@pstAsiatech responds....
A thread🧵
(1/7) Miller in fact gets it completely backwards on "decoupling on semiconductors. Semiconductors are different than other technologies China managed to master domestically, like nuclear weapons or missiles.
The risks of US-China decoupling
ft.com
A thread🧵
(1/7) Miller in fact gets it completely backwards on "decoupling on semiconductors. Semiconductors are different than other technologies China managed to master domestically, like nuclear weapons or missiles.
The risks of US-China decoupling
ft.com
(2/7) Miller: "Beijing’s been spending tens of billions of dollars annually on chip subsidies since around 2014."
@pstAsiatech: Of course they were. At that point, China was importing virtually all of its semiconductors. Miller, many others confuse, reducing dependence with "self sufficiency," two very different issues. Also, predictably, Beijing has little to show for those billions.
@pstAsiatech: Of course they were. At that point, China was importing virtually all of its semiconductors. Miller, many others confuse, reducing dependence with "self sufficiency," two very different issues. Also, predictably, Beijing has little to show for those billions.
(3/7) Miller: "China’s technological advances — which are real — stem from this decade of state-led investment."
@pstAsiaTech: actually no, they do not, they stem from investment and innovation from private sector technology companies like Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, Xiaomi, SMIC, and many others.
@pstAsiaTech: actually no, they do not, they stem from investment and innovation from private sector technology companies like Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, Xiaomi, SMIC, and many others.
(4/7) Miller and many others who are new to analyzing a complex sector like semiconductors, also naively assume that government can mandate something as complex as becoming "self sufficient" in semiconductors.
(5/7) The semiconductor industry is in fact one of the most market driven on the planet, and requires high levels of R&D, integration, and companies being part of a global sector development roadmap and global supply chains.
(6/7) Up until 2019-2019, when first ZTE and then Huawei were put on Entity List, China's strategy was to reduce dependence on foreign sources of semiconductors. The US approach on export controls, and Beijing' new calculus, proven to be correct, that US administrations would expand controls, led to a major change in policy. Chinese companies were forced into changing their strategies also.
(7/7) Conclusion: Absent US controls, Chinese companies would have continued to buy US and other foreign tools, use US EDA tools, design products with US semiconductors, and continued to work at the margins to reduce the level of dependence on foreign technology.
Note: In fact, what has happened instead is that US controls have driven the industry together, for example, the tool makers are much more integrated vertically, and with the fabs, mostly since October 2022. This would never have happened absent the controls. But you have to understand the industry in China to get this.
Note: A leading Chinese semiconductor industry expert told me in 2021 that the industry preferred to be part of the global sector and rely on the best tools, for example, but was under political pressure from Beijing because of the US controls.
Note: This is all based on more than a two decades of tracking these issues in detail.
For more see: tandfonline.com
Upcoming paper will go into more detail about exactly how Beijing and the private semiconductor sector in China are responding to US controls.
End thread
For more see: tandfonline.com
Upcoming paper will go into more detail about exactly how Beijing and the private semiconductor sector in China are responding to US controls.
End thread
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