What the hell are you popping off about? All you need to do is go to Amazon or Ali Express to see the absolute plethora of Chinese product clones. Just search for a 3D printers, as a good example.
Yeah, I guess I am a bit prejudice against the bulk Chinese electronic garbage that is usually an extreme fire hazard. Maybe it's all the fake or counterfeit chips I have had to replace that has pissed me off.
Look bub. I don't give a flying fuck about China or the politics involved. Their manufacturing sucks ass and their actual their innovation is rare. If they copied products correctly, I would have a bit more respect for their business model.
If you want to go all-out tankie on people, maybe you should go back to your own instance.