Chip Ban: What Doesn’t Kill China, Makes it Stronger. US, Are You Listening?

[beijingwalker]

Chip Ban: What Doesn’t Kill China, Makes it Stronger. US, Are You Listening?​

The latest salvo by the US in its trade war might lead to another Chinese victory

• By Anirudh VK

The United States continues to use economic sanctions as one of the most impactful weapons in its geopolitical arsenal – a fact no country knows better than China. The Joe Biden administration recently placed heavy restrictions on semiconductor chip exports to China in a bid to maintain the US’ technological leadership. Under these sweeping sanctions, companies using US semiconductor technology cannot sell to China. The rules also impose restrictions on US citizens, residents, and green-card holders, banning them from working in Chinese-owned chip firms.

While many see this as a geopolitical masterstroke, there is an unseen facet to the US strangling China’s chip manufacturing sector. Due to China’s large amount of human capital and body of intellectual property regarding semiconductor manufacturing, this might end up working against the US in the long run.

Why the ban? ​

In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed a historic trade act titled the ‘US-China Relations Act of 2000’. The Act granted Beijing permanent normal trade relations with the United States, resulting in a trade increase of $5 billion a year to a whopping $231 billion a year. This was one of the main factors that catapulted China to the position of the world’s manufacturing capital.

Chinese capabilities to develop and manufacture technologies have far surpassed the capabilities of the United States. This not only alarmed regulators, but also presented a geopolitical problem for the US, as high-tech chips are required for the next paradigm of military technology. The Biden administration then scrambled to cripple China’s tech manufacturing capabilities as a measure to reduce Beijing’s power in the global geopolitical stage.

US regulators were also spurred to take drastic measures regarding their dependency on Chinese capabilities. China’s zero-COVID policy has also exacerbated the semiconductor shortages caused by the first few waves of the pandemic, forcing the US and its Western allies to rethink their geopolitical stance on China.

The semiconductor ban is the latest in the series of hostile regulatory moves the US is making on China. Standing with the US are its close allies Japan and the Netherlands, which have banned the sale of equipment used to fabricate ICs and lithographic chips, respectively. These moves together represent a concerted effort to stop Chinese chip manufacturing in its tracks. However, China has a history of coming out swinging when it has its back against the wall.

Why the ban is a success for China​

While the short-term impact of the ban will undoubtedly be felt across the Chinese semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem, China might end up being the winner in this standoff. A good example of this was the trade war between US and China, which started in 2016 with the rise of the Trump administration. Even though the United States imposed stringent tariffs on various facets of the Chinese manufacturing sector, China reported a record trade surplus of $323.32 billion in 2019 during the peak of the sanctions.

While COVID, semiconductor shortages and the zero-COVID policy have since eroded this strong trade position, US companies are reeling from the impact of localising manufacturing and rising costs while China has come out relatively unscathed. While the true winners were countries who stepped in to fill the void left over by China, like Vietnam and India, the US seems to have lost more than China.

We might see a similar pattern repeat with the stringent semiconductor ban, as China has already begun to ramp up production of chips. TSMC cannot provide chip manufacturers using the 28-nanometer process or below, as these are the only techniques that come under the new sanctions. However, China’s homegrown chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, has begun moving towards sub-10nm manufacturing techniques despite the ban. This is one of the most important advancements when it comes to consumer hardware, as this will allow Chinese chipmakers to manufacture competitively-powerful CPUs and GPUs. China also incentivised homegrown semiconductor manufacturing in the 2010s, leading to a boom in chipmakers in the country. At last count, there are 18 GPU manufacturers in the country.

While many Chinese nationals have been accused of intellectual property theft of chipmakers’ trade secrets, the capability of the Chinese market to adapt to US’ stringent norms is undeniable. As with other moves in the past, the regulators and private sectors are moving as one, with news emerging that the Chinese government is also readying a semiconductor industry support package worth $143 billion.

These incentives, bolstered by China’s push towards self-sufficiency, can be the formula China needs to create a self-sustaining semiconductor market. Currently, Chinese GPU makers licence intellectual property for designing semiconductor microarchitectures for GPUs, but a tighter integration between the market and regulators may change that.

Chip Ban: What Doesn’t Kill China, Makes it Stronger. US, Are You Listening?

The latest salvo by the US in its trade war might lead to another Chinese victory

analyticsindiamag.com

 

[VCheng]

Why the ban is a success for China

Then why all the begging and squealing about the bans?

 

[beijingwalker]

Chip bans on countries like China will hurt the U.S. more than they’ll help. They won’t even work​

BYRAKESH KUMAR
September 29, 2022 at 9:30 AM GMT+8

Rakesh Kumar, author of "Reluctant Technophiles," argues that chip export bans like the ones places on China are unlikely to stop spread of advanced technologies.
CFOTO—FUTURE PUBLISHING VIA GETTY IMAGES

"You can’t win an important race by hoping to trip your opponent, especially when there are significant costs to doing so. A far better strategy is to run faster."

The U.S. has passed a raft of measures, both unilaterally and multilaterally, to stop the transfer of advanced chip technologies to China.


The U.S. has barred companies from exporting chips to companies like Huawei. It’s banned recipients of government funding under the CHIPS and Science Act from expanding advanced chip production in China for at least ten years. It’s reportedly stopped companies like Nvidia from shipping chips used in A.I. development to China. It’s blocked Chinese investment in technology in the U.S. And it’s reportedly considering slapping further controls on other Chinese chipmakers, like Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation.

The U.S. believes that its economy and national security is threatened if advanced chips end up with the Chinese military and their defense industry. But the belief in export controls rests on two assumptions: that these measures will prevent targeted entities from getting these technologies, and that the cost paid by the U.S. will be acceptable.

Neither of these assumptions may be true. Instead, export controls could be more costly than the U.S. anticipates—and they might not actually stop China and other rivals from getting advanced chips.
In theory, the U.S. could leverage chokepoints in today’s chip supply chain, like the much-discussed monopoly over extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment from Netherlands-based ASML, to prevent China from getting critical chip technology.

But these technologies have alternatives. Novel packaging techniques can deliver an equal number of transistors as one manufactured through EUV, though at a higher cost. Widely-available technologies, like deep ultraviolet lithography (DUV), might also be able to deliver the same capacity as cutting-edge technologies, though again at a higher cost. (Unsurprisingly, the U.S. is now trying to stop ASML from selling even DUV equipment to China.)

Higher costs would threaten the competitiveness of chips for consumer devices, as seen by how U.S. sanctions nearly bankrupted ZTE and hobbled Huawei. But cost won’t deter the use of these pricier chips for military and other strategic purposes. The growing use of artificial intelligence—where China already has world-class strengths—in chip manufacturing and accumulated experience could also reduce the cost of alternatives, making export control measures less effective over time.

Smaller countries, or those with big technology exports, might also be wary of complying with export controls for long. China is a large market—importing over $375 billion in chips each year—and has sufficient economic and military might that could be brought to bear on other countries.

A stronger China will make it harder for the U.S. to pull together a multilateral control regime, especially since several alternative suppliers exist for most components in the semiconductor supply chain. If one component is blocked, China will just go to a different supplier.

China might also just learn how build advanced chips domestically. China has the world’s largest number of STEM PhDs. It’s also hiring foreign engineers and managers with advanced chip manufacturing experience: 10% of Taiwan’s chip engineers have moved to China. The country has also made many strategic investments, mergers and acquisitions in making advanced chips.

A patient China might eventually develop semiconductor technology in-house. If anything, export controls might strengthen Beijing’s resolve to create advanced chips natively, despite the cost. That mindset has worked for China in nuclear and space technologies, A.I., quantum computing, and advanced weaponry and hypersonics—and it might work again with semiconductors. All export controls might do is slow down China’s march to making its own advanced chips.

Irrespective of whether export controls are meant to hobble the Chinese semiconductor industry, or deny its military and security establishment the needed chips, the U.S. will pay a high cost for export control measures.

Losing access to the China market will cut the revenues of U.S. semiconductor companies. That would lower investment into research and development that can threaten these companies’ market leadership or, at worst, survival. Losing such a large market might even spark a new global chip shortage, as companies scale back investment, threatening both the U.S. and global economy.

Export controls might also lead China to impose retaliatory measures against U.S. semiconductor companies, especially those with factories and design centers in China, which might further threaten their competitiveness. Retaliation may even extend to non-semiconductor U.S. companies doing business in or with China.

Export controls might even deter investment in the U.S., for fear of being subject to restrictions. Companies might even choose to offshore from the U.S. even more to avoid some export controls, especially if CHIPS Act-like subsidies run out, which might increase economic and national security risk. Even non-Chinese companies and countries may leave out U.S. technologies or components, further weakening the U.S. semiconductor industry.

There are geopolitical costs as well. Export controls may push China closer to countries like Russia and Iran, potentially leading to undesirable geopolitical implications, or even lead Beijing to consider open conflict with Taiwan in order to secure chip supplies.

So what can the U.S. do instead? Innovation will be the key to America’s continued leadership. The gap between U.S. and non-U.S. technology is the smallest it’s ever been. In 1960, the U.S. share of global R&D was 69%. It’s now about 30%.

You can’t win an important race by hoping to trip your opponent, especially when there are significant costs to doing so. A far better strategy is to run faster.

Commentary: Chip bans on countries like China will hurt more than help the U.S.

They might not even work.

fortune.com

 

[dbc]

Then why all the begging and squealing about the bans?

I guess the Chinese have outsourced their squealing to the Indians.

 

[VCheng]

I guess the Chinese have outsourced their squealing to the Indians.

I would have thought the next outsourcing capital is Vietnam, but that won't work for China, would it?