Rounding the Earth Newsletter

Rounding the Earth Newsletter

China: Not the Technological Juggernaut

The China Wars Part IV - A Semiconductor Industry Tale

Mathew Crawford's avatar
Mathew Crawford
Oct 16, 2022
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In March I wrote an article that, if I had the time, would be the first in a series that I hope to one day continue about how China's rivaling of the U.S. as the "Technological Hegemon" was a Media-concocted tale.

Rounding the Earth Newsletter
Models of China: Examining the Facade, Part 1
"Illusion is the dust the devil throws in the eyes of the foolish." -Minna Antrim I have been discussing a superset of the information in this article series with various parties for many years now—including some very interesting conversations with people in government, corporate, royalty, and finance positions that I will not cite out of courtesy or relative necessity, but whose information on the topic gradually sculpted mine. My own explorations into this topic began while I was running one of Wall Street's larger buy-side Asian bond/derivatives accounts, and continued during my work in education when I explored the job of architecting a program intended for mathematically precocious youth in China. Since…
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4 years ago · 40 likes · 23 comments · Mathew Crawford

The article got some pushback. What could I expect? Half my writing is devoted to deconstructing Matrixian Sacred Cows. 

There is no doubt that China's economy has progressed in 50 years since the last wave of controlled demolition of the rich history of China. More than two generations of Chinese have been allowed to graduate from college since, and the economy (at least in most provinces) is more decentralized than most Westerners imagine. Still, China lags behind in fundamental drivers of technological innovation, not to mention control of the world's largest capital pools.

A few hours ago this tweet hit one of my discussion channels.

X avatar for @jordanschnyc
Jordan Schneider@jordanschnyc
Every American executive and engineer working in China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry resigned yesterday, paralyzing Chinese manufacturing overnight. One round of sanctions from Biden did more damage than all four years of performative sanctioning under Trump.
11:52 AM · Oct 14, 2022

4.68K Reposts · 18K Likes

It's part of a larger thread explaining how the pullout of Western experts just frozen the Chinese semiconductor market. Much of the information came from this thread.

X avatar for @lidangzzz
lidang 立党@lidangzzz
很多人不知道昨天发生了什么。 简单来说,拜登逼所有在中国工作的美国人二选一:要么立刻辞职,要么退出美国国籍。 然后在中国所有半导体制造企业的所有美籍高管和工程师,这一天集体辞职——中国半导体制造一夜间直接瘫痪。 拜登一项制裁的杀伤力,比特朗普4年十几波表演型制裁加起来还要大。
5:43 AM · Oct 12, 2022

2.47K Reposts · 13.4K Likes

What Just Happened in China's Semiconductor Industry?

It's impossible to know for certain because neither the Eastern nor the Western media care to talk about it. If the withdrawal of support by the West really did just cripple China, it is the kind of shame that leadership simply doesn't admit quickly. And the Western media has essentially stopped telling the truth about most anything, which is the surest indication that the U.S. has seen all this as a war for a number of years now—going back at least into the Obama administration.

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