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From /u/gwern (@gwern ?): analysis on China’s semiconductor industry.
Recent export controls are directly targeting the Chinese ability to fabricate cutting-edge chips. The subsequent effect on electronics prices and the much-maligned supply chain won’t be pleasant—especially for China, and especially if their industry is already slumping. Consequences for the rest of the world are left as an exercise to the reader.
Given the forum, it’s not surprising that the focus is on AI. I’m more interested in the geopolitical outlook. This is an incentive to retaliate, perhaps even against the other regional semiconductor fabricator. And it is suggested that the timing is a calculated insult to Chinese leadership, as they are apparently going through a periodic dog-and-pony show of elections. Gwern suggests that China would otherwise be raising hell.
The counterpart in US domestic politics: crunching semiconductor supply will not mix well with inflation. I don’t think adding $50 to the next iPhone will make or break Democrats, but it seems unlikely to help.
I want to place predictions, but I don’t have a good grasp of the metrics involved. Place your bets, I guess, for:
China taking economic action
China taking military action
Consequences on Chinese industry
Tech policy towards China becoming a wedge issue in American politics
I'll shill Chinatalk as a good source of info and analysis, apparently it was one of their people who posted that big twitter thread, translating some Chinese commentary about how significant the blow was.
https://www.chinatalk.media/p/export-controls-xis-s-and-t-dreams?publication_id=4220&post_id=78583462&isFreemail=true
https://www.chinatalk.media/p/china-responds-to-chip-export-controls?publication_id=4220&post_id=78891054&isFreemail=true
I think military action is locked in, it's only a matter of timing. Once China fills out more of its new ICBM fields, once their new ballistic missile subs are deployed - then they'll feel confident in their strategic deterrent. Right now their missile subs are old and don't have the range to hit the US from home waters. New missile subs will start being deployed around 2024-5.
Many people have been arguing that these next few years are extremely dangerous for the US camp. China has been expanding its navy while the US fleet shrinks, China's fleet is young and concentrated whilst the US fleet is old and dispersed all around the world. Now that a good chunk of the US military is hovering around in Eastern Europe and ammunition stockpiles have been drained, there is probably even more of an opportunity for the Chinese.
Of course, China has issues in getting the necessary sealift capacity and the US retains an advantage in attack subs. However, Taiwan is 90% dependent on food imports and is even more dependent on foreign energy imports. There is no country worse prepared for a naval blockade IMO - China is basically self-sufficient on food once you account for them not exporting - plus they can buy from Eurasian markets. Energy is more troublesome for China but not insoluble if they shut down some industry (given they won't be exporting so much that'll happen anyway).
TSMC is an absolutely dominant semiconductor producer (pic related), it makes a lot of sense for the Chinese to deny them to the US bloc if they can't hope to profit from their work. China doesn't want to fall behind in AI and high-tech weapons.
/images/16661369878189542.webp
Just FYI, that chart at the bottom only counts foundry revenue. Of the top three, Intel doesn’t do foundry, Samsung is both foundry and IDM, tsmc is foundry only - so no wonder the chart shows them “leading”. In total revenue all three should be roughly similar.
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