I know that this is a gaming comm so I apologise for the intrusive politics. It’s just that both China and USA are far enough from me that I can watch their trade war from afar, without too much emotional involvement.
All those tech-related measures that USA is currently taking against China - banning the export of chips, banning TikTok from its own territory, heavily tariffing imported Chinese cars etc. - smell like desperation. And they’ll likely backfire.
The presence of common commercial partners makes them at most a deterrent, when it comes to innovation sharing; USA could push other governments to a “you eithurr chrare [trade] with Chir̃a or with us”, to avoid those common commercial partners, but the answer wouldn’t be pretty:
China is nowadays a more valuable partner than USA. Curiously even in some countries where the population mostly speaks English, like Australia.
Another possible outcome is USA economically isolating itself. That’s like migrating a few fish from a big global pond to a smaller local pond. I’ve seen Brazil doing this through heavy tariffs, and the result is not pretty either - the larger fish starve, and all that you’re left is a bunch of medium fish that, if placed again in the large pond, are quickly eaten by the others.
Even if I take Gelsinger’s position as Realpolitik from USA’s PoV, that “magic line” he talks about is just a hallucination. Lessening the restriction on exports does lessen the pressure for the local development of technology, but it doesn’t eradicate it. That pressure will exist even at no restriction, for ideological reasons (governments often babble about sovereignty, and China is no different.)
EDIT: I got to admit that I’m rather amused at the downvotes.
If they were being issued due to it being intrusive politics, they would “leak” into the TheOneCurly’s child comment*; if it was due to some reasoning flaw, or some incorrect statement, people would be quick to point that flaw out; and, if it was due to my usage of eye dialect, it wouldn’t “leak” into the grandchild comment.
So, here’s a question. How many of you are “shooting the messenger”, since what I said would have obvious implications towards your living standards? “If you don’t talk about it, it’ll magically stop happening” style?
*nor I think that it should. I disagree with what the other user said, but they’re contributing to the discussion; there’s no reason to downvote their comment.
Import tariffs and service bans are definitely pretty wonky with dubious benefits, but I can understand the export concerns. Exporting tech that can be used in weapons directly to a country that is threatening a highly strategic ally (Taiwan) is a bad move. Yes they’ll get them elsewhere or make them, but you won’t have the US government and a US company directly profiting off the destruction of an ally.
If the destruction of an ally would happen regardless of another government’s actions (because, as you said, China will get weapons from elsewhere), then concerns like “we shouldn’t profit off its destruction” are solely moral and/or ideological in nature. Thus being irrelevant for the sake of Realpolitik:
- sell to China - you got some profit, but lost the ally
- don’t sell to China - you got no profit but you still lost the ally
And it’s clear that USA follows Realpolitik when it comes to its foreign policy.
I also don’t think that the PRC even needs to weaponise itself further to annex Taiwan. What’s keeping the PRC at bay seems to be international repercussions, that are better addressed through soft power, not hard power.
Because of both things, I don’t think that Taiwan plays a role explaining those policies. I think that USA is trying to protect its internal industry against competition.
As usual, American corps are afraid of actual competition. They need to tread a fine line when advocating for restrictions, because too many or too little mean competition, so they’re trying to find the right balance for minimum competition. Capitalism is only great when it works in their favor.
That is a very peculiar rant.
From a very peculiar person it seems
I see you didn’t read the article.
