Rather than embracing what former Australian prime minister and China scholar Kevin Rudd calls “managed strategic competition” in a new Foreign Affairs article, Beijing insists the United States should return to its old policies of supportive engagement, which facilitated China’s rise. Like nearly every other Chinese diplomat I’ve encountered over the past decade, Qin often repeated the phrase “win-win cooperation,” which China sees as a cure-all for its increasingly testy relationship with Washington.
July 22, 2022
U.S. Attempts To Make China An Enemy Require A Lot Of Fantasy
The U.S. weapon industry needs U.S. enemies. Without those it is hard to justify an ever growing war budget. The most lucrative enemy, besides Russia, is of course China.
But there is a problem. China has no interest in being a U.S. enemy and certainly not in being THE enemy. In its view that only takes away resources that are better used elsewhere.
That is the reason why China avoids talks with the U.S. about military and strategic issues.
CIA columnist David Ignatius thus laments:
China wants to ‘reduce misunderstanding’ with the U.S. It could start by talking.
ASPEN, Colo. — Chinese Ambassador Qin Gang assured a foreign policy gathering here this week that Beijing wants “to reduce misunderstanding and miscalculation” with the United States. If that’s true, why does China continue to resist a U.S. proposal to discuss “strategic stability” between the two increasingly competitive countries?
What have talks about 'strategic stability' to do with reducing misunderstanding and miscalculation? The later can be achieved in very simple low level talks between ambassadors or politicians. There is nothing 'strategic' needed about them.
President Biden said on Wednesday, before his covid-19 diagnosis was announced, that he expects to talk with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the next 10 days, and a senior administration official said the president’s agenda will include a renewed emphasis on the risks in the relationship, and the need to establish better communications. But, so far, the official said of the Chinese, “they haven’t taken us up” on a U.S. proposal for the stability talks.
The Chinese do not see and do not want instability so there is no need to talk about it. What they sees is a U.S. trick that would make it possible to designate China as an 'enemy'.
Ignatius' next paragraph demonstrates that:
This difficulty in developing a Sino-U.S. dialogue about strategic issues has frustrated the Biden administration. An important lesson of the Cold War was that nuclear-armed superpowers must communicate to avoid dangerous mistakes. But China has resisted arms-control talks even as it expands its nuclear arsenal, and as a result, it hasn’t learned a common language for crisis management in the way the Soviet Union did.
China is not in a Cold war with the U.S. It does not see itself as a U.S. enemy. There is no reason then to talk in Cold war language:
Biden first proposed the talks in a virtual summit with Xi last November, saying the two countries needed “common-sense guardrails to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict,” according to a White House statement at the time. Items on the agenda for such talks would include expansion of a 1998 agreement for avoiding maritime incidents, measures to avert dangerous military activities, and plans for a hotline and other crisis communication measures, the administration official said.
If there were more agreements over incidents and military activities would the U.S. be more or less aggressive in its action against China?
Why does the U.S. want a hotline and crisis communication? Would they not help the U.S. in provoking more incidents than it dares to do without them?
What is bad with a 'win-win cooperation'? Why replace that with 'strategic competition'?
China wants to have it both ways as a superpower: flexing its muscles without being seen as a bully. Xi has been explicit in his “Made in China 2025” plans for dominance of major technologies. But China “has difficulty in recognizing the relationship [with the United States] as competitive,” the senior administration official said. Instead, it responds to criticism from the U.S. and Asian regional powers with a wounded tone, as though to say, “Who, us?”
Lots of countries have lots of plans to have dominance in major technologies. The Netherlands (and German) have such a dominance in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, needed to make modern computer chips, as well as in several other fields. Other countries, France, South Korea, Japan, Russia, the U.S., have other industry sectors in which they are globally dominant. That is just the normal way of global capitalism in which countries seek to do their best not in all fields but in those in which they are better.
Framing a strong and sustainable U.S.-China policy remains the Biden administration’s biggest long-term challenge, despite the current preoccupation with the war in Ukraine. Beijing is the only competitor that could genuinely challenge the United States militarily, officials believe. But Ukraine has complicated U.S.-China policy — for both sides.
Now we come to the point. How please could China genuinely challenge the United States militarily? By invading Mexico and Canada or with a big landing force that threatens Los Angeles and New York? Why would China want do that?
Xi was surprised that the Biden administration, which the Chinese expected would be weak and ineffective abroad, has been able to rally global support for Ukraine. But despite Xi’s wariness of incurring sanctions, he remains firmly aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the senior administration official said. Hopes that the war might encourage a break between Beijing and Moscow were misplaced.
Ignatius has forgotten to take his meds. The 'global support' is the NATO, EU and the 5-eyes spying cooperation. Those are some 34 countries out of the 193 UN member states. Why did anyone expect that China would not take the neutral stand that the majority has taken? Those who did should be send back to school to learn a bit about rationality.
Enough with that blubber. Ignatius, like many other people in the Washington DC bubble, does not understand China and makes no effort to learn about it. These people just mirror what they think the U.S. would do and project that on a country that thinks in very different terms.
Another example of these 'thinkers' is Elbridge Colby:
Elbridge Colby’s The Strategy of Denial offers a blueprint for containing and combating China’s rise in order to preserve American freedom, prosperity, and security—emphasis on security. The argument turns on a very specific vision of China’s plans, which Colby does not attempt to link to actual Chinese policy or strategy for achieving hegemony in East Asia. The resulting prescriptions, although they’ve been lauded by some, are fatally flawed.
Colby, deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development from 2017 to 2018, believes that China could pursue a “focused and sequential strategy” of threatened or executed “wars against isolated coalition members,” starting with Taiwan. He fears Beijing would do this in such a way that does not trigger a regional war but culminates in Chinese hegemony in Asia.
To prevent this, Colby believes the United States must pursue a “strategy of denial” to preserve U.S. dominance in Asia.
The problem is that there is no evidence that there is an actual 'Chinese policy or strategy for achieving hegemony in East Asia'.
Colby provides no sources that claim such. He made up the 'threat' because he things that is what the U.S. would do if it were China.
The most glaring flaw is that Colby works off what he thinks China’s strategy should be, not the evidence about what it actually is. This is a particularly bad approach to analysis, because it makes mirroring or speculation easier to smuggle into predictions of adversary behavior.A good defense strategy requires an understanding of how the expected adversary plans to fight. Yet he does not engage with Chinese military doctrine, Chinese strategic thought, or the robust debate in the United States about Chinese strategy and ambitions. Instead, he argues that because of uncertainty about China’s strategy, the United States should simply focus on China’s “best strategy” for winning Asia. In Colby’s words, “a state’s best strategy does not ultimately depend on what the state’s leaders think it is” because it relates to “objective reality.”
In consequence of his 'garbage in' process Colby's output is likewise garbage.
Building a response according to an adversary’s “best strategy” also makes you much more likely to miss what that adversary is actually doing. Colby defends his approach of strategizing based on China’s “best” strategy by claiming that “Defeating a bad strategy is easier and less costly than defeating a good one.” Therefore, if the United States prepares for China’s best strategy, any real Chinese strategy should be even easier to handle.In reality, the defense posture and investments needed to defeat an adversary’s “best” strategy might be significantly different from those needed to defeat an adversary’s second-best strategy.
Colby's book is not about strategy but about spending as much money on a U.S. position of aggression towards China as possible:
Colby proposes that an American-led coalition impose a strategy of denial on China, blocking China’s ability to traverse the 80 miles of the Taiwan Strait. How to put the bell on the cat?“Defending forces operating from a distributed, resilient force posture and across all the war-fighting domains might use a variety of methods to blunt the Chinese invasion in the air and seas surrounding Taiwan.”
The US and its allies might “seek to disable or destroy Chinese transport ships and aircraft before they left Chinese ports or airstrips. The defenders might also try to obstruct key ports; neutralize key elements of Chinese command and control … And once Chinese forces entered the Strait, US and defending forces could use a variety of methods to disable or destroy Chinese transport ships and aircraft.”
Colby leaves what means we might employ here to the imagination.
Like the first reviewer of Colby's book this one also criticizes his factless starting position:
It isn’t so much that Colby gives the wrong answers. He fails to ask pertinent questions about Chinese intent and technological capability. Instead, he gives us a pastiche of generalities that obscure rather than clarify the strategic issues at hand.In brief, Colby depicts China as an expansionist power eager to absorb territory, citing alleged Chinese designs on the Philippines and Taiwan on a half-dozen occasions – as if China’s interest in the Philippines were equivalent to its interest in Taiwan.
Garbage input producing garbage output topped with militaristic fantasies do not create a good strategy.
The problem is that in the next republican administration Colby will likely have another high Pentagon position.
That makes such dumb thinking a danger for the world.
Posted by b on July 22, 2022 at 15:59 UTC | Permalink
next page »Are you sure we are not talking about dominance in the old colonial holdings that are now controlled with institutions like the World Bank and the IMF? The Anglo American NATO death cult does not like its toes stepped on in those areas.
Posted by: circimspect | Jul 22 2022 16:13 utc | 2
If one understands the primary role of American foreign policy of the past 77 years is basically care and feeding of MICIMATT, then these "strategies" make sense. They are not focused or interested in national power and security, except as a side effect.
Posted by: Caliman | Jul 22 2022 16:26 utc | 3
The response by Maria Zakharova I supplied on the Putin thread suffices here as well and melds with my comments from yesterday: The Outlaw US Empire has only one policy formula: Zero-sum--there's no Win-Win in its vocabulary or brains, only projection based on its false perception of exceptionalism.
"An important lesson of the Cold War was that nuclear-armed superpowers must communicate to avoid dangerous mistakes." Then why is the US blocking diplomacy with Russia while doing everything to provoke a wider war? This is the ideology behind the "rules-based international order": The US will do and say anything that is expedient for US (corporate/billionaire) interests, no matter how illegal, immoral, or hypocritical, while demanding virtuous and submissive attitudes from all others (except its allies of the moment).
Posted by: NoOneYouKnow | Jul 22 2022 16:36 utc | 5
The trouble with the tactless US approach is that it places potential US allies in the region in a bind and induces reactions counterproductive to US' own interests. China's neighbors are not exactly too happy with China: it is a meddlesome and overbearing neighbor with suspect designs to be kept at arm's length. It's true for the Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam, and even Japan, Russia, India, North Korea, and even Taiwan up to a point, and even Australia and New Zealand. However, it is also a big neighbor that China's neighbors will always have to deal with in some fashion and offers tremendous potential benefits through good or, at least, neighborly relations, economic and otherwise. For what it's worth, China is, at least willing to talk and it's neighbors want to hear out it's terms. US' aggressive stance seems to be designed to preclude such interactions. I don't think that would be received well, especially since the benefits of engaging with US are declining, for both economic (China is increasingly an attractive economic partner while US economy has more and more issues) and political reasons (US demands much, but delivers increasingly less). It is pointless for China's neighbors to preemptively burn bridges with China with so much uncertainty in the future. If US wants to antagonize China and enlist allies for this purpose, it needs to pay up in real money. But what would be the point of it, even for the US? The public mood in US is increasingly against galavanting around the world in search of windmills while neglecting domestic problems.
Posted by: hk | Jul 22 2022 16:39 utc | 6
Both Ignatius and Colby offer excellent examples of "confession through projection." Observe what the U.S. would do, or currently does, and accuse others of doing the same thing. The Left is quite proficient in conducting this behavior.
Posted by: Frederick | Jul 22 2022 16:46 utc | 7
China has just sat back and watched while a Russia has gone on the rampage.
Recall at the start of the SMO we were told that Co would reign in China, particularly if trade was affected. Russian has done a good job of wrecking the global economy and not a peep from Xi in terms of questioning it.
In the future multi polar world it appears the resource dependent Chinese will play second fiddle to Russia who won’t be as addicted to their junk as the west is.
Posted by: Night Tripper | Jul 22 2022 16:46 utc | 8
Not sure the US has any strategy at all at this point - outside selling fear and weaponizing anything possible
Posted by: Wilhelm Kohl | Jul 22 2022 16:47 utc | 9
Some interesting video about extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and ASML
Why The World Relies On ASML For Machines That Print Chips - CNBCChina’s ASML is Years and Years Behind - Asianometry
Can You Do 7nm Chips Without EUV? - Asianometry
The Extreme Engineering of ASML’s EUV Light Source - Asianometry
Posted by: Petri Krohn | Jul 22 2022 16:48 utc | 10
go visit China, then tell me about how friendly and accepting they are. if you havent been there, you really dont know...
Posted by: robert kendall | Jul 22 2022 16:52 utc | 11
The CIA sponsors a lot of propaganda. I wouldn't trust any author that is tangled up with the CIA, either directly or via connections.
Elbridge Colby, a graduate of Yale Law School, was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development in the Trump Administration.
His grandfather, William Colby, was Nixon’s C.I.A. director, and his father, Jonathan Colby, is a senior adviser in the Carlyle Group, the defense-friendly private-equity giant. Colby arrived at Trump’s Pentagon as an aide to the President’s first Secretary of Defense, General Jim Mattis.
Posted by: Peter | Jul 22 2022 16:59 utc | 12
China has finished transition to 7nm, fully working factory. Bad year for trolls
Posted by: rk | Jul 22 2022 17:00 utc | 13
The USA flirtatiously asks China "Does my current account balance make me look fat"?
Posted by: too scents | Jul 22 2022 17:17 utc | 14
go visit China, then tell me about how friendly and accepting they are. if you havent been there, you really dont know...
Posted by: robert kendall | Jul 22 2022 16:52 utc | 14
------------
I have been in China and to many cities. One of nicest people I've met. They are Asians, after all, and the pride of Asia! It is economically top most in the world, an also in the Kosmos in the near future. The US can go cattle herding...😋
Posted by: ppp | Jul 22 2022 17:17 utc | 15
@Petri Krohn #13
I only looked at the first Asianometry link, but it is pretty good.
The reason EUV is being used is because of quantum effects; starting at 45 nm, the quantum nature of light started to affect lithography. Corners as designed in layout would come out not just as rounded blobs, but irregularly sized blobs up to the point where short circuits would occur. This same effect is what is demonstrated with the famous double slit experiment.
The link also generically lumps "software" into one category; it isn't clear if they are referencing the software used on the manufacturing side (i.e. as controlling the EUV lithography process or even the overall depo/litho/etch) or the wide array of software necessary for the entire design chain
.
In reality - and again keeping in mind that I exited the industry in 2006 around the 45nm era - the role of software extends all the way back to the design phase.
This occurs generally via the DRC and LVS verification decks provided by foundry to design customers (Design Rule Checking and Layout Vs. Schematic verification). DRC ensures that the manufacturing capabilities as exemplified by electrical characteristics of physical structures are preserved; DRC modifications and fails are a major part of the tapeout process and source of friction between foundry and large customer (little ones just have to suck it up). LVS ensures that the physical structures embodying electrical functions match up to the schematic.
However, the advent of quantum effects gave rise to OPC: optical proximity correction. This is an extra layer of software analysis which looks at windows of the physical structures, then makes modifications to ensure that said quantum effects do not introduce failures to DRC or LVS. This isn't so straightforward as "turn corner of dimension X,Y to dimension X1,Y1", because the tight spacing of deep submicron means overlapping "slit effects" to paraphrase the double slit experiment.
You can perhaps see the problem here: this isn't a tightly bounded problem. You need both real world, cutting edge customer designs plus manufactured output (and a lot of money on both foundry and customer side) to use OPC to resolve quantum effect problems in lithography. The specific implementation of lithography certainly has an impact on OPC, which in turn impacts DRC and LVS directly, which in turn reverberates all the way back to the design house customer.
Note even the above is a simplification. The actual electrical performance is not denoted by the DRC/LVS, but by the SPICE model. But the SPICE model must assume some minimized variation in physical implementation of the electrical structures.
Pre-quantum, this was mostly a function of process control - but post quantum (with the highly variable OPC modifications), I imagine the SPICE modeling must be considerably more "interesting".
Net net: cutting edge is a highly expensive, complex, and customer inclusive process which doesn't seem like it would be that easy to replicate.
Creating EUV or other physical aspects of semiconductor manufacturing, I can see, but re-creating the DRC/LVS/Spice/customer/OPC software/other software linkups is a far, far more difficult process.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2022 17:19 utc | 16
US President Joe Biden, who contracted the coronavirus, feels better more than a day after starting treatment. This was announced on July 22 by his attending physician, Kevin O'Connor.“As a result of the first full day of treatment with Paxlovid, President Biden’s condition improved,” the White House Pool said in a statement.
The demented One is doing a Trump...already feeling well from Covid...he must be hiding from news "reporters"...
Posted by: ostro | Jul 22 2022 17:20 utc | 17
And, in 3 days, the demented One will be healthy and free of covid...just as Trump...
Posted by: ostro | Jul 22 2022 17:22 utc | 18
@rk #16
The question is whether China's/SMIC's 7 nm process has anywhere remotely the performance of TSMC or Intel.
Note that in the era I worked, TSMC would regularly put out leading edge process technology nodes in parallel with Intel, but Intel's process demonstrated a 30% better heat dissipation, 20% raw performance delta, etc etc at comparable to superior yields.
TSMC's jumping ahead of Intel in the latest generation means that their leading edge process might be comparable to Intel's -1 process geometry node process; that plus TSMC's massive capacity means it is competitive (TSMC has always focused closely on yield above maximizing performance).
But is China's/SMIC's process performance anywhere close to TSMC? Heat dissipation, density, speed, yield?
Because that's what matters - significantly lower performance in one or more areas means that said 7nm process only performs like 10 nm or 12/16 nm - so what? Especially since I don't think China has anywhere remotely the capacity that TSMC has.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2022 17:26 utc | 19
This reminds me that the Chinese do not have a very high opinion of Talks with Officials from the US. I'm thinking of Blinken and the disastrous meeting in Alaska. Where the Chinese were insulted (by the reception) and told Blinken so (plus expounding on his "abilities" and other foibles). Since then Blinken has been very careful about who he tries NOT to talk to.
In the Talks mentioned above, Blinken (or whichever idiot replaces him after the next elections) wants to "to reduce misunderstanding and miscalculation”. What do they want - pre-apolgies for not calling him by his preferred pronoun(s)?
***
Actually it is very like the Russian attitude - why talk with children who won't understand the fundamentals of the situation and who aren't listening?
**
It may be the start of a campaign to reduce Chinese Diplomatic influence worldwide, so as to allow only the "Vice of America" to be heard. It didn't work against Russia but that won't stop them trying again.
****
The US wants to be "taken seriously", and it's threats to have some effect: - The worse thing that could happen to them, is nobody takes them as agreement or even "discussion capable" and doesn't bother to enter into negotiations.
***
PS. The UK will have Truss lined-up as back-up if she manages to find out where to front-up. So there is a thought for future "strategic stability - all trussed up - and nowhere to go".
Posted by: Stonebird | Jul 22 2022 17:26 utc | 20
go visit China, then tell me about how friendly and accepting they are. if you havent been there, you really dont know...
Posted by: robert kendall | Jul 22 2022 16:52 utc | 14
I too have been all over China, from Harbin to Kunming and from Dali to Hangzhou. They are a hard-working decent people and friendly and accepting of genuine guests, including gweilos such as myself.
If you claim to have found otherwise that either says more about you than them, or more likely, you've never been there and are projecting FUD to what you think is a naïve audience.
Posted by: Billb | Jul 22 2022 17:36 utc | 21
... American freedom, prosperity, and security—emphasis on security ...
American impunity, exploitation, and dominance—emphasis on dominance.
As though we’ve already forgotten about their biolabs.
Posted by: anon2020 | Jul 22 2022 17:40 utc | 22
This difficulty in developing a Sino-U.S. dialogue about strategic issues has frustrated the Biden administration. An important lesson of the Cold War was that nuclear-armed superpowers must communicate to avoid dangerous mistakes. But China has resisted arms-control talks even as it expands its nuclear arsenal, and as a result, it hasn’t learned a common language for crisis management in the way the Soviet Union did.
Ever get the sense that these Americans like to DEFINE "a common language" for "crisis management" that it then manages and manipulates to its advantages? It worked out really well with Russia, didn't it? Those arms-control talks worked out really well too. Any left that these Yankees haven't walked away from?
I disagree with MoA's following comment:
China is not in a Cold war with the U.S. It does not see itself as a U.S. enemy. There is no reason then to talk in Cold war language.
China KNOWS it is in a struggle with the US. China just doesn't want to VOCALIZE it. That Cold War or Hot War is only 180 km away. China needs time to upgrade her military to such a degree that that alone will stop the Americans from even thinking about military response/action should China be forced to use force to liberate Taiwan.
We are close to that moment.
Posted by: Sam Smith | Jul 22 2022 17:44 utc | 23
go visit China, then tell me about how friendly and accepting they are. if you havent been there, you really dont know...
Posted by: robert kendall | Jul 22 2022 16:52 utc | 14
You are right, they are very friendly and accepting. I worked there, I hope I will work there again
Posted by: Julio | Jul 22 2022 17:48 utc | 24
c1ue | Jul 22 17:19 utc | 19
(QE problems with lithography in 45nm chip industry)
Forgive my ignorance, but why doesn't the chip industry just settle on 6 or 8nm and keep mass-producing?
i.e. why do next year's chips need to be slimmer or tinier than those of yesteryear?
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jul 22 2022 17:56 utc | 25
go visit China, then tell me about how friendly and accepting they are. if you havent been there, you really dont know...
Posted by: robert kendall | Jul 22 2022 16:52 utc | 14
I’ve lived in China for 6 years. Very impressed. Shanghai world class city where you can buy excellent French bread ;) A lot of expats. Too bad under US pressure they seem to be closing off.
Posted by: RB | Jul 22 2022 17:59 utc | 26
Posted by: c1ue re. Semicon technology
Ah, someone that has an understanding.
Be as it may, there are two things that are important here: who has the IP and who can outspend in R&D.
Besides, having access to the latest technology node is more of a commercial point than a strategic economic one. You can do a lot with older nodes and scaling downwards was driven by performance/costs in consumer products such as phones, gaming etc so people can experience the digital world with less lag. Or bitcoin mining where you need a lot of processing power. Or in trading platforms that front run you in microseconds.
There are some strategic benefits from being able to cram processing power in smaller chips but not that much. The challenges that the world faces now is in physical things like energy, food and healthcare, not smartphones and gaming consoles. So that 7nm and beyond: not really that important. Its just a consumer driven tech.
Posted by: alek_a | Jul 22 2022 17:59 utc | 27
BBC says....
According to diplomats, under the terms of the deal:* Russia will not target ports while shipments are in transit
* Ukrainian vessels will guide cargo ships through waters that have been mined
*Turkey - supported by the United Nations - will inspect ships, to allay Russian fears of weapons smuggling
*
Russian exports of grain and fertiliser via the Black Sea will be facilitated.
Interesting is the 2nd point, Ukrainian vessels will guide cargo ships through waters that have been mined..., meaning Ukraine agrees that it was Ukraine, who mined the sea ports. The problem is that sea mines break away...few people had died in the Odessa swimming not far from the beach.
Posted by: ostro | Jul 22 2022 18:00 utc | 28
c1ue | Jul 22 2022 17:26 utc | 22
I don't know. if you search maybe there are more details
The idea was that us sanctions around 2020, a ban of exports for technology for <10nm manufacture, had zero results. In fact they hit the existing manufacturers. They lose clients forever and gain new competition. Great plan
Posted by: rk | Jul 22 2022 18:06 utc | 29
Brian Berletic(aka Tony Cartalucci) has been covering this quite well:
https://journal-neo.org/2021/02/26/bidens-first-foreign-policy-speech-vows-forever-wars/
https://journal-neo.org/2021/09/27/us-war-plans-with-china-taking-shape/
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1100/RR1140/RAND_RR1140.pdf
CHN do not wish to be "Pigeon Holed" into "Strategic Agreements" that may restrict their Activities and Potential/Future Plans - nor have their Schemes infiltrated by the H8_Hegemony's Oligarchy.
Posted by: IronForge | Jul 22 2022 18:09 utc | 30
Sam Smith @26--
China's English language media constantly demonize "Cold War Thinking" and attitudes. Here, "Japan slammed for seeking excuses for military expansion by hyping threats from neighbors in annual defense report", Japan copies its Master's methods as it seeks to overturn the pacifist aspects of its constitution, which is precisely Cold War Thinking. And here, "Hyping ‘China threat,’ UK politicians as sensational and low-class as the country’s tabloids", we see the same attitude. And here, "FM spokesperson retorts US official seeing export curbs on Russia as template to counter China – ‘Cold War mentality won’t succeed’", we have overt reference to such thinking:
"Facts have repeatedly shown that any country that embraces Cold-War mentality and has a penchant for confrontation will not succeed, but will only backfire on itself and negatively impact global peace and security, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Wednesday in Beijing."
China refuses to be put into a box made by the Outlaw US Empire, just as Russia does. And their examples are being heeded by most of the world's nations. The world wants adult behavior, not adolescents fighting over who will be king of the sand box.
the ussa is a loser
no one is interested in playing their games anymore
and most lands are finding out it ain't necessary to play the ussa games anymore.
so this doomed society, run by khazarian neo-cons will continue to collapse into itself.
doesn't take a mental giant to see that
tick tock.
Posted by: bobert | Jul 22 2022 18:14 utc | 32
That exceptionalism belief is a real devil. It infects the oligarchs who believe they can and should rule the world. It infects a lot of ordinary citizens, especially ordinary Americans, whose mothers did not love them and so did not teach them the means of earning peace, by which I mean internal peace, a mind that does not jump about and a heart that does not obstruct the practice of good intentions.
Posted by: The Rev. David R. Gr | Jul 22 2022 18:19 utc | 33
Hoarsewhisperer | Jul 22 2022 17:56 utc | 28
Small size means a lot less power needed, a lot less heat created, smaller coolers
Posted by: rk | Jul 22 2022 18:20 utc | 34
Robert Kendall #14
I climbed in China back in 1980 spent time in Beijing a city with no cars except officials, Urumqi a rather barren city at that time with camels blocking the runway. Kashgar was a sweet place with dirt roads and citizens who were wonderfully kind. The climb took us to areas that had never seen white people or plastic containers that were coveted by the women for carrying water to the villages . They shared music yogurt, and meals with us in their beautiful yurts. Lived in Taiwan with my family in the 90s and we all had the time of our lives. We traveled in China, Beijing had cars! And Kentucky fried Chicken. People were over whelmingly kind to my children and us.
I returned again to visit a friend 8 years later and the changes were astronomical but the people were much the same very kind and always helpful.
My daughter lived in Shanghai and speaks Chinese and has a deep love for the people. My other daughter spent time climbing in China a few years ago and it was one of her favorite places.
I met xpats while I lived in Taiwan who hated the Chinese. They spent their time at the America club drinking while their Amas took care of their kids. They never saw Taiwan or China while living over seas. They vacationed in Phuket a resort town created for rich white people.
My guess is you were one of these or you have never been to China or Taiwan.
Posted by: Susan | Jul 22 2022 18:36 utc | 35
usa: “common-sense guardrails to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict,”
Smart move from China to refuse this. Translation from strategic communication (aka dirty lies) is: we (the military-industrial-complex) want competition as close to conflict as possible to extract maximum profit. So we should talk about the details, riiigth?
tihs fo seceip==cim
Posted by: forbar | Jul 22 2022 18:36 utc | 36
Forgive my ignorance, but why doesn't the chip industry just settle on 6 or 8nm and keep mass-producing?
i.e. why do next year's chips need to be slimmer or tinier than those of yesteryear?
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jul 22 2022 17:56 utc | 28
Roughly speaking. If you halve the size of a chip, it can go twice as fast. Or, if you don't need the speed increase, you can run at the same speed but go four times as long with the same battery.
Posted by: Passerby | Jul 22 2022 18:40 utc | 37
Shitenskyy gave an interview at WSJ (I mean they write that, he read what he said too). He will not sign anything, he is big warrior and will win. A truce will only extend the conflict! And they've lost at most 30 soldiers in a day!!!
So considering the level of crazy propaganda has reached, cia diversity is getting desperate. He also raised the age limit to 70 for slava cocaini, probably because they only lose 30 a day.
Posted by: rk | Jul 22 2022 18:44 utc | 38
China is not an external threat to the U.S.. They obviously never have been.
But the elephant in the room is this: China is a domestic enemy (read: trade and business with China undermines domestic stability and national security).
Coincidentally, this domestic insecurity is the type preferred by the democrats who by hook or crook make their living by stoking division and otherwise steering their constituency away from Nationalist policies.
Thus, China is in one way an enemy to the United States, whether they will admit it or not (they will not) and the time has long passed that we should cut our losses and curtail trading with that country by 1/2.
Did China know that by opening themselves up to a globalist relationship with Uncle Sambo, that things would always be easy for them and that, down the road, the relationship would never grow cold and dangerous? Didn't they see "Fatal Attraction"? "Or Single White Female"? (American films)
That's not how a deal with the devil works.
Any American who wants to avoid war should start convincing their countryman to avoid Chinese products and to let their representatives know that China should not be allowed to hold large holdings of strategic American land.
The globalists in America want China to make them rich but don't want them to have a mind of their own in how they run their country.
The Chinese don't want war with Uncle Sam but they do want its money and trade...or they used to anyway.
Solution: both sides walk away from each other right now.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jul 22 2022 18:49 utc | 39
Re: Passerby @ 40 & rk @ 37.
(Why smaller chips?)
OK, I get it and it makes sense, sort of..
Thanks to both of you.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jul 22 2022 18:58 utc | 40
The war party is slowly becoming aware the Free World considers the war party a irrelevant pest.
Posted by: Exile | Jul 22 2022 19:02 utc | 41
I will worry about Chinese expansion when they militarily invade Mongolia. To have such a huge, almost uninhabited land on their border, untouched, suggests that the Chinese have a benign streak.
Tibet was a little different, with its feudal religious structure, a sitting target for a new and enraged military state, blocked from Taiwan, by the US navy.
Posted by: Ric G | Jul 22 2022 19:04 utc | 42
@herp #5
any chance that this Colby nerd is the son/relative of CIA chief Colby?
Yes. Bill Colby is his grandad.
Posted by: galerkin | Jul 22 2022 19:13 utc | 43
The US MIC, in their public deliberations, has already pretty much thrown in the towel as far as Taiwan is concerned. The question being figured out is how they would, if necessary, camp out in the 2nd Island chain, and simultaneously hide, keep their search/targeting ability, and maintain a supply of non-nuclear cruise missiles, and do this for the number of months until the breakdown in global commerce compels the two governments who ordered such a situation to 'come to a sensible compromise'.
What we have seen so far in Ukraine, as bad as it is, is just a warm-up of course.
What's still left in the machine, is a good 10 / maybe 20 years of fomenting proxy-wars, though in a diminished fraction of the world. Middle East and South Asia seem to be close to regaining their stability - the outcome in Pakistan will be telling. Eventually China has (again) become involved in one of these conflicts and (again) win it. But for them there is no hurry.
Until such time, I think the trend for US policy is going to be increasingly loud/obnoxious gestures of disrespect taking the place of actual imperial substance.
Posted by: ptb | Jul 22 2022 19:25 utc | 44
Why would anyone get in a room with a mad dog? You’d only get bitten. As for Taiwan, they have just seen Ukraine and been given another reminder of the Kissinger dictum - to be a friend of America is fatal. And most of those Taiwanese are not stupid.
Posted by: BillSlim | Jul 22 2022 19:29 utc | 45
@Susan #38, great comment. Sounds like an interesting life.
I think China is not so different from the US, it does some things better and others worse, and tries to improve its strategic position like any powerful country throughout history. I think they've had a laudably restrained foreign policy w/r/t projecting military force after their disastrous invasion of Vietnam, but are unnecessarily belligerent toward Taiwan (independent for 75 years and no threat - just let it go) and their claims on territorial waters and islands are obnoxious bigfooting. I've been talking up their Africa policy since 2008 at least, classic soft-power cash diplomacy that will yield benefits for a generation or more.
Domestically what they've done in Xi'an over the past years is a horror show: forced indoctrination, imprisonment and abuse with no oversight on an industrial scale. Real 1984 stuff.
I think it's a mistake to view China as an enemy, or as a friendly giant. They're happy to participate in the international arms race, including as a major exporter, and have impressive military capabilities and the world's largest standing army. It's only natural for peer countries to think and plan about how to counter them in a conflict, as they surely think about how to counter us.
Posted by: yenwoda | Jul 22 2022 19:35 utc | 46
@48
Most Ukrainians weren't stupid either, but most Ukrainians didn't get a choice. Granted, it was closer to the edge of instability, so the method of provoking a war has to be different. But US and Taiwan government both are working up to provoke a response. They will eventually get one, but I have no idea where.
Posted by: ptb | Jul 22 2022 19:36 utc | 47
Larry Shoup evaluated Strategy of Denial in Monthly Review.
https://monthlyreview.org/2022/05/01/giving-war-a-chance/
Posted by: James McFadden | Jul 22 2022 19:40 utc | 48
Democrats are no better than Republicans.
It was Obama who started the "Pivot to Asia" and pushed the TPP.
Posted by: wagelaborer | Jul 22 2022 19:41 utc | 49
I do not understand why China does not exploit the Korea-Japan feud more. (But perhaps I really do understand that it is the US military presence that is blocking S. Korea.) ... However, there are many practical steps they could take anyway.
a) Recognize Tok To Islands as Korean (not Japanese).
b) Begin a Historical Reconciliation Board against Japan for the atrocities committed to both countries between 1905 -1945.
c) Foster much needed energy pipelines from Russia through N. Korea to S. Korea, giving them a decided economic advantage over Japan.
d) Forge an aggressive BRI plan for both N Korea and S Korea.
The current S Korea president Yoon, looks like a US puppet. ... But, as Korean politics go, his days will wane as the US military occupation grows stale.
Posted by: Robert | Jul 22 2022 19:51 utc | 50
Even ten years ago it might have been worth to China to hold those sorts of talks. Today it is clear to everyone that there is no point. Biden is currently promising Iran “the best deal ever” but the Iranians know that as soon as a republican is president the deal will be off. Just like it knows Biden originally wanted to alter the deal. Same goes for China. There are still asinine tariffs from trump. Beijing knows that the GOP is extra, anti-China so any agreements with Biden are pointless.
The fundamental problem is that the US still believes it is negotiating from a position of strength (that is, it doesn’t have to actually negotiate) while the rest of the world knows the US position is weaker than it has ever been and growing weaker by the day. The Saudis made a literal mockery of a US President during and immediately after a visit; even ten years ago that wouldn’t happen. 20 years ago it would have been unthinkable. Only the US refuses to see the world as it really is now.
Posted by: Lex | Jul 22 2022 19:52 utc | 51
If the sociopaths running the US think they can dominate the Taiwan strait they've got another think coming.
I've never seen this level of trollery before, seems that the bar is getting popular, and might be in need of some bouncers.
I'd be happy to join a members only club. Probably make the bar the place of conversation and knowledge it used to be.
Posted by: David F | Jul 22 2022 19:56 utc | 54
@Hoarsewhisperer #28
You asked
Forgive my ignorance, but why doesn't the chip industry just settle on 6 or 8nm and keep mass-producing?
i.e. why do next year's chips need to be slimmer or tinier than those of yesteryear?
The short answer is performance. If you are using the same process, it is extremely difficult to get visibly superior performance.
And performance matters with pricing. Look at the pricing of the latest/greatest chips vs. the last generation or the previous generation.
This pricing in turn matters with the business. It costs A LOT of money to design and manufacture a new chip. A major concern TSMC had in 2004 was that tapeout costs were $10M then - basically $10M to put out the first version of the first chip of any design, regardless of it working or not. The number is certainly far higher now. A visible fraction of the "premium" pricing goes to pay for this new chip design cost, the capital costs of the manufacturing (whether foundry/fabless model or vertically integrated doesn't matter that much).
So no new fancy chip, no new fancy pricing, no quick way to recapture design or manufacturing capital requirements. It would force the CPU manufacturers (Intel primarily) to price all their chips higher across the board vs. sticking it to the gamers/miners/cloud providers.
Notice I don't equate performance with market position. Even today, the relative manufacturing capacities of Intel vs. AMD in the CPU space, for example, is so enormous that it doesn't matter that much if AMD has better chips. This is better than in my era, but not structurally.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2022 20:10 utc | 56
Posted by: yenwoda | Jul 22 2022 19:35 utc | 49
As usual you regurgitate a slightly milder form of the DC bull. Complete nonsense about Xinjiang. About Taiwan, China is patient until the US starts basing its military there.
And Africa, not cash like the World Bank, but actually building infrastructure.
Posted by: RB | Jul 22 2022 20:11 utc | 57
GOP intends to "defeat" China:
4/7/22, Republican "leader" McCarthy says Rep. McCaul will help US "defeat" China:
“Today, Republican [Representative] Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced that House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul (R-TX) will serve as a China legislation conferee.
“The CCP poses a generational threat to the U.S. and our freedom-loving allies around the world,” Rep. McCaul said. “They are brutally oppressing their own people, committing genocide, expanding their military reach, and carrying out territorial aggression against their neighbors, including Taiwan....
McCarthy said. “As the Republican Lead on Foreign Affairs and the China Task Force, he [GOP Rep. McCaul] has led the fight to counter the CCP’s malign influence for years. There is no question that the CCP is an urgent threat that affects every American.
But [GOP Rep.] Leader McCaul has the expertise, the courage, and the
determination to help us not only compete with them,
but defeat them.""...https://gop-foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/mccaul-named-china-legislation-conferee/
Posted by: susan mullen | Jul 22 2022 20:12 utc | 58
@alek_a #30
I don't disagree with what you say concerning high end chips and ultimate impact on society, but I disagree completely on the IP and capital spend side.
In my view, the "IP" in the form of patents - even the "trade secrets" in the form of how various principles in the semiconductor design chain incorporate into their products is not anywhere as important as their presence in the main design flows of the main customers in various consumer segments.
Or in other words: it doesn't matter if someone throws $100B into replicating this design chain; unless this money can push the Apples, the Broadcoms, the Qualcomms, etc to lend their design teams, designs and design flows into developing and refining a next generation process - the money won't work. This is assuming competent equipment and foundry support and foundry manufacturing capability, of course - which should not be assumed either.
And conversely, if these big customers shift to China fabs regardless of equipment, the patents and trade secrets won't block progress, either.
Can Huawei and other Chinese companies replicate or be superior to what the above design houses do today? Maybe someday, but I am pretty doubtful if they can do it today or in the near future. From what I see, the key parts (selling points) of systems are still using Apple/Broadcom/Qualcomm tech.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2022 20:18 utc | 59
@rk #32
There have always been export controls for leading edge semiconductor fab equipment. The controls have expanded a bit in that ASML now dominates one sector which formerly was dominated by US companies, but that's it.
But again, the raw capability to create an EUV machine is not the challenge - you can do that in the lab without tons of money and with a few educated and motivated people.
The challenge is creating an EUV machine that fits into the rest of the flow of which the totality produces a competitive process.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2022 20:21 utc | 60
reducing tensions / misunderstanding
There used to be an organization to discuss these issues on neutral ground. I believe it was called the U.N. At least the U.N. was the first stop.
Who ruined the U.N.?
To the U.S. the answer is obvious. It is all Russia and China's fault but wait. Occasionally Russia and China would support (or not oppose) U.S. resolutions, on Libya, on N. Korea and you could even count the JCPOA as another one. China and Russia naively believed that this would create goodwill so that the U.S. might support some of their resolutions - HA-HA-HA ;-)
Of course not. The U.S. never gives but only takes or rather dictates. Why should we go to the U.N. when we can impose our will on everybody else?
So yes, the arms industry wants money but another problem is the mentality of U.S. leaders. They want to cling to the notion that the U.S. is the pre-eminent power.
Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Jul 22 2022 20:29 utc | 61
Thanks Peter and others for the Colby background check. As always, it's
propaganda all the way down..
Regarding SMIC and 7nm, Intel also still sells their basically 7 year old 14nm tech.
If somewhat true, it means China is on par with the US in chip technology..
Only difference for the future is US has access to ASML EUV machines, which relies heavily
on Zeiss optics technology (ASML bought a big stake of the relevent department).
Can debate Moore's Law and or the cost of the next factory node..
Basically from 7 to 5 nm the processor gets a little faster, and your
factory cost goes form 12 billion to 20.. (or from 5 to 3, which comes online soon).
But it all doesn't matter, as long as all the chips
go into consumer products, and you can pick one up in every apple shop
in Smolensk (with Arm M1 processor) or order the latest AMD Ryzen (5950X)
on Aliexpress. And even if not, how difficult is it to order on mind-factory.de
and smuggle over the longest border in the world. Chips are commodities,
even if you don't make them yourself (if you have to sell your product on the
world market, like Huawei, you might have a problem).
Now buying some unused EUV machine
on the black market from some corrupt intel suit.. that would be something.
Well at least the ruskies have their Antonovs in place.
Posted by: C | Jul 22 2022 20:30 utc | 62
@yenwoda #47
Hello again. As for this latest propaganda piece (and, listen up, unsubstantiated as always) "...what they've done in Xi'an over the past years is a horror show...", I give you another one and put some numbers to the horror show. Remains the question: Horror for whom?
Posted by: OttoE | Jul 22 2022 20:31 utc | 63
Posted by: mastameta | Jul 22 2022 20:03 utc | 58
Taiwan has but one adversary, China, and its military strategy has been geared toward defending the island in the event of a Chinese attack until U.S. forces can arrive. - Britannica says...How correct is that?
What would happen, if China blocks all manufacturing of Taiwanese firms in China? And, stops all imports anf exports from China?
Posted by: ostro | Jul 22 2022 20:33 utc | 64
@rk #37
Not really.
The smaller the geometry, the hotter the "relative" devices are. Keep in mind heat is generated by resistance, resistance is a direct function of size of the wire. A smaller wire of the same substance is going to be proportionately more resistive than a larger wire - which in turn means it dissipates more relative heat. More transistors per unit area also create more heat - and a given unit area has a fixed heat dissipation capacity. Smaller transistors also leak more subthreshold current which feeds directly into substrate heat.
Keep in mind I'm not saying that smaller geometries are slower. What I am saying is that at 180 nm/0.18 um - geometry shrinks would give 90%/95% of the geometric speed benefit vs. 5%/10% relative heat increase, but at 45nm the ratio was more like 45% speed vs. 55% heat.
I assume the ratio has gotten worse since then but I don't know.
Starting before 45nm - heat dissipation started becoming a bigger issue than transistor switching speeds. The main benefit of smaller geometries is that it makes transistor "cost" lower; lower transistor cost can be converted into "speed" in a CPU via predictive parallel processing (except Spectre, Meltdown, Rowhammer type attacks). This is why CPUs these days are "2 core, 4 core, 8 core, 16 core whatever" - what used to be predictive parallel pipelines have morphed into fully parallel CPUs, all stuck on a single piece of silicon.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2022 20:33 utc | 65
Eventualy USA will force Chine to become what they fear it could become.
Chinese military never was conquering far away lands. They often took what was lieing to be taken. Instead China often was conquered by nomads instead like the last manchu dinasty.
Chinese buisness is very pro-american.
USA with NATO and some european crazies alredy made Russia an enemy when they for the most wanted to spend their petrodollars in Maiami and Côte d'Azur. (Exept military and few on the fringe.)
American NATO paranoia created China - Russia alliance.
I don't think covid was made in by chinese military scientists, to harm, well everyone including themselves. But american conservatives believes in it:
https://www.conservapedia.com/Covid
Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told CNN that he believes the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) lab in China. “I do not believe this somehow came from a bat to a human.”Dr Francis Boyle is an eminent professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law in the U.S. In an explosive interview with Geopolitics and Empire, Dr Boyle, who drafted the Biological Weapons Act, gave a detailed statement on how the 2019 Wuhan Coronavirus is an offensive biological warfare weapon and that the World Health Organization (WHO) already knew about it.
Posted by: Alef | Jul 22 2022 21:10 utc | 66
Robert Kendall @ 14:
People living in Sydney have many opportunities to observe migrants, tourists and students from Mainland China. Most if not all are unfailingly polite, friendly and curious about Australia. Before the pandemic hit Australia in 2020, Sydney at least drew huge numbers of Mainland Chinese visitors. Chinese New Year celebrations in particular were a huge attraction. After the pandemic, Chatswood (a suburb in northern Sydney) became a ghost town for lack of Chinese tourists and visitors!
There are Japanese and Korean communities in Sydney as well. My impression is that Japanese tend to be more shy and introverted rather than unfriendly. As for Koreans, they tend to be insular, mixing among their own. My impression is that their churches - most Koreans in Sydney seem to be Christians and have their own churches, even though they are Protestant - don't encourage Koreans to interact much with others. Their children have to go to the same schools as everyone else's children do so eventually the community will become more open.
Posted by: Jen | Jul 22 2022 21:12 utc | 67
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2022 17:19 utc | 19 etc.
Blah, blah, blah, making chips is so hard that US control of some factories can hamstring countries that fly around in space?!
Try reading between the lines of recent hypersonic tech: RU can control (steer?) objects that are shielded in plasma - there are radar/communication leaps underpinning that tech. And it is probably shared with CN, they are figuratively and literally joined at the hip. Contemplate the sheer volume of brainpower they can bring to bear, with actual investment and support from government… I guess the short version would be: ffs stop believing the exceptionalism hype!
Posted by: Rae | Jul 22 2022 21:13 utc | 68
There are ethnic issues in Xinjiang. (What translates as New Frontier.) Natives don't want to become han Chinese or be owercomed by them, but alsou there is a religious issues. Islam also don't fits with buddhism. Islam accepts christianity and judaism as also abrahamic religions but buddhism is considered pure heresy.
Alsou USA had noticed it is the most paintful regional issue in China.
Posted by: Alef | Jul 22 2022 21:26 utc | 69
Yenwoda @ 49:
Try getting your facts on Xi'an correct before telling us what a hellhole it is.
Also, why is it that once a nation reaches a certain level of development or a particular size, you assume it must always start thinking about how to compete for Number One status with others? Aren't you just projecting your own assumptions, based on what the Anglosphere nations would do, onto a nation with very different history, culture and values? This is the point of B's post above: that the US cannot conceive that other peoples and nations do not think differently from the way it does, and always projects its own desires and fears onto others.
Posted by: Jen | Jul 22 2022 21:30 utc | 70
@Rae #71
You clearly have not read the posts where I have noted that the tech actually used in Russian military equipment is nowhere remotely approaching cutting edge tech.
Since you no doubt would not be able to find it - the thread is here
Displaying ignorance is a fault that can be fixed.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2022 21:31 utc | 71
NemesisCalling @42: "Solution: both sides walk away from each other right now."
Impossible.
The capitalist empire's current host body (the USA) and China are states permanently fixed to the surface of a relatively small planet. Like Russia right now, China has nowhere else to go. Also, China is a socialist country. They don't need America. Instrumentally using market economics gave China a quick boost up to get their population out of poverty, but market economics doesn't control them like it does America. It is the US that is responsible for 100% of the conflict, be that with China, Russia, Iran, Libya, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and so on. None of these states can disengage from the conflict because that conflict is being inflicted upon them by the mindless and ravenous beast of capitalism (the "automatic" and "self-correcting" nature of capitalism is its top selling point, but it necessitates capitalist economies be mindless; directionless; uncontrolled; "Free©"). Not one of those countries asked for a fight with the US, but here we are. We are here because the capitalist beast is hungry and it will not be denied its meal by moral imperatives or rational arguments. Neither you nor Biden nor Trump nor Bill Gates nor George Soros nor whoever is managing the Rothschild's wealth can stop it. Capitalism must consume labor and concentrate wealth or die. There is no alternative to that pattern of existence for capitalism.
There will be war. "...avoiding Chinese products... will do jack shit to stop it. You'll just end up going without shoes and cell phones. You will also have to proselytize your ascetic shoeless lifestyle of shunning manufactured goods in Africa, Latin America, and the rest of Asia (I think maybe Europeans are ready for the naked barefoot no-heat lifestyle... they'll finally develop some character when it snows). I suspect your "back to the caves and trees" religion won't have many takers.
But you know how that proselytizing goes where the empire is concerned though, don't you? Napalm.
You will lose the war, though, because the winner is always the one with the steel mills and the shipyards and the factories and the supply chains. You will be crushed, utterly and brutally. The Chinese will bury you under mountains of freshly built ships and aircraft and missiles and whatever else they decide to pile on.
The only solution that leaves the US mostly intact is revolution; the real "reset". And that has to be in the US.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 22 2022 21:40 utc | 72
"...what they've done in Xi'an over the past years is a horror show..."
What a total phuquing clueless moron. Does he have a nanny charged with wiping his chin and reminding him to breathe or is he perpetually blue in the face and drooling?
Back to your mom's basement you trog brockbot.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 22 2022 21:53 utc | 73
Posted by: Frederick | Jul 22 2022 16:46 utc | 10
Colby isn't "the left".
Posted by: pretzelattack | Jul 22 2022 21:57 utc | 74
" Like how Article 5 "made sense" in a world where you genuinely thought giving less than 110% to a potential fight of any size would result in the USSR steamrolling all of Europe."
Posted by: morbuts | Jul 22 2022 16:44 utc | 9
=========
Of course, steamrolling was never the USSR's goal, much to the dismay of many Trots. The ruling class knew this because the Western intelligence agencies knew this; they followed the ins and outs of the Trotsky/Stalin split, and no one in the Soviet Union was exactly hiding it.
But like China today, the media and the press, and the public utterances of the Intel Class, all agreed that every new nuclear missile, or military action, was necessary to prevent the USSR from steamrolling into the streets of Washington D.C.
The question is with both China and the RF, will Americans take the bait again.
Posted by: Ed Nelson | Jul 22 2022 21:59 utc | 75
"Both Ignatius and Colby offer excellent examples of "confession through projection." Observe what the U.S. would do, or currently does, and accuse others of doing the same thing. The Left is quite proficient in conducting this behavior."
Posted by: Frederick | Jul 22 2022 16:46 utc | 10
=====
Explain to me when the "LEFT" ever had control of State Power in the US. If you are referring to the leadership of the Democratic Party, you are either really deluded or plain ignorant. The neo-liberal/ neo-cons. It is such a joke to hear people describe Nancy and Joe as the left. Left of what, Hitler? The "LEFT" has NEVER held state power in the US. The ruling class would never accept it.
Posted by: Ed Nelson | Jul 22 2022 22:11 utc | 76
Analysts who live in fantasy land are going to stay in fantasy land. Until hit upside the head with a 4x4. If that doesn't work, and it might not, try the 6x6. Posting good arguments won't do a thing.
Posted by: oldhippie | Jul 22 2022 22:18 utc | 77
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2022 20:18 utc | 62
That is exactly what I meant with IP. Not only patents but also designs, tuned design flows, device models and on the fab side all physical IP like methods and means to do incredible things to Si wafers (and validate it).
The problem is that if you want to up the western semicon industry, you need to do it by catching up in R&D while simultaneously going around their IP. Thats a tall order.
Of course, as long as you adhere to the WPO. Once a country or a set of countries steps out of the WPO, all bets are off. This is btw the cornerstone of western economic power on a high level. Not only in semicon but also elsewhere.
It is however wavering as you need money and a loyal workforce with competence and expertise to maintain that IP. How things are going with boomers retiring and woke hyper-individualists of tremendous egos replacing them, its a just matter of time.
Posted by: alek_a | Jul 22 2022 22:22 utc | 78
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2022 20:18 utc | 62
Can Huawei and other Chinese companies replicate or be superior to what the above design houses do today? Maybe someday, but I am pretty doubtful if they can do it today or in the near future. From what I see, the key parts (selling points) of systems are still using Apple/Broadcom/Qualcomm tech.
It's like the problems China has making good engines for their fighter jets. Some problems are so specialized that it's difficult-to-impossible to leapfrog all the painful experience building steps the established firms went through over many years. They'll keep improving, but there's no reason to believe China will be world-class at everything.
Posted by: ZX | Jul 22 2022 22:27 utc | 79
There are ethnic issues in Xinjiang. (What translates as New Frontier.) Natives don't want to become han Chinese or be overcome by them, but also there is a religious issue. Islam also don't fit with Buddhism. Islam accepts Christianity and Judaism as also Abrahamic religions, but Buddhism is considered pure heresy.
Also, USA had noticed it is the most painful regional issue in China.
Posted by: Alef | Jul 22 2022 21:26 utc | 72
========
The Yugur issue is more fiction than fact. For a real "native" issue, talk to Native Americans, they have a real story to tell. (I corrected some spelling and grammar issues in your comment, hope you don't mind).
Posted by: Ed Nelson | Jul 22 2022 22:28 utc | 80
Pepe Escobar was on Crosstalk today and also had his latest essay published at SCF. The CT topic was based on the Harpers item about the end of the American Century, and I'd say it's worth the 25 minutes to listen--but listen first then read the SCF item. Here's a tidbit:
And that brings us to the stunning contrast between these two foreign policy approaches, graphically illustrated by the spectacular failure of the teleprompter-reading “leader of the free world” in his visit to Jeddah – he was not even allowed to go to Riyadh – compared to Putin’s performance in Tehran.Not only we are witnessing the lineaments of a Russia/Iran/Turkey informal alliance; we are witnessing the alliance reading a soft riot act to the Empire: leave Syria, before you suffer yet another humiliation. And with a Kurd-directed corollary: keep away from the Americans and recognize the authority of Damascus before it’s too late.
Ankara could never admit it in public, but the fact is Sultan Erdogan – as much against US troops in Syria as Putin and Raisi – even seems to have swiftly calibrated his previous designs on Syrian sovereign territory.
The much-debated Turkish military operation in northern Syria in the end may be restricted to taming the YPG Kurds. The heart of the action will in fact revolve around how the Russia/Iran/Turkey/Syria alliance will make like impossible for Americans stealing Syrian oil.
As Russia is now on “take no prisoners” mode when facing the collective West – the mantra in every intervention by Putin, Lavrov, Medvedev, Patrushev – and on top of it firmly aligned with China and Iran, it’s inevitable that every other player across West Asia and beyond is giving undivided attention to the new game in town.
Later, Pepe mentions Putin's remarks at the ASI Forum but links to the incomplete English transcript. Here's the complete Russian transcript. At today's Security Council Meeting, all that was provided was this bit from Putin:
"We are going to discuss several issues on the international agenda today.
"I would like to begin by asking Mr Lavrov to talk about the results of his trips abroad. I have read your written reports, but I would like to ask you to share these results and your impressions of your trips with your colleagues."
Damn! I want to hear those results and read the reports, too, as I'm sure the whole bar minus the trolls would!
The only way I see the Outlaw US Empire changing its mantra is for it to completely lose its grip on Europe or suffer revolution at home.
Posted by: Ed Nelson | Jul 22 2022 22:11 utc | 79
I dont know what your definition of left is, but all relevant western countries are today dominated by progressive leftists. With their civilisation (and soul)-crunching equal outcomes, equity, critical theories of power, social justice and so on (or as someone well known here would say “what have you”). Yes, it has no bearing on classical socialism anymore but that is what passes for “left” these days.
All our ills today stem from lefty-progressive ideology of forced equality, starting in education. Everything else is downstream. Our leaders seem incompetent: they either are or are compromised.
Posted by: alek_a | Jul 22 2022 22:37 utc | 82
there are no western nations dominated by leftists. utter horseshit.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Jul 22 2022 22:41 utc | 83
Posted by: Stonebird | Jul 22 2022 17:26 utc | 23
This reminds me that the Chinese do not have a very high opinion of Talks with Officials from the US. I'm thinking of Blinken and the disastrous meeting in Alaska.
No, China's opinion on Blinken has nothing to do with China's indifference to USA's call for talk now. It's China's opinion on USA the nation, and Biden the head of that nation, that matters here. Here is a link to an editorial on US's talk invite:
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202207/1271151.shtml
And this quote from the article:
The fundamental way out of impasses in China-US relations is to seriously implement the consensus reached by the leaders of both countries. China has always developed the bilateral relations in accordance with the three principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation proposed by President Xi, and this attitude is consistent and clear. However, if the US side always acts inconsistently with its words, it's difficult not to have doubts about its sincerity in dialogue and its true intentions.
It's sincerity! stoopid. Given the shenanigan the US side is playing, WTF is the use of talks???
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Jul 22 2022 22:42 utc | 84
BTW b:
Giraldi recommended your site in this youtube with Judge Napolitano who regularly chats with Douglas MacGregor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoi0A-GMzfU
Posted by: Scorpion | Jul 22 2022 22:46 utc | 85
Posted by: Scorpion | Jul 22 2022 22:46 utc | 88
Oh no! Here come the gun-toting Yanks now!
Posted by: alek_a | Jul 22 2022 22:50 utc | 86
It's sincerity! stoopid. Given the shenanigan the US side is playing, WTF is the use of talks???
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Jul 22 2022 22:42 utc | 87
The Biden family has taken millions from China, I believe direct from CCP. So there may be no need for meetings: he is doing just fine weakening his country on all fronts (political, diplomatic, financial, cultural etc.) just as they wish so they have no reason to meet about anything.
Concerning "Intellectual property":
US patents are only valid in countries the US Army can invade.
Posted by: Passerby | Jul 22 2022 22:55 utc | 88
Oh no! Here come the gun-toting Yanks now!
Posted by: alek_a | Jul 22 2022 22:50 utc | 89
you want some gun toting Yanks, check out the Uvalde cops. 376 very well armed "good guys with guns". good thing they were well funded, huh.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Jul 22 2022 23:03 utc | 89
Ed Nelson @79--
Milwaukee and much of Minnesota has Socialist city governments during the first third of the 20th Century and many proto-Socialist insurgents were elected to Congress during both Populist periods. And most Progressives and New Dealers were Republicans. Taft perhaps more than Teddy Roosevelt saw Trusts and the Money Power as threats to proper governance. Teddy's 1910 speech at Osawatomie, Kansas was as radical as any Wobblie speech, which very few living today even know about. An excerpt:
"I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely
that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the games, but that I stand for having those
rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for
equally good service. One word of warning, which, I think, is hardly necessary in Kansas. When
I say I want a square deal for the poor man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the
man who remains poor because he has not got the energy to work for himself. If a man who
has had a chance will not make good, then he has got to quit. And you men of the Grand Army,
you want justice for the brave man who fought, and punishment for the coward who shirked
his work. Is not that so?
"Now, this means that our government, national and State, must be freed from the sinister
influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery
threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business
interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own
profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics. That is one of our tasks to-day. Every
special interest is entitled to justice - full, fair, and complete - and, now, mind you, if there
were any attempt by mob-violence to plunder and work harm to the special interest, whatever
it may be, and I most dislike and the wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I have
the greatest contempt, I would fight for him, and you would if you were worth your salt. He
should have justice. For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a
vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The
Constitution guarantees protections to property, and we must make that promise good But it
does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation. The true friend of property, the true
conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the
commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man's making shall be the servant and not the
master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the
mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being.
"There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put
an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done." [My Emphasis]
Yes, too few know, and therein lies the core of the problem. I bolded that particular section of the text for a reason. When I taught, we spent a week--three classroom hours, not nearly enough--dealing with the political conflict within pre-WW1 USA. Would Taft, Roosevelt or Debs have created the Federal Reserve? No. Taft was busting more Trusts than TR did, so why did TR choose to split the Rs and throw the election to Wilson? His ego? What ever happened to the type of Conservatism TR described in his speech? It still exists, but which party represents it? If a citizen today took TR's speech, tuned it for today, and recited it, what sort of response would it get? Would the media say, Look, there's another Trump?
@Scorpion, #90:
You may be right :-). Biden may have no qualm with China's public indifference regarding another talk. His investments in China are likely safe. But Biden wasn't hyping the non-talk towards China. He and his minions are hyping it to Americans, who usually swallow such hypes cook, line, and sinkers. The point is to stay in public limelight, since any mention of China these days gets the American public's antenna up and jaws dropping. Hyping a non-talk would impress the public as their POTUS is trying, trying hard! He ain't demented; he's tough; he's gonna save our democracy and freedom. That's what all the zombies inside the DC beltway do in their careers, making press headlines by hood or by crook, to suck in the stupid public's votes.
This kind of hypes never fail in the USA. This is what the MSM is for.
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Jul 22 2022 23:12 utc | 91
go visit China, then tell me about how friendly and accepting they are. if you havent been there, you really dont know...Posted by: robert kendall | Jul 22 2022 16:52 utc | 14
I live in China. I have been here for nearly 20 years. 40 something years in the USA, and now 20+ in China.
China is smart, welcoming, and pleasant. Anyone who thinks otherwise is ignorant.
China is also very disciplined. Military training starts in first grade. Seeing my little girl stand at attention in her cute little camo uniform and do roll call for her classmates made me so proud. Not that it is everything, but seeing and watching the discipline, the comradely, and her striving to be the best that she can be while at the same time, being part of her community is breathtaking. You just do not have that in the USA.
The USA is delusional, and I am very embarrassed to be an American these days. When asked, I try to avoid the subject. The Chinese pick up on it, though. They chuckle and say "American, eh?"
I say "Yeah".
They then tell me how great America is, and that this is just a short period of time as America goes though it's own "Cultural Revolution". They reassure me that America will again be "fine". Just a few more years, that's all.
Posted by: Rufus Arrr | Jul 22 2022 23:12 utc | 92
And, in 3 days, the demented One will be healthy and free of covid...just as Trump...
Posted by: ostro | Jul 22 2022 17:22 utc | 21
===========
That was the first thing that came to mind when my wife and I heard it on the news. I told my wife that Biden is falling apart, shaking hands with invisible dignitaries' (or rabbits). He is claiming that he has cancer from oil refineries in Delaware, so it's a blessing that oil prices are high I suppose, (funny that he never took these refineries to task when he was a Senator or VP). Biden is a walking joke pretending to be president of the US. Hey joe, time to step down. He gave it his best, but the outcome was the worst.
Posted by: Ed Nelson | Jul 22 2022 23:15 utc | 93
Claudearpi.blogspot.com has info on going ons in Tibet. He also has an archive where Mao had promised no conquest then went back on his words.
Posted by: Hutch | Jul 22 2022 23:18 utc | 94
Oriental Voice @87--
Great catch and exposition! A very longstanding problem with the US government is it says one thing then does another, often the exact opposite of what it pledged. Thus the moniker, Empire of Lies. That's what the Grifter does, always looking for a way to make a buck via a con. Pleonexia as I've noted and will continue to note.
Most cultures incorporate the concept of honor. The Anglo-American doesn't as proven over and over. That served its sociopathic rise and continues to fuel its false sense of dominance, but has finally become the liability it always was, and is now being called out because of it.
The only way I see the Outlaw US Empire changing its mantra is for it to completely lose its grip on Europe or suffer revolution at home.
Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 22 2022 22:36 utc | 84
Can't we have both?
Posted by: T.D | Jul 22 2022 23:27 utc | 96
That was the first thing that came to mind when my wife and I heard it on the news. I told my wife that Biden is falling apart, shaking hands with invisible dignitaries' (or rabbits). He is claiming that he has cancer from oil refineries in Delaware, so it's a blessing that oil prices are high I suppose, (funny that he never took these refineries to task when he was a Senator or VP). Biden is a walking joke pretending to be president of the US. Hey joe, time to step down. He gave it his best, but the outcome was the worst.
Posted by: Ed Nelson | Jul 22 2022 23:15 utc | 96
hmmm Jimmy Stewart starred in Mr. Smith goes to Washington, and also starred in Harvey (the 6 foot invisible rabbit movie).
Posted by: pretzelattack | Jul 22 2022 23:27 utc | 97
Archives www.claudearpi.net ...make up your own mind. US supported the Tibetan invasion.
Posted by: Hutch | Jul 22 2022 23:27 utc | 98
RT headline says SMIC achieved tech parity with TSMC. IMHO, that’s a big deal, even if they aren’t exploiting it commercially in volume yet.
Having trouble connecting to RT now. Otherwise I’d post the link.
Posted by: r2deez | Jul 22 2022 23:34 utc | 99
The comments to this entry are closed.
My response is that the US strategy vs. China is that of a "frenemy": cozy up and try to get the target to agree to things which are to its negative interest, then hold those up as proof of "bad actor" or whatever which in turn allows pretext for aggression as well as grist for agitprop among the ROW and US stooges.
JCPOA is an excellent example: even blaming Trump for withdrawing is stupid because Biden did nothing to return to JCPOA despite incessant carping about it during Biden's presidential campaign. The entire affair is thus clearly much more about delaying/destroying budding any budding relationship between the EU and Iran than any form of rapprochement or peace.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2022 16:13 utc | 1