Coronavirus has left a trail of destruction across the world. No country is spared, including economic powerhouse United States and China. The last thing the world needs now is escalating tensions between both superpowers over the endless blaming game of China’s handling of the pandemic. But it appears the trade war is about to explode again, and it will get even worse.
What does Covid-19 pandemic have anything to do with trade war? None at all, but when it comes to Donald Trump, anything can be linked and politicised. Facing re-election in November, the U.S. president has gone back to its playbook in an attempt to impress upon American voters – again – how the good guy America will bash and punish the bad guy China.
The “Phase One” trade deal was Trump’s biggest win over Chinese President Xi Jinping after nearly 2 years of economic warfare, well, at least that was the narrative created by the White House. Trump had bragged about how he took the Chinese down and won. And he was hoping to ride on the deal to win re-election – until the Coronavirus turns his plan upside down.
While Trump can continue trumpeting about China’s fault for not controlling the spread of the virus, the fact remains that his incompetency, arrogance and complacency were partly responsible for the death of 90,000 Americans. To win again, the desperate Trump has to restart the trade war with China. And the best way to annoy the Chinese is to attack Huawei.
So on Friday (May 15), the Trump administration declared a new export restriction specially designed to isolate Huawei Technologies Co. by cutting off overseas manufacturers from supplying semiconductors to the Chinese telecom-equipment manufacturer. But has not Huawei already been put on an export blacklist imposed by the U.S. Commerce Department a year ago?
Apparently, Trump was not happy that Huawei’s 5G technology was ahead of the United States. Under the pretext of national security, the Chinese tech giant, along with 68 affiliates, was added to a trade blacklist in May 2019 – effectively requiring American companies to get approval from the government before conducting business with the Chinese firms.
The export ban saw some American tech giants like Google, Intel, Xilinx, Broadcom and Qualcomm cutting business agreements with Huawei. It was Trump’s attempt to block Huawei from rolling out 5G around the world. Washington claims the 5G network technology offered by Huawei could be used by China for espionage, an allegation that the U.S. can’t prove until today.
However, in their thirst for business from the world’s second biggest economy, some manufacturers later found “legal loopholes” in the Trump’s blacklist rule that enabled them to resume shipments to Huawei. The trick was superbly easy. What chip makers like Intel and Micron had to do was to “not” label their products as Made-in-USA and voila, the blacklist rule was bypassed.
Therefore, the workaround to the export restriction was to sell to Huawei through overseas subsidiaries and classify their technology as foreign, even though the headquarters is in the U.S. Obviously, Micron, which has plants in Japan, Taiwan and Singapore, as did Intel who has factories in China and Ireland, could easily – and legally – resumed selling their products to Huawei.
Understandable, the stakes are high for the U.S companies. In 2019 alone, China accounts for about 36% of US$193 billion in sales made by American semiconductor companies globally. A huge portion of that revenue is then re-invested in R&D (research and development) to make highly sensitive chipsets critical for next generation fighter aircraft and military weapons.
For example, Xilinx, a Silicon Valley-based chipmaker that sells integrated circuits to Huawei that allows 5G base stations to be re-programmed from afar, also produces semiconductors for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Like it or not, indirectly, China was funding the technology development of the U.S. military and weapons.
True, Trump was furious with the loopholes exploited by American companies. But at the same time, he also realized that American companies would be severely hit. Commerce Secretary Ross admitted last year that the U.S. government received 260 requests from American companies to be granted exemption so that licenses could be approved for them to do business with China.
That was before the Coronavirus outbreak hit the U.S. and Trump is being partly blamed for mishandling the pandemic. Fighting for his second-term in the Oval Office, the Trump administration has determined to shut down the loophole. In fact, Washington had closed one-eye over the export blacklist loophole for about a year, largely because Trump thought he was winning.
Now, the rule change, scheduled to go into effect in September, says that overseas manufacturers such as TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd), a major producer of chips for Huawei’s HiSilicon unit, is prohibited from supplying products to Huawei. That’s because almost all HiSilicon chips made by TSMC are using American chip-making equipment.
Last December, the Wall Street Journal revealed that according to an analysis by UBS and Fomalhaut Techno Solutions, a Japanese technology lab that took the device apart to inspect its components through what is known as reverse engineering and BOM (bill of materials) analysis, the Huawei Mate 30 phone was built without U.S. chips.
But as Trump struggles to re-use the Huawei and trade war cards to win re-election in November, even chipmaker TSMC who uses American equipment is not spared. Although Huawei did not use American-made chips, HiSilicon, Huawei’s in-house chip design agency, has used U.S. software and equipment to design and custom-made semiconductors for Huawei.
In the Huawei Mate 30 phones, for example, energy amplifiers supplied by American suppliers Qorvo or Skyworks had been changed with chips from HiSilicon. American-made Wifi and Bluetooth chips previously supplied by Broadcom had also been replaced with HiSilicon chips. Naturally, Beijing was not impressed with the Trump’s latest stunt.
Beijing warned it would similarly impose restrictions on U.S. companies such as Apple, Cisco Systems and Qualcomm, as well as suspending purchases of Boeing airplanes. According to Global Times, the mouthpiece of Beijing, China may retaliate by targeting the American corporations using Chinese laws and regulations like Cybersecurity Review Measures and Anti-monopoly Law.
At the same time, U.S. semiconductor makers worry that Trump’s new rules will slash their sales not only to Huawei, but other Chinese companies. The American companies fear that other Chinese firms will start looking for “more reliable” non-American suppliers, as the making of Huawei Mate 30 phone has shown that many American parts can be sourced elsewhere.
However, it appears that Huawei is well prepared. A Chinese mainland chipmaker, SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp), successfully mass-produced a smartphone processor for Huawei. The chipset – Kirin 710A – was produced through an advanced 14-nanometer manufacturing process by the Shanghai-based chip-maker.
In actuality, Huawei has already begun shifting its self-designed chips from Taiwan’s TSMC to local firm SMIC last month, before Trump’s latest export restriction on Friday. But according to Reuters, HiSilicon engineers have started designing for Shanghai-based SMIC rather than TSMC in late 2019 – suggesting that China had anticipated the moves by the U.S. much earlier.
Other Articles That May Interest You …
- From Terminating Trade Deal To Cancelling $1.1 Trillion Debt Owed To China – Here’re Some Of Trump’s Crazy & Dirty Ideas
- China No Longer Needs U.S. Parts – Huawei Mate 30 Contains Zero American Chips
- Unstoppable!! – Huawei Expects Smartphone To Grow 20% In 2020 Even With Trump Blacklisting In Place
- Germany Ignores The U.S. Pressure – Welcomes Huawei To Build 5G Networks
- Huawei’s Market Share Hits Record 38% In China – All Competitors’ Share Including Apple Plunges
- What Trump Doesn’t Want His Supporters To Know – China Lowered Tariffs To Everyone Except The U.S.
- From Trade War To Tech War – After 5G Technology, The US Aims To Cripple China’s Artificial Intelligence
- As Huawei Hits $100 Billion Revenue, Chairman Said The U.S. Has “Loser’s Attitude” & “Table Manners” Problem
- “You Cannot Crush Us” – Huawei Founder Warned About Shifting Investment From The U.S. To U.K.
- Huawei Strikes Back – U.S. Fears Of Being Left Behind, Fails To Hack Into Huawei To Spy
- China Invasion – Top 10 American Iconic Brands Now Owned By Chinese
|
|
May 16th, 2020 by financetwitter
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Comments
SMIC… Advanced 14nm manufacturing tech…
14nm tech is so outdated. SMIC is only just starting to produce 14nm.
TSMC and Samsung is currently on 7nm and transitioning to 5nm as we speak. TSMC has been producing 14nm since 2015.
Truth is China is 10 years behind in semiconductor tech. And now they are cut off from by the US in the latest and greatest tech.
“…the latest and greatest tech”
Hardly.
You are into penis worship.
“…the latest and greatest tech” may be errr “…the latest and greatest tech”, but that don’t mean much.
Just how many Malaysians can afford what is even present technology?
Most Malaysians are even incapable of finding the money for technology two generations or many more behind.
China is certainly on the right track making all the money from the majority in the world who can never keep up with “…the latest and greatest tech”.
How do you explain the US with all the “super duper” technology but yet get totally screwed when it comes to flogging them in the world? Ain’t Huawei fcuking Apple upside down and sideway? For that matter, how did the Chinese “steal” 5G technology from the Yanks if the Yanks haven’t got that outside of the drawing boards?
The root of Yanks thinking is racist in nature. The white men do not think Asians are intelligent enough for most things. And there are not too few rather thick Asians who go along with that indoctrination and “truth”. The world is supposed to go along with the line that only Western countries are endowed with intelligence – which is weird, considering Chinese names were involved with the Manhattan Project, the creation of the Los Alamos facilities, Jet Propulsion Lab, the theoretical basis the turbo-prop aircraft engine, and the fanjet engine… and in case you think Asians should feel inferior, semiconductor research and production have just too many Chinese names!
Yank semiconductor research and production will grind to a halt tomorrow if the Yanks ever deport the Chinese.
In case you’ve forgotten, Yank chip-makers are desperate and fighting their dumb gomen to be allowed to sell to the Chinese, their greatest customers.
Trump’s huge infantile ego is preventing “their” technology from ending up in Asian hands. While Wall Street would love to sell anything to anybody.
So that means Yank manufacturers have to eat their “…the latest and greatest tech” chips together with their pork chops, no one else can make the almost “…latest and greatest tech” cheap and fast enough so that Malaysians can still not afford them.
How is anyone going to ban intelligence?
For all the Yanks lunatic effort at preventing the Chinese from getting anywhere in space, the Chinese may jolly well land on Mars in a couple months. They have already successfully landed on the more difficult part of the moon, haven’t they? And all without any Yank help, too!
Yank space equipment (and missiles!) use Chinese chips, in case you are not aware.
Son, you need to get your tofu bucket wired up properly!
You are most likely using an outdated Malaysian chip. Malaysia is good only at making chips for kettles and lawnmowers designed by the angmohs. Malaysia is only good at making shoddy electrical and electronic products, even a simple plug fails after a few use. I have to specially import my electrical and electronic stuff from elsewhere. How is it Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines can produce most stuff but Malaysia fcuks it up?! Too many “paper” and “specs” experts? No investment from China?
You need ask the Chinese to do proper wiring for your head even if you can’t afford that. You can trust the Chinese for that, they won’t want to steal parts off your tofu bucket. Or its content.
All you need do is get into one of those famous Chinese “debt traps” which should not be difficult – a lot of Malaysians can hardly eat properly or have half a decent crap life after giving money to the Chinese for their phones.
Btw, what do Malaysians do with present or even past technology with the phone, for example?
They spend time texting non-stop and posting continuous absolute crap on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter…
That is, when they are not busy taking fcuking “selfies” of their dumb, ugly faces to let the world know they are dumb, ugly – and fcuking boring.
But, of course, the monkeys make up for their dreary lives by obsessively playing Candy Crush.
“…the latest and greatest tech”, are all marketing ploys to get those monkey mugs who worship penis size to flash the only thing of considerable cost (not value) in their pathetic lives.
I once sat next to one of Malaysia’s billionaires in a flight, yes, he flew economy.
When the plane landed, he took out a phone to use. It was one of those antique flip-phones from time ancient.
No doubt he has always been too busy making tons of money screwing others (I knew he did) and had no time to wet himself getting excited following “…the latest and greatest tech”.
If you want to talk about cars, it is the same. Malaysians salivate at the flashy cars in Top Gear, know all the specs for them, even worship the racist producer of the programmes who used a racist term on an Asian he was forced to grudgingly apologise for.
And just a tiny tiny minority in Malaysia can lay hands on a flashy car – if mostly money from corruption permits.
The term “technology” do not actually mean much outside of specific contexts. In some parts of Malaysia circumcision is still done with a sliver of bamboo. It is free and widely available. It does the work. It is technology. Going to a doctor for the fun will get you infected just the same. And that has happened to some poor Malaysians who lost their thinking tool to modern thinking which only costs more. Nano surgery to stitch back the dicky bird costs even more, I think most Malaysians would adapt to sitting down to do their peeing, save a good pile of money, forget the penis. No loss there, Malaysians can’t pee straight, anyway…
I do get the “latest” (there’s no such thing, btw) phones – I change my phones every six months or less because I love gadgets and those nonsensical phone gimmicks I rarely use in the end.
After paying good money for them (I don’t just buy a phone every few years, and only one phone), I find that I am never bothered about learning how to use any of those “super duper” features. I just take a lot of pictures which bloat the phones, I don’t get into transferring the pics elsewhere, it is too boring, I just put the phones aside, get new phones… I don’t spend time colour-correcting the pics, put dumb captions on them, worse still, pass them around to “share” wtf!
Worshiping “…the latest and greatest tech” is just being pathetic.
Especially when most Malaysians can never afford them.
I do know a lot of Malaysians do peer over and see what phones someone else owns, none of them open up any phone to see if their “…latest and greatest tech” actually has the exact version of any “super duper” chip (version identity on paper tells you nothing about the quality of a chip), you need know the quality of the chip with the same identity, wtf, again!
Phone manufacturers dump their “latest” and “bestest” phones on fcuking stupid Asian mugs, they flog the better ones of the same models to more sophisticated markets. Same with cameras, same with cars, etc etc. The best chips with the same names all go to European and Yank markets.
So if you want the genuine “…latest and greatest tech”, you need go to Europe or the US to get them. And pay the right prices.
So much for that meaningless “…the latest and greatest tech” – China is still fast conquering the world market.
And Malaysians can still worship the large penis in “…the latest and greatest tech” but still can’t even afford Chinese phones, wtf, yet again!
As for your ignorant “Truth is China is 10 years behind in semiconductor tech.”, which spy of yours told you that? “Truth is”, China was “10” or more years behind in everything not so long ago. China held the number one spot many times in supercomputers, you wonder about the minds that can do that.
The Chinese are not like Malaysians, they move with the times, and they move fast. Malaysians ought to adapt their thinking – just because Malaysia is behind in everything doesn’t mean the Chinese are not going to make up for lost time – and speed forward.
And that means Chinese advances in semiconductor technology.
If you look at the names in Silicon Valley, if you read research papers, identify the owners and workers of a company, a whopping number of them have Chinese names. Don’t tell me they have no ambition to set up their own outfits to produce”…the latest and greatest tech”, very likely in China… don’t tell me they don’t share their expertise with industry in China (or the Chinese gomen, spy agencies, and all that!). The Yanks are rightfully terrified of all or anything about the Chinese in the US – if they are not “spies”, they are nevertheless “stealing” whatever they store in their heads that they are not allowed to own, everything is a copy of a Microsoft user license!
By “Chinese”, I also mean the Taiwanese, they are a pretty helpful lot when it comes to sharing with China. Some of those prosecuted for “spying” for China are Taiwanese (Hong Kongers, Singaporeans) And, don’t forget, not too few of those who “spy” for China are white and All-American, the Yanks don’t seem to like talking about them. Maybe that has got to do with the colour of their skin.
Just because China was backward yesterday doesn’t mean they are going to stay the same. Or go backward like we are good at. We can’t judge the Chinese with our caveman coconut shell mentality.
And the Chinese have the money to propel themselves ahead. China buys expertise from Russian fighter jets designers, buys engineering from Ukraine for giant aircrafts, buys up European companies in the production of machine tools, buys sophisticated cameras for the design of circuits, buy chip foundries – in fact, buys up anything they can lay hands on. There’s every reason China will definitely move far ahead in every area of technology in not many years to come.
The Chinese are even doing research on durians. In the very near future they would force the angmohs to eat our durians. While our durian fanatics would eat the Chinese creations.
China is doing all these and more, while Malaysians recite:
“14nm tech is so outdated. SMIC is only just starting to produce 14nm. TSMC and Samsung is currently on 7nm and transitioning to 5nm as we speak. TSMC has been producing 14nm since 2015.”
While Malaysians have yet to learn not to squat on sitting loos.
And learn to flush them!
And learn not to flood toilets.
So what’s your point about “the latest and greatest tech”?
“Latest” when? Today? Tomorrow? Next week? For all time?
Tough to say when Malaysia is where time stands still…
Man! Without the Chinese “technology” we’d still be using fcuking smoke signal. While salivating on the specs of the “latest” iPhone made in China!
Indeed, the Chinese have outwitted Trump, they are making their own chips as the Yanks are putting pressure on other countries not to supply chips to China.
In the medium to long run it is also best for China to handle every stage of chip production. It would not be entirely plain sailing for the Chinese but it’s got to be done, it is predictable where Trump’s infantile rage would lead to in the end. And Trump would without a doubt throw every wrench into the work preventing the Chinese from getting any outside support either through buying machines or getting advice from experts they haven’t got. (Don’t forget, like everyone else, Yanks too can be bought!)
But the Chinese will as usual make a huge success of their effort.
Don’t forget the US wanted China out of their GPS system, and the Chinese were prevented from participating in the USA space station. But neither moves by the Yanks have stopped the Chinese from making an amazing success of their very own!
And the joke that the Yanks are, the Chinese will not have to call hav
their chips fcuking “freedom fries” either.