Huawei says it’s running out of chips for smartphones because of US sanctions

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/9/21360598/huawei-chips-us-sanctions-trump-china-privacy-smartphone

by pseudolus • 6 years ago

39 33 6 years ago

theverge.com

kristopolous8• 6 years ago

This cartoonish narrative of malevolence really has to stop.

The redscare syle evildoer depiction of the Chinese is outlandish.

It's a racist, 19th century orientalist interpretation of international commerce and it still somehow dictates policy.

It's either that or some kind of utterly foolish protectionism, as if the Europeans and Asians don't have the industrial resources to box out the US for the global market.

That's just a matter of time. These brain damaged protectionist policies, far from preserving the hegemony, leads to its rapid decline just like it did with the European trading empires one by one as markets quickly worked around the hubris strangleholds enacted by the dominant seafaring nations who thought they had cornered a market.

There's simply no narrative where this is good policy unless your mission is to hasten the decline and dismantle of the American industrial state.

Edit: I'm not responding any more. There's obvious vote brigading by nativist revanchist trolls on this thread. Every reply from every user that isn't "but the Chinese are shifty thieves" goes into deep negatives.

Cool hobby, kids. Have a nice day, time only happens once.

ericfrenkiel• 6 years ago

Seriously?

You don’t find the million people (the Uighurs) in concentration camps “outlandish”?

How about the thousands of students rolled into smithereens by tanks in Tianamen Square? Too “cartoonish” for you?

smh

kristopolous8• 6 years ago

Every global power becomes one by exercising power, globally.

Claiming the existence of problems justifies these types of policies is an argument of convenience where the policy is fixed and someone is just fishing for reasons.

We ignore it when it's Saudi Arabia or the child slave driven mines of Central Africa and bring it up when there's a possibility of encroachment.

The world is terrible, we should do better. But carving out Chinese manufacturers of smartphones isn't how you'll get there.

lucian19002• 6 years ago

If you blindly believe Western media, sure. There is no actual proof of either narrative.

Try at least hearing the other side.

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-...

https://youtu.be/BjgSOYRZqIo

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/89BEIJING18828_a.html

bakuninsbart• 6 years ago

I don't really want to enter this discussion, since it usually quickly devolves to less than stellar levels. However, on the topic of the 1989 protests, I feel like Westerners often have a very superficial understanding of what happened back then, and in turn cannot understand chinese civil society and government today.

There's one documentary on the topic that I can wholeheartedly recommend, the Gate of Heavenly Peace.[1] It is quite long, but goes into incredible detail and also interviews a lot of organizers and politicians first hand.

The Tiananmen Square massacre was a turning point in chinese politics, ending a decade of increased freedom and open calls for reform. In civil society, people kept their heads down and went to work. In politics, almost all the reformers and politicians sympathetic to the students were isolated, demoted or even imprisoned. Still the last 30 years have been the best China has had in hundreds of years, and it is always much harder to argue with success. A lot of chinese people know what happened back then, and a lot of those accept it as something shitty that happened, but ultimately the country and people were still able to progress. Chinese people, by and large are not against their own government, even if they don't always agree with everything that happens.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gtt2JxmQtg

factsaresacred• 6 years ago

China is a revisionist power whose values are antithetical to the US. Its rise almost assures instability.

And more generally, no incumbent superpower is going to make it easy for another to challenge it.

Made in China 2025 is an explicit blueprint for how China will supplant America in high technology. Why would you expect America to aid and abet them in this undertaking?

kristopolous8• 6 years ago

That's what this is though. It's forcing their hand to develop their own alternatives and making sure the Americans have no place at the table.

It accelerates the process.

It's the latest brilliant policy by the same people who outsourced everything there and gave them the ball to begin with.

This is essentially the US automakers play of the 80s. It only accelerated the sunsetting of the American car industry. The policy doesn't work when a bunch of other places can replace you

nemothekid4• 6 years ago

This is a clown car reduction of a very complicated global issue starring a company who got to where they are now through brazen corporate espionage. It's "utterly foolish protectionism" when the West tries to protect their own, but "all's fair" when Western firms are left with no recourse while their IP is stolen and copied all over China because the CCP wouldn't ever rule in favor of a western company.

kristopolous8• 6 years ago

Histotical examples usually don't work on the internet but I'll try anyway:

That's not the actual history of these types of of actions. Look at the 1982 IBM / Japan theft case (https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/09/business/hitachi-guilty-i...).

IBM was aggressively protecting its mainframe market in the 80s so it would have a blossoming and prosperous future.

Even if we are to accept your premise AND all your arguments, it's still a bad idea as it actually led to a stagnation of technology.

There's plenty more historical examples of this. It doesn't work.

Take the Japanese automobile quota system for example (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/am...). This tried to protect encroachment of Japanese cars into the American market.

Not by increasing the quality but by suspecting the Japanese of stealing American know-how. A covetous and revanchist policy.

This only led to them internationalizing their markets more and working around the US in their supply chain. The US locked itself out of the market, became insular with its cars, stagnated and lost its place in the international market.

And now everyone is doing lean manufacturing which is from Toyota. Turns out they were just making better stuff and our policymakers were too racist to acknowledge the possibilities just like we thought Afghanistan was going to be easy, or Russia thought they'd easily defeat Japan.

The haughty racial superiority complex is alive and well.

zaro• 6 years ago

It's "utterly foolish protectionism" when the West tries to protect their own, but "all's fair" when Western firms are left with no recourse while their IP is stolen and copied all over China because the CCP wouldn't ever rule in favor of a western company.

You make it sound like the western companies had no choice in the matter. I don't think anybody has ever forced a western company to move its production in China. Actually these western companies are making a lot of money by moving to China. And I think apart from industrial espionage , the rules were clear upfront.

ptx• 6 years ago

So what will they do? Just shut down production? Try to move to RISC-V? Somehow acquire SOCs from other manufacturers?

magicsmoke2• 6 years ago

"The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that American chipmaker Qualcomm had asked the Trump administration to ease the restrictions on the sale of components to Huawei, and allow it to sell chips to Huawei for use in its 5G phones."

Keep paying license fees to US companies and remain dependent on US technologies is the desired outcome of this.

liuliu• 6 years ago

They sourced a lot of chips from MediaTek for their mid-end / low-end phones. It is likely that they are going to collaborate with MediaTek for high-end chips or source from Qualcomm.

gregopet• 6 years ago

China will make its high tech chips one way or the other, it cannot be a superpower and stay at American mercy regarding this ultra important ingredient for military hardware.

America should want to have as much influence in the process as possible, though of course it wants to minimize its losses through espionage etc as well.

As an uninformed external observer this seems as a rather short term move from the US. Plus it should also consider that other actors are watching how this unfolds: Europe, India and others are becoming more and more vary of their dependance on US tech, wouldn't want to balance them to the Chinese side..

Huawei says it’s running out of chips for smartphones because of US sanctions

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