Are India's regional ties with Bangladesh and Iran fraying? Will Iran-Pakistan ties improve?Why is China building a regional quad with Afghanistan, Nepal and Pakistan? Is it aimed at India and its quad with Australia, Japan and US? Will Pakistan be forced to choose sides between US and China?
Viewpoint From Overseas host Faraz Davesh discusses these questions with Misbah Azam and Riaz Haq (www.riazhaq.com).
https://youtu.be/DLMloNMVwCs
Related Links:
Haq's Musings
South Asia Investor Review
Can Pakistan Benefit From US-China Trade War
US-China Battle For Influence in Pakistan
Digital BRI: China and Pakistan Building Info Highway With 5G, Fiber
Caste Discrimination Among Indian-Americans in Silicon Valley
Has Intel's India-American Techie Jeopardized US Technology Leadership?
Marvel Pays $7.5 Billion For Cavium Co-Founded by Pakistani-American
OPEN Silicon Valley Forum 2017: Pakistani Entrepreneurs Conference
Pakistani-American's Tech Unicorn Files For IPO at $1.6 Billion Valuation
Pakistani-American Cofounders Sell Startup to Cisco for $610 million
Pakistani Brothers Spawned $20 Billion Security Software Industry
Pakistani-American Ashar Aziz's Fireeye Goes Public
Pakistani-American Pioneered 3D Technology in Orthodontics
Pakistani-Americans Enabling 2nd Machine Revolution
Pakistani-American Shahid Khan Richest South Asian in America
Two Pakistani-American Silicon Valley Techs Among Top 5 VC Deals
Pakistani-American's Game-Changing Vision
55 comments:
#Pakistan among top 5 markets for #China's ByteDance owned #TikTok video sharing app. #India leads with 190 million users, followed by #US 41 million, #Turkey 23.2 million, #Russia 19.9 million and #Pakistan 19.5 million. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tik-tok-statistics/#:~:text=India%20still%20leads%20by%20some,are%20covered%20by%20these%20stats.
A total of 44 countries are covered by these stats. It is unclear whether these include China.
https://twitter.com/haqsmusings/status/1291431262129774592?s=20
Mark Zuckerberg tells #Facebook employees he's 'really worried' about possible #tiktokban. "It's a really bad long-term precedent..I am really worried…it could very well have long-term consequences in other countries around the world. https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-tiktok-ban-all-hands-meeting-report-2020-8?utmSource=twitter&utmContent=referral&utmTerm=topbar&referrer=twitter via @businessinsider
#US squeeze on #China’s apps, #digital infrastructure could upend global internet. Over 20 of 100 top-grossing apps on #Google Play are #Chinese, while 10 of the 100 highest grossing apps on #Apple’s App Store are from China. #CleanNetwork https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3096323/us-squeeze-chinas-apps-digital-infrastructure-could-upend-global?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=share_widget&utm_campaign=3096323 via @scmpnews
“Many of the Chinese companies currently under unilateral US sanctions are innocent, and their technology and products are safe,” said Wang Wenbin, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, in a statement on Thursday. “It is absurd for the US to talk of a ‘Clean Network’ when it is covered in its own filth”, referencing the Edward Snowden incident and Prism surveillance.
--------
The Trump administration’s “Clean Network” programme threatens to further disrupt China’s technology industry, as the campaign seeks to restrict the international expansion of Chinese apps, cloud services and undersea cable networks.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday made sweeping remarks that – “to keep Americans’ data safe from untrusted vendors” – he will aim to remove Chinese-owned apps in the market as well as cut off links with China’s digital infrastructure.
The initiative, which the State Department said includes the commitment of more than 30 countries and territories, is likely to escalate the complex tech war between the world’s two largest economies, according to analysts.
“The negative effect of this programme is that it’s becoming harder to see a truly global vision of the internet and access without borders surviving this tech war,” said Paul Haswell, a partner who advises technology companies at international law firm Pinsent Masons. “It would seem that the object of the campaign is to remove Chinese technology from all aspects of US data transmission and processes. We’ll have to see if that is even possible in practice.”
-----------
“This latest ramp-up in US-China tensions poses a potential barrier for the Chinese cloud companies to expand globally,” said Mathew Ball, Canalys’ chief analyst for global infrastructure, cloud and cybersecurity. He added, however, that this campaign “will be challenging to enforce outside the US”.
Pompeo said the US campaign is also focused on keeping the undersea cables that links the country to the global internet safe from intelligence-gathering by China.
In June, the US government blocked a major undersea cable network from linking Hong Kong to the US West Coast because it “would expose US communications traffic to collection” by China.
#US #CleanNetwork aims to restrict #international growth of #Chinese apps, cloud services and undersea cable networks. 20+ of 100 top-grossing apps on #Google Play are #Chinese, while 10 of the 100 highest grossing apps on #Apple’s App Store are from China https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3096323/us-squeeze-chinas-apps-digital-infrastructure-could-upend-global
The Clean Network campaign also aims to prevent sensitive personal information of US citizens and businesses’ most valuable intellectual property – including Covid-19 vaccine research – from being stored and processed on cloud computing platforms run by the likes of
Alibaba Group Holding
, telecommunications network operators
China Mobile
and
China Telecom
,
Baidu
and Tencent.
Tencent and Alibaba, the parent company of the South China Morning Post, declined to comment on the US programme on Thursday. Baidu did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Alibaba Cloud
was the world’s fourth-largest cloud services provider in the second quarter, behind Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, according to research firm Canalys.
“This latest ramp-up in US-China tensions poses a potential barrier for the Chinese cloud companies to expand globally,” said Mathew Ball, Canalys’ chief analyst for global infrastructure, cloud and cybersecurity. He added, however, that this campaign “will be challenging to enforce outside the US”.
Alibaba vs. Amazon
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/better-buy%3A-alibaba-vs.-amazon-2020-04-02
With just about everyone who is still working doing so from home due to the COVID-19 outbreak, there has been a huge increase in the use of cloud services and online grocery orders. Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) are two of the top e-commerce and cloud service providers in the world.
Alibaba dominates China's e-commerce market, with 824 million users on mobile. The Chinese tech giant is also the leading cloud service provider in China with Alibaba Cloud.
Amazon is increasing its share of e-commerce in the U.S., as it becomes the go-to online store for people relatively new to buying things online. The company has over 150 million Amazon Prime members who enjoy free shipping and other services as part of a yearly subscription. Most of the company's profit, however, is generated from Amazon Web Services, which is helping organizations migrate their data systems from on-premise servers to the cloud.
Both companies were growing fast going into the coronavirus crisis, but the practice of social distancing will only make these companies stronger as more people adopt online shopping. We'll compare Alibaba and Amazon on financial fortitude, growth, and valuation to determine which stock is the better buy.
In hard times, companies that have plenty of cash can weather the storm, while companies that are swamped with debt add an additional element of risk that you can avoid by investing in cash-rich companies like Alibaba and Amazon.
The main difference between the two is that Alibaba generates more free cash flow relative to revenue than Amazon. Free cash flow is an important profitability metric to watch, as it shows the actual cash that is left over for value-creating moves like dividends, share repurchases, and acquisitions after paying all expenses and reinvesting in the business for growth.
Overall, Alibaba has the advantage here.
Which company is growing faster?
While Alibaba and Amazon have both been around for more than 20 years, both companies are still growing very fast, especially for companies of their size.
Has China Won by Kishore Mahbubani
Financial Times Book Review by John Thornhill
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8278279504304651957&postID=6231840832100514419
In Mahbubani’s telling, written before coronavirus struck, the US ruling classes think their rivalry with China is a rerun of the cold war with the Soviet Union — and they know how that movie ended. It is surely only a matter of time and political gravity before the liberty-loving, free-market superpower sees off the latest uppity communist dictatorship.
Mahbubani picks up on that cold war analogy. But this time, he argues, the roles are reversed: the US is the inflexible, ideological, systemically challenged superpower, while China is the adaptable, pragmatic and strategically smart rival. “America is behaving like the Soviet Union, and China is behaving like America,” he writes.
Like an overzealous proctologist, Mahbubani probes America’s most sensitive parts. In spite of the increasingly bellicose noises coming out of Washington, the US has failed to develop any coherent strategy to deal with a resurgent China, he argues. That is in glaring contrast with the patient strategy of containment articulated by the US diplomat George Kennan in 1946 at the start of the cold war. Mahbubani gives short shrift to America’s marginalised modern-day diplomats: there are, as the former defence secretary Robert Gates observed, more members of military marching bands than US foreign service personnel.
The former Singaporean diplomat adds that US politics has been captured by a short-sighted plutocracy that would not survive long if the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, criminalising bribery of officials abroad, applied at home.
Lacking any strategic brain, the US has become over-reliant on military muscle and entangled in perpetual wars in the Middle East. The US may account for half of global defence spending, but how much use is its military hardware in a software age? US aircraft carriers, which can cost up to $13bn to build, can be easily sunk by one of China’s DF-26 missiles, costing a few hundred thousand dollars.
Most tellingly, the US’s social and economic model has stopped delivering for most of its people. “America is the only developed society where the average income of the bottom 50 per cent of the population has gone down over the past 30 years. In the same period, the Chinese people have experienced the greatest improvement in their standard of living ever seen in Chinese history,” he writes.
It is in the nature of a polemic to maximise all evidence supporting an argument and minimise everything that contradicts it. So it is with Mahbubani: unsparing on the US’s failings, he glosses over China’s manifest flaws. The Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, in which tens of millions died, merit one sentence. The current unrest in Hong Kong is dismissed as a struggle between the homeless and real estate tycoons.
Mahbubani is as effusive in his praise of China’s leaders as he is damning of their US counterparts. President Xi Jinping’s removal of term limits was necessary to counter factionalism and corruption. His rule delivers three public goods to the world: restraining Chinese nationalism; responding to climate change; and ensuring that China is a status quo power, not a revolutionary one. “There is a very strong potential that Xi Jinping could provide to China the beneficent kind of rule provided by a philosopher king,” he gushes.
In the end, Mahbubani ducks the question his book’s title poses. Despite his criticisms of the US, he recognises its many strengths: an individualistic culture; the best universities in the world; a magnetic attraction for the world’s best and brightest (including 351,000 Chinese students); and its strong institutions — although Donald Trump is working on that.
He concludes that a “geopolitical contest between America and China is both inevitable and avoidable”. Read this book to be provoked, if not convinced.
#India and #US , the 2 largest democracies in the world, are the sickest now. One major difference is that political opposition to the government’s mishandling of the #COVID19 crisis is much more energised and organised in the US than in India.
https://scroll.in/article/971086/the-two-largest-democracies-in-the-world-are-the-sickest-now
The two largest democracies in the world, India and the United States, are now struggling and flailing in the fight against the coronavirus. India has the world’s largest number of new cases, followed closely by the US. The number of reported cases are almost surely undercounts, as in both countries testing has been delayed and highly inadequate, if not downright chaotic. Death rates per million people are much lower in India, possibly because the Indian population is much younger. As the number of cases mounted, the government in both countries discontinued giving daily briefings on the virus impact.
As is well known, in the US, President Donald Trump and his party had been in denial or claiming imminent victories too often (consistent with their anti-science and anti-expert attitude), fatally wasting several weeks of potential preparation. Simple hygienic precautionary measures have been politicised, with not wearing masks becoming a sign of partisan or libertarian defiance.
The US also lacks a unified public health agency to authoritatively handle and coordinate in a major pandemic. Even in the best of times, the US private medical insurance system is messy, uncoordinated, mired in a bureaucratic system oriented to exclude people, and largely unaffordable for all those, particularly the poor, who do not have a stable job. Among rich countries the system is among the least prepared to face a pandemic of the current proportions.
The current regime in India in its health plans has been trying by and large to copy the American system of subsidised private insurance. Health spending by the Indian government as percentage of GDP has long been one of the lowest for any major country, and the public health system is chronically dismal. This has been a matter of national shame, but this kind of shame does not get the attention of our current crop of ultra-nationalists.
A poorly handled pandemic
Faced with the virus, India, like the US, has been woefully unprepared. India also wasted crucial weeks in February and March, even as the virus was raging in a neighboring country. This was not so much because of anti-science attitudes (though they are not absent in the ruling party and its affiliates – remember the cow urine drinking parties organised by some of them to forestall the virus), but more because of another virus that has been afflicting India’s body politic: the virus of hate and intolerance.
Much of February, particularly around the time of the Delhi state elections, went in majoritarian hate-mongering against the minority Muslim community and all dissenters against a highly discriminatory Citizenship Act. The protesting women of Shaheen Bagh were the enemy, more than the pandemic. On February 24, the regime felicitated Trump in an Ahmedabad cricket stadium packed with 110,000 people, at a time when restrictions were already in place in some countries. After the Delhi elections, some ruling party politicians were busy fomenting riots. The first half of March the central leadership was preoccupied with toppling an Opposition state government.
--------------------
There is a danger that by the time the coronavirus crisis is finally over in India, there may be only a largely hollowed-out shell of democracy left. India will then be known as the world’s largest pseudo-democracy. This will give China a much larger ideological victory than their minor military one at India’s borders that the Indian government is currently busy covering up to prop its faltering image of muscular nationalism.
Joe Biden’s China Journey
As a United States senator, he spoke of transforming China through trade. As a presidential candidate two decades later, he denounces it as a “dictatorship.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/06/us/politics/biden-china.html
Mr. Biden, leading his first overseas trip as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was also there in Beidaihe in 2001 to help usher in an important era in America’s relationship with China — the building of a commercial link that would allow the Communist nation entry into the World Trade Organization.
“The United States welcomes the emergence of a prosperous, integrated China on the global stage, because we expect this is going to be a China that plays by the rules,” Mr. Biden told Mr. Jiang, recalled Frank Jannuzi, the Senate aide who organized the trip and took notes at Mr. Biden’s side.
The senator traveled days later to a dirt-road village near the Great Wall. Seven thousand miles from Delaware, his adopted home state, Mr. Biden glad-handed bemused locals like a candidate, even taking holy communion from a Roman Catholic priest. He returned to Washington seeing more promise than peril, offering reporters the same message he had delivered to Chinese leaders: The United States welcomed China’s emergence “as a great power, because great powers adhere to international norms in the areas of nonproliferation, human rights and trade.”
Two decades later, China has emerged as a great power — and, in the eyes of many Americans, a dangerous rival. Republicans and Democrats say it has exploited the global integration that Mr. Biden and many other officials supported.
The 2020 election has been partly defined by what much of Washington sees as a kind of new Cold War. And as Mr. Biden faces fierce campaign attacks from President Trump, his language on China points to a drastic shift in thinking.
Mr. Biden calls Xi Jinping, the authoritarian Chinese leader, a “thug.” He has threatened, if elected, to impose “swift economic sanctions” if China tries to silence American citizens and companies. “The United States does need to get tough on China,” he wrote this winter in an essay in Foreign Affairs. Mr. Biden now sees the country as a top strategic challenge, according to interviews with more than a dozen of his advisers and foreign policy associates, and his own words.
Mr. Biden’s 20-year road from wary optimism to condemnation — while still straining for some cooperation — is emblematic of the arc of U.S.-China relations, which have deteriorated to an unstable, potentially explosive state. But as Mr. Trump denounces what he describes as failures by the Washington establishment on China, Mr. Biden, an avatar of that establishment, is not recanting his past enthusiasm for engagement.
-------------------
“There’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask students of China,” Mr. Biden said, according to Mr. Jannuzi, who is now the president of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation. “The students of Tiananmen Square, were they patriots or traitors to the People’s Republic of China?”
There was silence. Then, a physics student, a scholar of Newton and Einstein, stood up.
“The students of Tiananmen were heroes of the People’s Republic of China,” he said. “Senator, change will come to China. But it will be we, the students of Newton, who determine the pace and the direction of that change, and not you or anyone else working on the banks of the Potomac.”
A Tale of Two Dictatorships
by Kishore Mahbubani
http://www.mahbubani.net/articles%20by%20dean/a%20tale%20of%20two%20dictatorships.pdf
Myanmar and Pakistan are both Asian countries whose military rulers are in trouble. But they are
heading in opposite directions, because, whereas Pakistan understands why Asia is rising, Myanmar
does not.
Asia is rising because Asian countries are increasingly opening their doors to modernity. Starting with
Japan, this modernizing wave has swept through the four “Asian Tigers” (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong
Kong, and Singapore), some ASEAN countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam), and then
to China and India. Now, it is moving into Pakistan and West Asia.
I was in Pakistan during one of its more exciting weeks. Exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
sought to return, but was promptly sent back into exile. The world expected a political eruption. Instead,
the country carried on calmly.
Pakistan did not erupt because Pakistan’s elite is focused on modernization. Led by Prime Minister
Shaukat Aziz, who was formerly with Citibank, the country has carried out dramatic structural reforms,
matching best practices in leading emerging-market economies. This explains high economic growth
rates.
Pakistan has welcomed foreign trade and investment. And, just as the success of overseas Indians in
America inspired Indians in India, Pakistan stands to similarly benefit from its own successful diaspora.
But this opening to modernity extends beyond economics and finance. Yes, thousands of madrasas
remain open and Islamic fundamentalism is strong. But this has not completely changed the fundamental
texture of Pakistan’s society.
One sight at LUMS, a leading private university in Lahore, heartened me: how women were dressed.
When I visited Malaysian campuses as a young man in the 1960’s, few Malay Muslim women wore the
hijab . Today, on the same campuses, almost all do. By contrast, at LUMS (which has the look and feel
of Harvard Business School), only about 5% of female students wore the hijab , a remarkable
expression of social freedom.
There has also been an explosion of free media in Pakistan. An astonishing number of Pakistani TV
stations openly discuss the activities of Sharif and the other exiled former prime minister, Benazir
Bhutto. Indeed, many elements of an open society are in place, including – as the world learned in
March – an independent judiciary
-------
I was in Pakistan as a state guest. But my real mission was to reconnect with my ethnic Sindhi roots, as
I had never visited the country where my parents were born. Only those who understand the pain of the
partition of British India in 1947 will appreciate the powerful symbolism of a child of Hindu parents
being welcomed back warmly to Muslim Pakistan. Those cultural ties helped me understand the Urdu
and Sindhi being spoken, and also to feel the deep urge to modernize in the Pakistani soul – an urge that
exists alongside the urge to reconnect with Pakistan’s rich cultural past.
I left Pakistan feeling hopeful, because I saw the strong desire to join today’s rising Asia. If a similar
impulse could be implanted into Myanmar, both its people and the world would benefit.
--------
America’s decision to engage, rather than isolate, Pakistan has also helped. I have no doubt that closer
American re-engagement helped to nudge Pakistan in the right direction. Many members of Pakistan’s
elite have been educated in American universities – another leading indicator of a country’s orientation.
Just imagine how different international relations would be if American leaders could visit Myanmar (or
even Iran) with equal ease and have friendly discussions about agreements and disagreements.
China’s export machine comes roaring back to life as #COVID threat wanes. While overall volumes have fallen, #China’s share of global #exports leapt to more than 18% in April, before falling back slightly to 15.9% in July. #economy
https://www.ft.com/content/6f65b053-af11-4fee-a0c6-43adbe3f4e00 via @financialtimes
The same coronavirus that hammered global trade has increased the appetite for goods made in China, such as electronics products and medical equipment. That boom in exports is supporting the country’s early recovery as other big economies flounder, raising the question of whether China’s recent trade advantage will outlive the pandemic.
Data from Oxford Economics and Haver Analytics show that while overall volumes have fallen, China’s share of global exports compared with other large exporters leapt to more than 18 per cent in April, before falling back slightly to 15.9 per cent in July.
“It is too early to write off China’s role in global supply chains,” said Louis Kuijs from Oxford Economics, who pointed to the “fundamental competitiveness” of Asian economies.
Try our newsletter on Sustainable Business
Free four-week trial of the Moral Money newsletter
He added that the market share effect was in part temporary but suggested that “there will be some permanent shift . . . and that should benefit certain countries".
Partly a function of declining activity elsewhere, China’s recent success is also a result of a wider resilience of exports in east Asia, fuelled by a shift in global demand towards products suited to a world working from home.
Taiwan’s exports, the majority of which are electronics components and IT and communications products, reached their highest ever monthly level in August. In South Korea, exports of information and communications technology products rose year on year in each of the past three months after a sharp fall in April.
Such economies have benefited from much lower reported coronavirus infections since the second quarter. Lockdown restrictions in China were already being eased in April, when other countries were plunged into chaos from the spread of the pandemic. New cases have remained lower in China, Taiwan and South Korea than in the US and Europe.
That paved the way for enough manufacturing activity to take advantage of a shift in global consumption patterns. In addition to the kind of soaring exports of electronics also seen in Taiwan and South Korea, Chinese exports of medical equipment leapt in the first seven months of the year. China’s trade surplus with the US in August reached $34.2bn, its highest level since November 2018.
Trinh Nguyen, senior economist at Natixis, points to a “bifurcation of performance globally”. That is reflected in South Korea, where electronics and medical consumer products have performed well but “heavy industries” such as shipping and autos have struggled. In Japan, exports fell year on year for the sixth straight month in August.
Recommended
Trade Secrets
Medical equipment boost for Chinese exports could be shortlived Premium
In China, the state has provided support for manufacturing in a way that Mr Kuijs said was “unimaginable” in the US. But he added that the export response in China was also down to “entrepreneurial and agile” companies. “Virtually none of these companies is state owned,” he said.
While overall exports have been able to adapt to changing demand, the mood in its manufacturing hubs is mixed.
Kexin Chen, a sales manager of a toy factory in Guangdong, said export orders from Europe were improving but admitted that her business was still struggling. “We are counting on [orders for] Black Friday and Christmas,” she said.
Elsewhere, there are signs that aspects of the east Asian export boom may be driven by short-term fears over supply chains. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, told investors last month that technology companies were building larger stockpiles because they were worried new Covid-19 infection waves could disrupt supply chains again.
Snowden, Edward. Permanent Record (pp. 163-164). Henry Holt and Co.. Kindle Edition.
"It’s not just the Internet’s infrastructure that I’m defining as fundamentally American—it’s the computer software (Microsoft, Google, Oracle) and hardware (HP, Apple, Dell), too. It’s everything from the chips (Intel, Qualcomm), to the routers and modems (Cisco, Juniper), to the Web services and platforms that provide email and social networking and cloud storage (Google, Facebook, and the most structurally important but invisible Amazon, which provides cloud services to the US government along with half the Internet). Though some of these companies might manufacture their devices in, say, China, the companies themselves are American and are subject to American law. The problem is, they’re also subject to classified American policies that pervert law and permit the US government to surveil virtually every man, woman, and child who has ever touched a computer or picked up a phone. Given the American nature of the planet’s communications infrastructure, it should have been obvious that the US government would engage in this type of mass surveillance. It should have been especially obvious to me. Yet it wasn’t—mostly because the government kept insisting that it did nothing of the sort, and generally disclaimed the practice in courts and in the media in a manner so adamant that the few remaining skeptics who accused it of lying were treated like wild-haired conspiracy junkies. Their suspicions about secret NSA programs seemed hardly different from paranoid delusions involving alien messages being beamed to the radios in our teeth. We—me, you, all of us—were too trusting. But what makes this all the more personally painful for me was that the last time I’d made this mistake, I’d supported the invasion of Iraq and joined the army. When I arrived in the IC, I felt sure that I’d never be fooled again, especially given my top secret clearance. Surely that had to count for some degree of transparency. After all, why would the government keep secrets from its secret keepers? This is all to say that the obvious didn’t even become the thinkable for me until some time after I moved to Japan in 2009 to work for the NSA, America’s premier signals intelligence agency."
Snowden, Edward. Permanent Record (pp. 172-173). Henry Holt and Co.. Kindle Edition.
AT THE START of my employment with the NSA, in 2009, I was only slightly more knowledgeable about its practices than the rest of the world. From journalists’ reports, I was aware of the agency’s myriad surveillance initiatives authorized by President George W. Bush in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. In particular, I knew about its most publicly contested initiative, the warrantless wiretapping component of the President’s Surveillance Program (PSP), which had been disclosed by the New York Times in 2005 thanks to the courage of a few NSA and Department Department of Justice whistleblowers. Officially speaking, the PSP was an “executive order,” essentially a set of instructions set down by the American president that the government has to consider the equal of public law—even if they’re just scribbled secretly on a napkin. The PSP empowered the NSA to collect telephone and Internet communications between the United States and abroad. Notably, the PSP allowed the NSA to do this without having to obtain a special warrant from a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret federal court established in 1978 to oversee IC requests for surveillance warrants after the agencies were caught domestically spying on the anti–Vietnam War and civil rights movements. Following the outcry that attended the Times revelations, and American Civil Liberties Union challenges to the constitutionality of the PSP in non-secret, regular courts, the Bush administration claimed to have let the program expire in 2007. But the expiration turned out to be a farce. Congress spent the last two years of the Bush administration passing legislation that retroactively legalized the PSP. It also retroactively immunized from prosecution the telecoms and Internet service providers that had participated in it. This legislation—the Protect America Act of 2007 and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008—employed intentionally misleading language to reassure US citizens that their communications were not being explicitly targeted, even as it effectively extended the PSP’s remit. In addition to collecting inbound communications coming from foreign countries, the NSA now also had policy approval for the warrantless collection of outbound telephone and Internet communications originating within American borders.
Instead of #AI, #Pentagon Is Clinging to old #tech. #US #politics of killing off old weapons systems is so forbidding — often because it involves closing factories or bases, and endangers military jobs in congressional districts — that the efforts falter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/us/politics/military-cyberweapons-artificial-intelligence.html
A bipartisan House panel said on Tuesday that artificial intelligence, quantum computing, space and biotechnology were “making traditional battlefields and boundaries increasingly irrelevant” — but that the Pentagon was clinging to aging weapons systems meant for a past era.
The panel’s report, called the “Future of Defense Task Force,” is one of many underway in Congress to grapple with the speed at which the Pentagon is adopting new technologies, often using the rising competition with China in an effort to spur the pace of change.
Most reach a similar conclusion: For all the talk of embracing new technologies, the politics of killing off old weapons systems is so forbidding — often because it involves closing factories or bases, and endangers military jobs in congressional districts — that the efforts falter.
The task force said it was concentrating on the next 30 to 50 years, and concluded that the Defense Department and Congress should be “focused on the needs of the future and not on the political and military-industrial loyalties of the past.”
“We are totally out of time, and here is a bipartisan group — in this environment — saying that this is a race we have to win and that we are currently losing,” said Representative Seth Moulton, Democrat of Massachusetts, who served with the Marine Corps in Iraq and was a co-chairman of the task force. “There is a misalignment of priorities, and diminishing time to make dramatic changes.”
The report calls for the United States to undertake an artificial intelligence effort that uses “the Manhattan Project as a model,” citing the drive in World War II to assemble the nation’s best minds in nuclear physics and weapons to develop the atomic bomb. The task force found that although the Pentagon had been experimenting with artificial intelligence, machine learning and even semiautonomous weapons systems for years, “cultural resistance to its wider adoption remains.”
It recommended that every major military acquisition program “evaluate at least one A.I. or autonomous alternative” before it is funded. It also called for the United States to “lead in the formulation and ratification of a global treaty on artificial intelligence in the vein of the Geneva Conventions,” a step the Trump administration has resisted for cyberweaponry and the broader use of artificial intelligence.
But questions persist about whether such a treaty would prove useful. While nuclear and chemical weapons were largely in the hands of nations, cyberweapons — and artificial intelligence techniques — are in the hands of criminal groups, terrorist groups and teenagers.
Nonetheless, the report’s focus on working with allies and developing global codes of ethics and privacy runs counter to the instincts of the Trump administration, making it more surprising that the Republican members of the task force signed on.
------------
“The Pentagon knows how to acquire large programs,” like “fighter jets or aircraft carries, but it is less adept at purchasing at scale the types of emerging technologies that will be required for future conflict,” it said.
Defense Department officials have sought to address that problem. But the task force found that while those efforts sometimes succeeded, they were too small, and “the Pentagon has so far only been able to tap into a fraction of the innovation being developed in the United States.”
#China's #Huawei develops plan for chip plant to help beat #American sanctions. #Chinese fab will initially experiment with making low-end 45nm chips, a #technology global leaders in chipmaking like #TSMC & #Intel started using 15 years ago. #SiliconValley https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-11-01/huawei-chip-plant
Huawei is working on plans for a dedicated chip plant in Shanghai that would not use American technology, enabling it to secure supplies for its core telecom infrastructure business despite U.S. sanctions.
Two people briefed on the project said the plant would be run by a partner, Shanghai IC R&D Center, a chip research company backed by the Shanghai municipal government.
Industry experts said the project could help Huawei, which has no experience in fabricating chips, chart a path to long-term survival.
U.S. export controls imposed in May and tightened in August leverage American companies’ dominance of certain chip-manufacturing equipment and chip-design software to block semiconductor supplies to Huawei.
Industry experts said the planned local facility would be a potential new source for semiconductors after stocks of imported chips Huawei has been accumulating since last year ran out.
The fabrication plant will initially experiment with making low-end 45nm chips, a technology global leaders in chipmaking started using 15 years ago.
But Huawei wants to make more advanced 28nm chips by the end of next year, according to chip industry engineers and executives familiar with the project. Such a plan would allow Huawei to make smart TVs and other “internet of things” devices.
Huawei then aims to produce 20nm chips by late 2022, which could be used to make most of its 5G telecoms equipment and allow that business to continue even with the U.S. sanctions.
“The planned new production line will not help with the smartphone business since chipsets needed for smartphones need to be produced at more advanced technology nodes,” said a semiconductor industry executive briefed on the plans.
“But if it succeeds, it can become a bridge to a sustainable future for their infrastructure business, in combination with the inventory they have built and which should last for two years or so,” he said.
“They possibly can do it, in maybe two years,” said Mark Li, a semiconductor analyst at Bernstein in Hong Kong.
He added that although the chips Huawei needed for making mobile network base stations would ideally be made on 14nm or more advanced process technology, using 28nm was possible.
“Huawei can make up for the shortcomings on the software and system side,” he said. Chinese producers could tolerate higher costs and operational inefficiencies than their offshore competitors.
The project, first reported by Chinese newspaper Caixin last month, could also jump-start China’s ambitions to shake off its dependency on foreign chip technology, particularly from the U.S., which wants to slow China’s development as a technology power.
Huawei has already been investing in the domestic semiconductor sector, especially among smaller operators, a chip industry executive said.
“Huawei has strong abilities in chip design, and we are very happy to help a trustworthy supply chain develop its capabilities in chip manufacturing, equipment and materials. Helping them is helping ourselves,” rotating chairman Guo Ping told journalists in September.
What started as #Asian pivot for #America is now a full-blown containment strategy to check #China's power by "supporting India’s efforts to pose military dilemmas for China....." #India #Pakistan #CPEC #Asia https://www.dawn.com/news/1596983
The opening line (of "Rising to the China Challenge" report) declares: “The United States and China are locked in strategic competition over the future of the Indo-Pacific” and then goes on to paint a stark contrast between America’s “free and open” vision and the “closed and illiberal” future that the report sees China as envisioning. It then goes on to state that “managing the China challenge” should be the topmost priority of US foreign policy and that doing so will carry economic costs for Americans and require sacrifice and trade-offs. This makes it clear that the coming decade will be shaped by the US-China confrontation, with all the turmoil and scheming that this entails.
There’s a lot in the report that is meant to alarm or goad US policymakers into action, in keeping with the standard policy of exaggerating threats in order to justify a massive response. To summarise, the report warns that “China is poised to surpass the United States in gross domestic product, while racing ahead to gain technological advantage in key areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and genomics,” and that the US response must then be to compete in the domains of “economics, technology, diplomacy, ideology, governance, and human capital”. Which pretty much covers all bases.
The report notes that the US has an advantage in the number of regional allies and partners it has, such as Australia, Japan, South Korea and Thailand, and notably mentions India a total of 31 times. By contrast, the only mention of Pakistan is a hyphenated one, occurring in the context of the Indo-Pakistan border. And that brings us to exactly what the US intends to do for India in military terms with the aim of propping it up as a regional counterweight to China. In the report’s own language, this entails “supporting India’s efforts to pose military dilemmas for China, thereby providing low-cost means to complicate the ability of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to concentrate … on US strongholds in East Asia and the Western Pacific”, noting that while India “has the potential to contribute as a military counterweight to China”, its “structural impediments and resource constraints” have hampered it.
The report then spends a good amount of space on how to remove those impediments and relieve those constraints. It envisions an India armed with super and hypersonic anti-ship missiles along with the targeting systems needed to maximise the potential of these weapons. It also proposes making it easier for India to build and/or acquire more cutting-edge attack submarines. There is a focus on improving Indian military transportation infrastructure, allowing it to better redeploy forces on short notice. More crucially, it emphasises making “major investments in [Indian] electronic warfare, cyber offence and counterspace systems”, thus changing the Indian army’s approach from “territorial defence” to multi-domain dominance.
Interestingly, it also proposes turning a blind eye to Indian acquisitions of Russian defence technology so as to not corner Russia or inconvenience India. In that context, the report also proposes “removing barriers” to assistance to allied countries, which in this case means turning a blind eye to growing authoritarianism and Hindutva-led fascism in India. After all, principles are nice to have, but not at the expense of power. As for us, we know that while India may acquire capabilities against China, those capabilities will be first used against us. Will we be forced into a camp or can deft diplomacy reap us some benefits? Either way, things are about to get interesting, once again.
https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/rising-to-the-china-challenge
THE world is undergoing a transformation of historic proportions. Two main drivers of this are the growing US-China rivalry and the scientific and technological revolution worldwide especially in the US, China, Western Europe and other developed countries. Both developments will have far-reaching implications for global politics, security and economy. Countries, which understand the fundamental forces driving the world and take steps to safeguard their national interests, will forge ahead of others who fail to understand the implications of the changes shaping the globe.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1598083
This prospect raises critical foreign policy and security issues for the consideration of Pakistan’s leaders and policymakers. The main foreign policy challenge confronting Pakistan would be to deepen its strategic cooperation with China in the face of the growing US-India strategic partnership while maintaining friendly ties with the US-led West which has its own importance in Pakistan’s political, economic and security calculations. The ramifications of the global geopolitical transformation in the Middle East, in the backdrop of the growing Indo-US-Israeli political, security and economic footprint in the region and the deep political divide between Iran and some of the GCC states, will pose their own set of difficult foreign policy choices for Pakistan.
The scientific and technological revolution unfolding in the US, China, Western Europe and other developed countries is another element driving the global transformation over and above the growing US-China rivalry. Developments in cutting-edge information technology ie semi-conductors, data, 5G mobile networks, internet standards, artificial intelligence and quantum computing particularly will help determine not only which country or countries have military edge but also a more dynamic economy.
Countries neglecting education, particularly science and technology, in their national development plans will increasingly become irrelevant in international politics with the passage of time. Unfortunately, Pakistan, which lags far behind in economic, scientific and technological development because of the short-sightedness of its leaders and policymakers, falls in this category. In the absence of necessary corrective steps by our government, the adverse consequences of our flawed policies will continue to haunt us far into the future.
With Money, and Waste, China Fights for Chip Independence
Beijing’s drive to free itself from reliance on imported semiconductors has lifted start-ups and big firms alike. Some have flamed out. But there has been progress.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/technology/china-semiconductors.html
Liu Fengfeng had more than a decade under his belt at one of the world’s most prominent technology companies before he realized where the real gold rush in China was taking place.
Computer chips are the brains and souls of all the electronics the country’s factories crank out. Yet they are mostly designed and produced overseas. China’s government is lavishing money upon anyone who can help change that.
So last year Mr. Liu, 40, left his corporate job at Foxconn, the Taiwanese giant that assembles iPhones in China for Apple. He found a niche — high-end films and adhesives for chip products — and quickly raised $5 million. Today his start-up has 36 employees, most of them in the tech hub of Shenzhen, and is aiming to start mass production next year.
“Before, you might have had to beg Grandpa and call on Grandma for money,” Mr. Liu said. “Now, you just have a few conversations and everyone is hoping projects get started as soon as possible.”
China is in the midst of a mass mobilization for chip mastery, a quest whose aims can seem just as harebrained and impossible — at least until they are achieved — as sending rovers to the moon or dominating Olympic gold medals. In every corner of the country, investors, entrepreneurs and local officials are in a frenzy to build up semiconductor abilities, responding to a call from the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, to rely less on the outside world in key technologies.
Their efforts are starting to pay off. China remains far from hosting real rivals to American chip giants like Intel and Nvidia, and its semiconductor manufacturers are at least four years behind the leading edge in Taiwan. Still, local companies are expanding their ability to meet the country’s needs, particularly for products, such as smart appliances and electric vehicles, that have more modest requirements than supercomputers and high-end smartphones.
The turbocharged chip push could prove one of the most enduring legacies of President Trump’s pugilistic trade policies toward China. By turning the country’s dependence on foreign chips into a cudgel for attacking companies like Huawei, the administration made Chinese business and political leaders resolve never to be caught out that way again.
ImageLiu Fengfeng, Tsinghon’s chief and founder. “Before, you might have had to beg Grandpa and call on Grandma for money,” he said. Now, investors are eager to get involved.
Liu Fengfeng, Tsinghon’s chief and founder. “Before, you might have had to beg Grandpa and call on Grandma for money,” he said. Now, investors are eager to get involved.Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times
But as Beijing broadens its ambitions in semiconductors, it is also setting itself up for larger potential failures — and dialing up the amount of money it might lose in the process. Several chip projects have run aground recently because of frozen funding and mismanagement. A state-backed chip conglomerate, Tsinghua Unigroup, warned this month that it was in danger of defaulting on nearly $2.5 billion in international bonds.
Lack of #Computer Chips Disrupts #Automobile Factories Worldwide. #Semiconductor chips are used in touch screens, engine controls & transmissions, communications, suspensions, anti-lock brakes & collision avoidance systems with cameras and other sensors https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/business/auto-factories-semiconductor-chips.html
Geopolitics also played a role. The Trump administration in September placed restrictions on Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, China’s main foundry, which produces chips for cars and many other applications. The company’s customers began looking for alternatives, generating additional competition for chip supplies from other foundries, said Gaurav Gupta, a vice president at the research firm Gartner.
------
The chip crisis is an example of how the pandemic has shaken the global economy in unpredictable ways. Carmakers expected to face supply chain shortages, and plants closed early in 2020 because of fear that workers would infect one another, or because trucking firms had stopped delivering. Most U.S. auto factories ceased production for roughly two months last spring.
Automakers braced for turmoil when the pandemic hit. They expected supply chain disruptions and plummeting sales. But they never figured that a year later one of their biggest problems would be PlayStations.
Strong demand for gaming systems, personal computers and other electronics by a world stuck indoors has sucked up supplies of semiconductors, forcing carmakers around the world to scramble for the chips that have become as essential to mobility as gasoline or steel.
Virtually no carmaker has been spared. Toyota Motor has shut down production lines in China. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles temporarily stopped production at plants in Ontario and Mexico. Volkswagen has warned of production problems at factories in China, Europe and the United States. Ford Motor said last week that it was idling a Louisville, Ky., factory for a week because of the shortage.
When Covid-19 hit, automakers slashed orders for chips in anticipation of plunging sales. At the same time, semiconductor makers shifted their production lines to meet surging orders for chips used in products like laptop computers, webcams, tablets and 5G smartphones.
-----------
Businesses also upgraded their digital infrastructure to handle online meetings and employees working from home, while telecommunications companies invested in broadband infrastructure, further fueling demand for semiconductors.
Then auto sales bounced back faster than expected at the end of 2020, catching everyone off guard. The shortages of chips that ensued are expected to last well into 2021, because it can take semiconductor makers six to nine months to realign production.
“Consumer electronics exploded,” said Dan Hearsch, a managing director at the consulting firm AlixPartners. “Everybody and their brother wanted to buy an Xbox and PlayStation and laptops, while automotive shut down. Then automotive came back faster than expected, and that’s where you get into this problem.”
While the shortage is not expected to cause auto prices to rise very much, buyers might have to wait longer to get the vehicles they want.
The chip shortage has its roots in long-term forces reshaping the auto and semiconductor industries, as well as short-term confusion from the pandemic.
-------------
“Future investment in these foundries will therefore be critical so that the automotive industry can avoid such supply chain upheavals in the future,” Continental said in a statement.
Infineon, based in Munich, said it was stepping up investment in new production capacity in 2021 to as much as 1.5 billion euros, or $1.8 billion, from €1.1 billion in 2020. The company is also ramping up production at a new chip factory in Villach, Austria, that will produce 12-inch wafers.
China is home to 1.87 million scientific researchers, the most in the world, and a growing number of high tech giants such as Huawei, Tencent and ZTE.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/China-rises-from-Russian-customer-to-competitor-in-arms-industry
Despite recent efforts by the Kremlin to stimulate the domestic tech sector, Russia has not enjoyed similar success. Experts warn that Russia is falling behind in key emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, and that unless that changes, its defense industry will have a difficult time keeping up with China and the U.S.
"Russia doesn't have giants like Microsoft or Huawei that produce technologies that can be used for civilian and military purposes," said Kozyulin of the PIR Center. "Instead, the government itself has to create everything from scratch, which is very costly."
As China has become more advanced, Russia has begun exploring opportunities to codevelop weaponry with Beijing. In 2016, the two countries partnered to develop and produce over 200 next-generation heavy lift helicopters for the PLA by 2040. Another major collaboration was announced in August, when Russia arms officials revealed that Moscow and Beijing had begun working on developing a new non-nuclear submarine.
"It's pretty clear that Russia is transitioning to a technology transferring and subcontracting role, since although China can now make many of its own systems, it still lacks Russia's tremendous amount of engineering experience and ability to develop a lot of key components," said Michael Kofman, director of the Russia program at the Washington-based CNA military research center.
But other experts are skeptical that such an arrangement is sustainable in the long run. Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher at the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Programme, argued that Moscow could be falling too far behind to keep Beijing interested.
"I expect the Russians to be completely out of the picture for the Chinese as a provider of technology within five to 10 years," he said. "The Russians will be looking to see if they can somehow get their hands on Chinese technology because the Russians are falling behind, and in some cases they're not getting anywhere anymore."
Wezeman added that in the long run, it is even possible that China will push Russian arms manufacturers out of their traditional markets in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. He warned that China is well-positioned to outcompete Russia in these markets, since unlike Moscow, Beijing can bundle arms deals together with lucrative economic agreements.
"There is no real reason for those countries to go with the Russians if they can get something similar or better from the Chinese," Wezeman said. "In a way the Chinese probably have more to offer, not only in terms of the weapons, but also all kinds of other arrangements."
----------
China passes US as world's top researcher, showing its R&D might. TOKYO -- China has outstripped the U.S. in putting out research papers in the natural sciences, data released Friday shows, further illustrating its emerging dominance in scientific investigation.Aug 8, 2020
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Science/China-passes-US-as-world-s-top-researcher-showing-its-R-D-might
https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00809/
Pakistan’s Performance in Global Impact Factor Race
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6115561/
Pakistan is a home to more than 200 million people, 189 Higher Education Commission (HEC) chartered universities and degree awarding institutes4 including 29 medical universities, 157 medical schools5 125 engineering, 92 management sciences and 28 agricultural institutes.4
In Pakistan, there are 371 HEC indexed journals in various academic disciplines of science and social sciences4. In the last week of June 2018, Philadelphia USA based, a notable indexing institute, Thomson Reuters, Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Science, currently known as “Clarivate Analytics” released a global science and social science journals Impact Factor (IF) list of year 2017.6
Impact factor represents the total number of citations to a journal’s articles divided by the number of articles published during the previous two years. It is widely used in the academic world as a yardstick of a journal’s prestige. From Pakistan, out of 371 only 12 (3.24%) academic journals have achieved a place in ISI-Web of Science.
Worldwide, 12271 science and social sciences journals are indexed in the ISI-Web of Science, their IF is ranging from 0.001 to 244.58.6 The Cancer Journal for Clinicians USA achieved a top position in the world with Impact Factor 244.58. The other top ranking journals are New England Journal of Medicine USA 79.25; Lancet USA 53.24; Nature UK 41.57; and Science USA 41.05.6 These journals are leading the world and have maintained their topmost positions in the global IF race.
In our environs, China is leading the region with 203 academic journals achieved a remarkable position in ISI Web of science with IF 0.0045 to 15.393. India has 104 with IF 0.096 to 2.658; Iran 42 IF 0.280 to 2.667; Pakistan 12 IF 0.280 to 1.217; and Bangladesh has 4 with IF 0.214 to 1.532. Only one Journal from Pakistan, “Pakistani Veterinary Journal” exceeds the IF 1.217.6
While comparing the quartile factor of the journals, subject category in percentile rank, the top 25% of journals in a particular category are placed in Q1, next in Q2 and so on. 41 Chinese journals achieved a position in first quartile Q1, Q2: 63, Q3:57 and 62 journals in Q4. India has Q1: 0, Q2: 4, Q3: 26 and in Q4:74. Iran has 42 academic journals from them Q1: 1, Q2: 4, Q3: 12 and in Q4:25. However, Bangladesh has 4 ISI-Web of Science indexed journals only one journal placed a position in Q3 and 3 in Q4.6
The quartile ranking of Pakistani journals is: 2 journals in both Q2 and Q3 and the remaining 8 journals are in Q4. Only one Journal, Pakistan Veterinary Journal exceeds the IF 1.217 and two journals placed a position in quartile 2.6
In medical sciences, Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences achieved an IF 0.719; Journal of Pakistan Medical Association IF 0.718; Journal of College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan- JCPSP IF 0.439.6 These medical sciences journals are establishing a platform to publish quality research but still the road is rutted and needs its renewal. They should fascinate the international science community and enhance the research visibility in the global science to upsurge the IF and quartile ranking of the academic journals to compete internationally. Sadly, few Pakistani journals, which are celebrating their golden anniversaries of 50 years, have yet still failed to achieve a place in ISI Web of Science.
China’s Ascent
The rise of China will have far-reaching consequences—the world should get ready
By Keyu Jin
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2019/06/rise-of-china-jin.htm
China in 2040 will look on the face of things to be a mighty economic power. Under plausible projections, it will have firmly established itself as the largest economy in the world, with 60 to 70 percent of the US income level. But in 20 years, China will still be a developing economy by many measures—its financial development will lag its economic development, and many economic and policy distortions may still persist.
In that scenario, the world must be prepared for China to be its first systemic emerging market economy. It should brace for greater volatility and uncertainty as China becomes more intermeshed with global financial markets. It should prepare for a China that emits shocks distinctive to developing economies—but on a much larger scale and with greater thrust and impetus.
Every significant policy move, stock market panic, and cyclical upswing or downswing in China can plausibly diffuse and propagate through the web of financial networks that links nations. In China today, 70 percent of investors in capital markets are retail investors, quick to react to noise and changes in sentiment. Mercurial stock markets and volatile exchange rates may become the rule, not the exception.
Currently, China is already inadvertently sending shocks to the rest of the world, despite its small international financial exposure. My own research with Yi Huang shows that it is not only policy shocks (monetary and fiscal) that spill over to the rest of the world but also the shocks of policy uncertainty.
In a country where reforms big and small happen on a regular basis, where policy moves often instigate cyclical fluctuations rather than subdue them, where policy direction and strategy are based on experimentation rather than experience, uncertainty can be a first-order menace to overly sensitized financial markets.
Our research shows that during 2000–18, Chinese policy uncertainty shocks significantly affected not only economic variables, such as world industrial production and commodity prices, but also key financial variables, including global stock prices and bond yields, the MSCI World Index, and financial volatility.
Now imagine China in 2040, more consequential and with a greater number of channels open to the rest of the world—whether cross-border bank lending, portfolio holdings, capital flows, or a more dominant renminbi. In that scenario, shocks emanating from China would not only propagate more swiftly and potently, they would also be amplified and expanded through its increasing and diverse financial channels.
The rise of China today bears much similarity to the ascent of the United States in the late 19th century. Although it was growing rapidly and catching up with European countries, it had the developing economy malaise of unsophisticated capital markets. Corporate governance was riddled with problems and banking crises occurred regularly; weak financial intermediaries and a shortage of financial assets, along with the absence of a lender of last resort, prevented the efficient mobilization of capital. The vagaries of the US economy and the financial panic in 1873 were fully transmitted to Europe and Great Britain, which had significant exposure to the US economy.
The shape of China’s recovery
By Keyu Jin
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2021/01/02/commentary/world-commentary/china-shape-recovery/
Fortunately, although the government’s short-term recovery measures have slowed progress on longer-term reforms, its post-pandemic spending spree is more targeted than last time, and thus unlikely to fuel another credit bubble. Among the most notable features of this package is its emphasis on investments in innovation. In the name of building “new infrastructure,” the government is redirecting resources from traditional projects to data centers, artificial-intelligence applications, and electric-vehicle charging stations, increasing investment in high-tech manufacturing and services by nearly 10% over the course of the year.
This suggests that we should expect a continued commitment to opening up the economy, particularly in financial services. Chinese policymakers recognize that the domestic financial system needs to become more competitive and more closely integrated with Western institutions and corporations amid heightening geopolitical tensions.
----------
China’s economy is on the road to recovery after the COVID-19 shock in the spring of 2020. Negative growth rates in investment, manufacturing activity, and consumption have reversed course and moved into positive territory, and some indicators, such as exports, have even beaten expectations, registering a positive growth rate of more than 10% in the third quarter of the year.
How an economy recovers from an economic shock determines how robust its recovery will be. Back in 2009, the Chinese government’s 4 trillion yuan ($605 billion) stimulus plan following the global financial crisis fueled a credit boom, which inflated the shadow-banking sector and sent debt levels soaring to alarming heights.
To be sure, China’s overall response salvaged the economy and maintained impressive growth rates. But as investment flooded into infrastructure projects and housing, and onto the balance sheets of large state-owned enterprises, it created even more economic distortions than there had been before the crisis. Overall productivity growth would remain diminished for the next decade.
This time around, China’s recovery is again based on a large stimulus plan, coupled with measures to control the virus so that work and other economic activities can resume. But much of the spending so far has come from the public sector rather than private enterprise. Moreover, recent figures show that China’s post-COVID rebound has been led by investments in infrastructure and housing, whereas consumption growth has been sluggish and nowhere near the pre-crisis trend.
Even though people are safe going about their normal lives, the service sector is still nowhere near a true recovery. Out of an abundance of caution, people are saving more and going out less. This trend could bode ill not just for China but also for the rest of the world, since it may be an indication of what awaits other economies.
#Superpower status will depend on #semiconductor chips. #TSMC building world's largest $20 billion fab in #Taiwan to manufacture chips at dimensions of just 3 nanometers that'll power everything from latest iPhones to medical equipment to F-35 fighters. https://www.ft.com/content/44e28cad-55b7-4995-a5c5-6de6f9733747
This vast capital expenditure highlights the near-insatiable demand for computer chips, the dominance of Taiwanese chipmakers and the sophistication of modern manufacturing. TSMC’s chips power everything from Apple’s latest iPhones to medical equipment to F-35 warplanes, accounting for about 55 per cent of global semiconductor sales.
But the manufacture of semiconductors is becoming a geopolitical imperative, too. As part of its squeeze on China’s tech industry, the US has pressured TSMC to stop supplying Huawei, previously one of its biggest customers. China, which spends more on importing computer chips than oil, is developing a semiconductor industry to reduce dependence on overseas suppliers.
Sensing their own vulnerability, the US, Japan and the EU are also stepping up their efforts to develop indigenous semiconductor industries, as their carmakers and computer games companies wail about the lack of supply. Computer chips currently vie with vaccines as must-have resources for any nation state.
If military capability in previous centuries was built on breech-loading rifles, warships or atomic bombs, it may well depend in the 21st century on the smartest use of advanced chips. The centrality of TSMC to the global semiconductor industry is sometimes given as a reason why mainland China might yet invade Taiwan. But far bigger military and political considerations will determine Beijing’s course of action.
By any measure, TSMC is an extraordinary company which is reaping the benefits of out-investing its rivals. It has just announced that its capital spending will further increase to between $25bn and $28bn this year as it struggles to add capacity fast enough to match demand. During an earnings call last month, CC Wei, TSMC’s chief executive, said that surging sales of smartphones and high-performance computers and the adoption of 5G mobile technology were fuelling demand for the company’s leading-edge logic chips. “We believe that 5G is a multiyear megatrend that will enable a world where digital computation is increasingly ubiquitous,” he said.
Most other semiconductor companies have dropped out of the race to manufacture 3nm chips due to the stratospheric costs. It will now be hard for any rival to catch up with TSMC because of its vast capital spending, its technological expertise, its network of suppliers and its support from the Taiwanese government. Only Samsung of South Korea is visible in its rear-view mirror.
“What separates TSMC from other foundries is its appetite to take risks and its ability to execute. It is an incredible business model,” says Brett Simpson, a tech analyst at Arete, an independent research firm. “The market is heading for one dominant player and one subscale player that is hanging in there and executing very well.”
The bigger concern for TSMC is the geopolitical tension between the US and China. With two fabrication plants in China, one in the US state of Washington and another planned in Arizona, TSMC has been hedging its bets. But like many other companies in a fast-polarising world, it is being forced to choose.
Shelley Rigger, a professor at Davidson College in North Carolina and author of Why Taiwan Matters, says that US pressure on China is only reinforcing Beijing’s determination to become self-sufficient in semiconductor manufacturing: “China has infinite money to throw at a problem like this and no scruples about doing what needs to be done.”
Taiwan has long feared that the world could divide into Chinese-dominated red supply chains and US-focused blue supply chains, jeopardising relations with either its biggest trading partner or its main strategic ally. The island’s room for manoeuvre is becoming as thin as TSMC’s wafers.
#Biden's #China Policy: #US “should put less focus on trying to slow China down and more emphasis on trying to run faster ourselves”. #America's common anti-China policy with #Japan, #SouthKorea, #India and #Australia #geopolitics #Quad #Asia #IndoPacific https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/us/politics/us-china-relations.html
President Biden is engineering a sharp shift in policy toward China, focused on gathering allies to counter Beijing’s coercive diplomacy around the world and ensuring that China does not gain a permanent advantage in critical technologies.
At first glance, it seems to adopt much of the Trump administration’s conviction that the world’s two biggest powers are veering dangerously toward confrontation, a clear change in tone from the Obama years.
But the emerging strategy more directly repudiates the prevailing view of the last quarter century that deep economic interdependence could be counted on to temper fundamental conflicts on issues like China’s military buildup, its territorial ambitions and human rights.
It focuses anew on competing more aggressively with Beijing on technologies vital to long-term economic and military power, after concluding that President Donald J. Trump’s approach — a mix of expensive tariffs, efforts to ban Huawei and TikTok, and accusations about sending the “China virus” to American shores — had failed to change President Xi Jinping’s course.
The result, as Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, put it during the campaign last year, is an approach that “should put less focus on trying to slow China down and more emphasis on trying to run faster ourselves” through increased government investment in research and technologies like semiconductors, artificial intelligence and energy.
Mr. Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will road-test the new approach in what promises to be a tense first encounter on Thursday with their Chinese counterparts in Anchorage. It is a meeting they delayed until they could reach the outlines of a common strategy with allies — notably Japan, South Korea, India and Australia — and one they insisted had to take place on American soil.
But it will also be a first demonstration of Beijing’s determination to stand up to the new administration, and a chance for its diplomats to deliver a litany of complaints about Washington’s “evil” interference in China’s affairs, as a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman put it on Wednesday.
The United States imposed sanctions on 24 Chinese officials on Wednesday for undermining Hong Kong’s democratic freedoms, an action whose timing was pointed and clearly intentional. Mr. Blinken said in Tokyo this week that “we will push back if necessary when China uses coercion or aggression to get its way.”
And that is happening almost daily, he conceded, including Beijing’s efforts to terminate Hong Kong’s autonomy, intimidate Australia and Taiwan, and move ahead, despite international condemnation, with what Mr. Blinken has said is a “genocide” aimed at China’s Uyghur minority.
It is all part of the initial resetting of the relationship that has marked Mr. Biden’s renewed, if now far more tense, encounters with Mr. Xi.
Back when Mr. Biden was vice president and Mr. Xi was consolidating power on his way to becoming China’s most powerful leader in decades, the two men met in China and the United States and offered public assurances that confrontation was not inevitable.
The intelligence assessment inside the American government at the time was that Mr. Xi would proceed cautiously, focus on economic development at home and avoid direct confrontation with the United States.
Mr. Biden, Enough With the Tough Talk on China
Modest measures can reverse the dangerous decay in relations.
Ian Johnson
By Ian Johnson
Mr. Johnson was a China correspondent for two decades.
March 19, 2021
These harsh exchanges will only contribute to the dangerous decay in relations between the world’s two most powerful countries. Both sides seem to be trapped by a need to look and sound tough. That stance may play well domestically in both countries, but it complicates doing what is really needed: engaging, with realistic expectations, with the other side.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/opinion/us-china-biden.html
Since taking office nearly two months ago, the Biden administration has been a whirlwind of activity in reforming and revisiting almost every key problem area but one: the chaotic and incoherent China policy it inherited from the Trump administration.
Top U.S. and Chinese officials met Thursday in Alaska for the first time since the new administration took power. The meeting, framed as little more than a chance for each side to state their well-known positions, fell short of even those low expectations.
In a series of blunt remarks, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said that the U.S. government had “deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyberattacks on the United States and economic coercion toward our allies” — actions, he said, that “threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability.” In a lengthy presentation that went well over the agreed-upon time limit, China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, countered that the United States was the “champion” of cyberattacks and that “many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States.”
These harsh exchanges will only contribute to the dangerous decay in relations between the world’s two most powerful countries. Both sides seem to be trapped by a need to look and sound tough. That stance may play well domestically in both countries, but it complicates doing what is really needed: engaging, with realistic expectations, with the other side.
Now that each government has had its say, the United States should take the high ground and find ways to reduce tensions, even if those can partly be blamed on China’s recent actions.
One way forward would be to reverse some of the Trump administration’s burn-the-bridges measures, like its ending academic exchanges, expelling Chinese journalists and closing consulates.
The Biden administration has sought to characterize its China policy as more nuanced than that of the Trump White House. Shortly after taking office, the president said that the United States sought “extreme competition” with China but not conflict. Mr. Blinken said in Tokyo this week, during his first official trip abroad, “The relationship with China is a very complex one: It has adversarial aspects; it has competitive aspects; it has cooperative aspects.”
But the administration’s actions so far have largely followed the Trump playbook.
U.S., China exchange strong words, but both label talks constructive
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/u-s-china-exchange-strong-words-but-both-label-talks-constructive
Susan Thornton:
Yes, I think this meeting was about restarting diplomacy with China after a four-year hiatus, basically, under the previous administration.
And you do diplomacy to engage counterparts in private to try to find a way forward on areas where you have overlapping interests. And Secretary Blinken mentioned there at the end a number of areas, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, climate change, where there are overlapping interests.
And to sit together with the other side and find out where those areas are and a way forward, that's the art of the goal. So I think that the circus in front of the cameras to start off was a bit unfortunate. I am not sure that that is necessarily a productive way to start this off, but it looks like they were able to savor something for the end.
---------
Susan Thornton:
I think that there is a lot of continuity that we see with Xi Jinping. And I am not that surprised by anything we see in China.
There's — it is not coming out of the blue. Certainly, there has been regression on human rights and in a lot of practices domestically, in China's domestic politics, certainly now also vis-a-vis the United States. They are starting to pursue a policy of indigenization of their technological industries.
But I think, in general, the error that the U.S. makes is in thinking that we are going to have some kind of fundamental way of changing China. I personally don't think China represents an existential threat. I think we need learn to live with China and coexist. They are not going anywhere, but we are probably not going to be able to change them fundamentally.
Global Trends 2040 "A More Contested World": Why #US #Spy Agencies Say the Future Is Bleak as Competition with #China Ratchets up in the Next 20 years. #Climatechange, #technology, #pandemics and #financial crises will pose big challenges for the world. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/opinion/global-trends-intelligence-report.html
The world envisioned in the 144-page report, ominously subtitled “A More Contested World,” is rent by a changing climate, aging populations, disease, financial crises and technologies that divide more than they unite, all straining societies and generating “shocks that could be catastrophic.” The gap between the challenges and the institutions meant to deal with them continues to grow, so that “politics within states are likely to grow more volatile and contentious, and no region, ideology, or governance system seems immune or to have the answers.” At the international level, it will be a world increasingly “shaped by China’s challenge to the United States and Western-led international system,” with a greater risk of conflict.
Here’s how agencies charged with watching the world see things:
“Large segments of the global population are becoming wary of institutions and governments that they see as unwilling or unable to address their needs. People are gravitating to familiar and like-minded groups for community and security, including ethnic, religious, and cultural identities as well as groupings around interests and causes, such as environmentalism.”
“At the same time that populations are increasingly empowered and demanding more, governments are coming under greater pressure from new challenges and more limited resources. This widening gap portends more political volatility, erosion of democracy, and expanding roles for alternative providers of governance.”
“Accelerating shifts in military power, demographics, economic growth, environmental conditions, and technology, as well as hardening divisions over governance models, are likely to further ratchet up competition between China and a Western coalition led by the United States.”
“At the state level, the relationships between societies and their governments in every region are likely to face persistent strains and tensions because of a growing mismatch between what publics need and expect and what governments can and will deliver.”
Experts in Washington who have read these reports said they do not recall a gloomier one. In past years, the future situations offered have tilted toward good ones; this year, the headings for how 2040 may look tell a different story: “Competitive Coexistence,” “Separate Silos,” “Tragedy and Mobilization” or “A World Adrift,” in which “the international system is directionless, chaotic, and volatile as international rules and institutions are largely ignored by major powers like China, regional players and non-state actors.”
There is one cheery scenario thrown in, “Renaissance of Democracies,” in which the United States and its allies are leading a world of resurgent democracies, and everybody is getting happier. Its apparent purpose is to show that people could, in principle, turn things around. But nothing in the report suggests it is likely.
The gloom, however, should not come as a surprise. Most of what Global Trends provides are reminders of the dangers we know and the warnings we’ve heard. We know that the world was ill prepared for the coronavirus and that the pandemic was grievously mishandled in most parts of the world, including the United States. We know the Arctic caps are melting at a perilous rate, raising sea levels and threatening dire consequences the world over. We know that for all the grand benefits of the internet, digital technology has also unleashed lies, conspiracies and distrust, fragmenting societies and poisoning political discourse. We know from the past four years what polarized and self-serving rule is like. We know that China is on the rise, and that it is essential to find a manageable balance between containment and cooperation.
#China is betting that #West is in irreversible decline. #Chinese leaders see their moment, and are seizing it. Deaths of so many #Americans and #Europeans from covid-19, should make Western governments ashamed to question China’s record on #HumanRights https://www.economist.com/china/2021/04/03/china-is-betting-that-the-west-is-in-irreversible-decline
China’s foreign ministry declares that horrors such as the Atlantic slave trade, colonialism and the Holocaust, as well as the deaths of so many Americans and Europeans from covid-19, should make Western governments ashamed to question China’s record on human rights. Most recently Chinese diplomats and propagandists have denounced as “lies and disinformation” reports that coerced labour is used to pick or process cotton in Xinjiang. They have praised fellow citizens for boycotting foreign brands that decline to use cotton from that region. Still others have sought to prove their zeal by hurling Maoist-era abuse. A Chinese consul-general tweeted that Canada’s prime minister was “a running dog of the us”.
-------------
In reality Chinese leaders, if their own words and writings are any guide, think that assertiveness is rational. First, they believe that China has numbers on its side as a world order emerges in which developing countries demand, and are accorded, more sway. At the un most member states reliably support China, as an irreplaceable source of loans, infrastructure and affordable technology, including surveillance kit for nervous autocracies. Second, China is increasingly sure that America is in long-term, irreversible decline, even if other Western countries are too arrogant and racist to accept that “the East is rising, and the West is in decline”, as Chinese leaders put it. China is now applying calculated doses of pain to shock Westerners into realising that the old, American-led order is ending.
China’s rulers are majoritarians. Their hold on power involves convincing most citizens that prosperity, security and national strength require iron-fisted, one-party rule. They unblushingly put the interests of the many over those of the few, whether those individuals are farmers evicted to build a dam, ethnic minorities re-educated to become biddable workers, or dissenters who must be silenced. China is a hard challenge for liberal democrats precisely because its tyranny in the name of the majority is backed by lots of Chinese, albeit at a terrible cost to outliers and minorities. Today, Chinese ideas about global governance sound like a majoritarian world order. Ruan Zongze, a scholar at the foreign ministry’s Xi Jinping Diplomatic Research Centre, explained the official line in a press briefing. He denied that China wanted to export its values. But he outlined a vision of multilateralism-by-majority that—by according no special legitimacy to liberal norms—would be a safe haven for Chinese autocracy. Mr Ruan scorned governments that “use the pretext of democracy to form alliances”. He called that “fake multilateralism”, adding that developing countries need not endure finger-pointing from a West that does not speak for the world. As engines of global growth, China and other emerging economies should have a bigger say, he declared. “Those who represent future trends should be the leading force.”
The majority of the tyrannies
As one European diplomat sees it, at least part of China’s establishment is convinced that the liberal order established after 1945—built around universal human rights, norms and rules that bind the strong and weak alike—is an obstacle to China’s rise. Such revisionists are “convinced that China will not achieve its goals if it plays by the rules”, he says.
Is There a War Coming Between China and the U.S.?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/opinion/china-us-2034.html
If you’re looking for a compelling beach read this summer, I recommend the novel “2034,” by James Stavridis, a retired admiral, and Elliot Ackerman, a former Marine and intelligence officer. The book is about how China and America go to war in 2034, beginning with a naval battle near Taiwan and with China acting in a tacit alliance with Iran and Russia.
I’m not giving it all away to say China and the U.S. end up in a nuclear shootout and incinerate a few of each other’s cities, and the result is that neutral India becomes the dominant world power. (Hey, it’s a novel!)
--------------
Are we up to the challenge? I’m pretty sure we can keep a more aggressive, nationalistic Russia and Iran deterred at a reasonable cost, and with the help of our traditional allies.
But China is another question. So we’d better understand where our strengths and weaknesses lie, as well as China’s.
China is now a true peer competitor in the military, technological and economic realms, except — except in one critical field: designing and manufacturing the most advanced microprocessors and logic and memory chips that are the base layer for artificial intelligence, machine learning, high-performance computing, electric vehicles, telecommunications — i.e., the whole digital economy that we’re moving into.
China’s massive, state-led effort to develop its own vertically integrated microchip industry has so far largely failed to master the physics and hardware to manipulate matter at the nano-scale, a skill required to mass produce super-sophisticated microprocessors.
However, just a few miles away from China sits the largest and most sophisticated contract chip maker in the world: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. According to the Congressional Research Service, TSMC is one of only three manufacturers in the world that fabricate the most advanced semiconductor chips — and by far the biggest. The second and third are Samsung and Intel.
Most chip designers, like IBM, Qualcomm, Nvidia, AMD (and even Intel to some extent) now use TSMC and Samsung to make the microprocessors they design.
But, just as important, three of the five companies that make the super-sophisticated lithography machines, tools and software used by TSMC and others to actually make the microchips — Applied Materials, Lam Research Corporation and KLA Corporation — are based in the United States. (The other two are Dutch and Japanese.) China largely lacks this expertise.
As such, the American government has the leverage to restrict TSMC from making advanced chips for Chinese companies. Indeed, just two weeks ago, the U.S. made TSMC suspend new orders from seven Chinese supercomputing centers suspected of assisting in the country’s weapons development.
The South China Morning Post quoted Francis Lau, a University of Hong Kong computer scientist, as saying: “The sanctions would definitely affect China’s ability to keep to its leading position in supercomputing,” because all of its current supercomputers mostly use processors from Intel or designed by AMD and IBM and manufactured by TSMC. Although there are Korean and Japanese alternatives, Lau added, they are not as powerful.
China, though, is doubling down on research in the physics, nanotechnology and material sciences that will drive the next generation of chips and chip-making equipment. But it could take China a decade or more to reach the cutting edge.
That’s why — today — as much as China wants Taiwan for reasons of ideology, it wants TSMC in the pocket of Chinese military industries for reasons of strategy. And as much as U.S. strategists are committed to preserving Taiwan’s democracy, they are even more committed to ensuring that TSMC doesn’t fall into China’s hands for reasons of strategy. (TSMC is now building a new semiconductor factory in Phoenix.) Because, in a digitizing world, he who controls the best chip maker will control … a lot.
Elliot Ackerman & James Stavridis, 2034: A Novel of the Next World War
https://americanwritersmuseum.org/program-calendar/elliot-ackerman-james-stavridis-2034-a-novel-of-the-next-world-war/
On March 12, 2034, US Navy Commodore Sarah Hunt is on the bridge of her flagship, the guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones, conducting a routine freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea when her ship detects an unflagged trawler in clear distress, smoke billowing from its bridge. On that same day, US Marine aviator Major Chris “Wedge” Mitchell is flying an F35E Lightning over the Strait of Hormuz, testing a new stealth technology as he flirts with Iranian airspace. By the end of that day, Wedge will be an Iranian prisoner, and Sarah Hunt’s destroyer will lie at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Chinese Navy. Iran and China have clearly coordinated their moves, which involve the use of powerful new forms of cyber weaponry that render US ships and planes defenseless. In a single day, America’s faith in its military’s strategic pre-eminence is in tatters. A new, terrifying era is at hand.
So begins a disturbingly plausible work of speculative fiction, co-authored by an award-winning novelist and decorated Marine veteran and the former commander of NATO, a legendary admiral who has spent much of his career strategically outmaneuvering America’s most tenacious adversaries. Written with a powerful blend of geopolitical sophistication and human empathy, 2034 takes us inside the minds of a global cast of characters—Americans, Chinese, Iranians, Russians, Indians—as a series of arrogant miscalculations on all sides leads the world into an intensifying international storm. In the end, China and the United States will have paid a staggering cost, one that forever alters the global balance of power.
Everything in 2034 is an imaginative extrapolation from present-day facts on the ground combined with the authors’ years working at the highest and most classified levels of national security. Sometimes it takes a brilliant work of fiction to illuminate the most dire of warnings: 2034 is all too close at hand, and this cautionary tale presents the reader a dark yet possible future that we must do all we can to avoid.
2034: A Novel of the Next World War
What a US nuclear war with China would look like
World Socialist Website
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/25/nuke-m25.html
2034 is co-written by a man who would be a leading architect of such a war. Stavridis was one of the Pentagon’s most prominent political commanders, having been vetted as a potential running mate by the Clinton campaign and a possible secretary of state by President-elect Donald Trump in the fall of 2016.
----------
Finally, the military dynamics are themselves totally unrealistic. The central assumption of the book is that there exists such a thing as a “tactical” nuclear war. Military actions are calmly and rationally discussed and deliberated.
Even so, it is only through an absurd and unbelievable plot twist that a strategic nuclear exchange is avoided. In a ridiculous deus ex machina, India attacks both Chinese and US vessels, bringing about an end to the war.
There is no such thing as a “tactical” nuclear world war. There has never been a full-scale war between two countries armed with nuclear weapons. More importantly, there has never been a full-scale war between “great powers” armed with 21st century technology.
The range, cheapness, and speed of offensive weapons, including drones and high-speed missiles, will mean that a third world war will be conducted everywhere at once, at dizzying speed and complexity. The logic of these phenomena—the complexity of global relations and domestic opposition, the expansion of the battlefield to the entire globe, the delegation of warfare to artificial intelligence—makes nuclear war impossible to control and limit to the “tit-for-tat” military exchanges depicted in the book.
A normal person, that is, one for whom moral derangement is not a professional requirement, would read Stavridis’ book with horror and do everything to avoid the massive level of death it depicts. But the fact is that, for its intended audience within the Beltway and the Pentagon, the tactical nuclear exchanges depicted in the book, constitute, in the words of Dr. Strangelove’s Gen. Buck Turgidson, “getting our hair mussed”—an entirely acceptable consequence of the use of nuclear weapons.
Stanley Kubrick’s masterful Dr. Strangelove, Sidney Lumet’s Fail Safe, and, more obliquely, John Frankenheimer’s Seven Days in May (all released in 1964) were scathing critiques of the military and of nuclear war. No such critical works are being written and produced today, and ground has been ceded to Stavridis’ sanitized depiction of nuclear war from the standpoint of a practitioner.
2034 is a wake-up call. The US military is actively planning and discussing a nuclear war, based on the false claim that such wars can be managed and contained. No, they cannot. Nuclear war threatens the annihilation of humanity. These well-advanced war plans must be opposed and stopped before it is too late.
The new geopolitics of global business | The Economist
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/06/05/the-new-geopolitics-of-global-business
Amazon’s near-death experience was part of the dotcom crash that exposed Silicon Valley’s hubris and, along with the $14bn fraud at Enron, shattered confidence in American business. China, meanwhile, was struggling to privatise its creaking state-owned firms, and there was little sign that it could create a culture of entrepreneurship. Instead the bright hope was in Europe, where a new single currency promised to catalyse a giant business-friendly integrated market.
Creative destruction often makes predictions look silly, but even by these standards the post-pandemic business world is dramatically different from what you might have expected two decades ago. Tech firms comprise a quarter of the global stockmarket and the geographic mix has become strikingly lopsided. America and, increasingly, China are ascendant, accounting for 76 of the world’s 100 most valuable firms. Europe’s tally has fallen from 41 in 2000 to 15 today.
Top 100 Tech Firms by valuation:
US 58, Europe 11, China 8, Japan 6, Taiwan 6, South Korea 3, Canada 3, Israel 2, Australia 1, Bermuda 1, UK 1
Top 10 Tech Firms by valuation
US 6, China 2, Taiwan 1, South Korea 1
https://companiesmarketcap.com/tech/largest-tech-companies-by-market-cap/
#US Senate overwhelmingly passes $250 billion #tech #investment bill aimed at countering #China. The money will be invested in #American #manufacturing and #technology to meet #economic & #strategic challenge from China. #semiconductors #AI #geopolitics https://ti.me/3g5kDZP
Also added to the new bill was a separate initiative that provides $52 billion in incentives and grant programs to bolster domestic semiconductor manufacturing, sought by Republican Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Democrats Mark Kelly of Arizona and Mark Warner of Virginia.
The move was cheered by those in the industry, following months of complaints from manufacturers that a semiconductor shortage was hampering the delivery of everything from consumer electronic devices to pickup trucks.
“Semiconductors form the nerve center of America’s economy, national security, and critical infrastructure,” said John Neuffer, the president and CEO of the Semiconductor Industry Association. “We look forward to working with leaders in the administration and Congress to swiftly enact needed federal investments in chip technology to help ensure more of the chips our country needs are researched, designed and manufactured on U.S. shores.”
Darpa Money
That money, along with another $2 billion for related programs, would be available upon the law’s passage. The other spending in the bill would be subject to the appropriations process. An amendment from Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska, would also authorize an additional $17.5 billion for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — or Darpa — over a period of five years.
Some Republicans rejected the idea of the government directing research and industrial policy.
“Maintaining our technological superiority over China requires punishing bad Chinese behavior and relying on the natural innovative entrepreneurship of America’s market economy, not by imitating Chinese central planning,” Pennsylvania GOP Senator Pat Toomey said in a statement before voting against the bill.
Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, who had criticized earlier versions of the bill as “not ready for prime time” and weak on defense, said the legislation was an important step forward and a rare area of bipartisan compromise, but should not be the “final word” on U.S. competition with China.
“Needless to say, final passage of this legislation cannot be the Senate’s final word on our competition with China,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “It certainly won’t be mine.”
Xi Jinping Picks Top Lieutenant to Lead China’s Chip Battle Against U.S.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-17/xi-taps-top-lieutenant-to-lead-china-s-chip-battle-against-u-s
Liu He, Xi’s economic czar whose sprawling portfolio spans trade to finance and technology, has been tapped to spearhead the development of so-called third-generation chip development and capabilities and is leading the formulation of a series of financial and policy supports for the technology, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
It’s a nascent field that relies on newer materials and gear beyond traditional silicon and is currently an arena where no company or nation yet dominates, offering Beijing one of its best chances to sidestep the hurdles slapped on its chipmaking industry by the U.S. and its allies. The sanctions, which emerged during Donald Trump’s presidency, have already smothered Huawei Technologies Co.’s smartphone business and will impede longer-term efforts by chipmakers from Huawei’s HiSilicon to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. to migrate toward more advanced wafer fabrication technologies, threatening China’s technological ambitions.
“China is the world’s largest user of chips, so supply chain security is of high priority,” said Gu Wenjun, chief analyst at research firm ICwise. “It’s not possible for any country to control the entire supply chain, but a country’s effort is definitely stronger than a single company.”
The involvement of one of Xi’s most-trusted lieutenants in China’s chip efforts highlights the importance accorded by Beijing to the initiative, which is gaining urgency as rivals from the U.S. to Japan and South Korea scramble to shore up their own industries. The Chinese president has long called upon his Harvard-educated adviser to tackle matters of top national priority, making him the chief representative in trade negotiations with the U.S. as well as chairman of the Financial Stability and Development Committee, where Liu leads the charge to curb risks in the nation’s $5-trillion-plus financial sector.
In May, Liu spearheaded a meeting of the technology task force that discussed ways to grow next-generation semiconductor technologies, according to a government statement. The 69-year-old vice premier, who has led the country’s technology reform task force since 2018, is also overseeing projects that could lead to breakthroughs in traditional chipmaking, including the development of China’s own chip design software and extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, one of the people said, asking not to be identified as they weren’t authorized to speak to media.
The State Council and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology didn’t respond to faxed requests for comment.
During trade negotiations with the Trump administration, Liu emerged as one of the most visible advocates of Beijing’s agenda. He’s known Xi since childhood -- both are sons of veteran Communist Party leaders and were among masses of young people dispatched to work in impoverished rural areas during the Cultural Revolution. Now, Liu is leading the charge to reform the tech sector, which was identified in China’s latest five-year economic plan as a key strategic area in which the “whole nation system” should be used to mobilize any necessary resources.
First introduced under Mao Zedong to help the then-fledgling Communist China industrialize, the approach was crucial to helping Beijing attain a number of top national priorities, from developing its first atomic bomb in the early 1960s to achieving Olympic sporting success. After that it was largely set aside as officials shifted to focus on economic growth. But following a series of U.S. sanctions that exposed the vulnerabilities of China’s chip capabilities, Xi is once again reactivating the mechanism to achieve breakthroughs in advanced chip development and manufacturing.
About a trillion dollars of government funding have been set aside under the technology initiative,
#China wants to buy advanced #chip machine from #Netherlands. #US says NO. It's an ASML machine called an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography system that is essential to making advanced #semiconductor #microprocessors. #silicon #technology https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-wants-a-chip-machine-from-the-dutch-the-u-s-said-no-11626514513?st=lhp86rcfoink017&reflink=desktopwebshare_twitter via @WSJ
Beijing has been pressuring the Dutch government to allow its companies to buy ASML Holding ASML -2.35% NV’s marquee product: a machine called an extreme ultraviolet lithography system that is essential to making advanced microprocessors.
The one-of-a-kind, 180-ton machines are used by companies including Intel Corp. INTC -1.51% , South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. and leading Apple Inc. supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. TSM -1.52% to make the chips in everything from cutting-edge smartphones and 5G cellular equipment to computers used for artificial intelligence.
China wants the $150-million machines for domestic chip makers, so smartphone giant Huawei Technologies Co. and other Chinese tech companies can be less reliant on foreign suppliers. But ASML hasn’t sent a single one because the Netherlands—under pressure from the U.S.—is withholding an export license to China.
The Biden administration has asked the government to restrict sales because of national-security concerns, according to U.S. officials. The stance is a holdover from the Trump White House, which first identified the strategic value of the machine and reached out to Dutch officials.
Washington has taken direct aim at Chinese companies like Huawei and has also tried to convince foreign allies to restrict the use of Huawei gear, over spying concerns that Huawei says are unfounded. The pressure aimed at ASML and the Netherlands is different, representing a form of collateral damage in a broader U.S.-China tech Cold War.
ASML Chief Executive Peter Wennink has said that export restrictions could backfire.
“When it comes to targeted, specific, national security issues, export controls are a valid tool,” he said in a statement. “However, as part of a broader national strategy on semiconductor leadership, governments need to think through how these tools, if overused, could slow down innovation in the medium term by reducing R&D.” He said in the short to medium term, it is possible that widespread use of export controls “could reduce the amount of global chip manufacturing capacity, exacerbating supply chain issues.”
---
That currently isn’t on the table inside the Biden White House, people familiar with the matter say. The U.S. is trying to put together alliances of Western countries to work jointly on export controls, people familiar with the matter said. The move could also have ramifications beyond ASML, further roiling semiconductor supply lines already under strain around the world.
ASML spun out of Dutch conglomerate Royal Philips NV in the 1990s. It is based in bucolic Veldhoven, near the Belgian border. It specializes in photolithography, the process of using light to print on photosensitive surfaces.
Photolithography is key to chip makers, which use light to draw a checkerboard of lines on a silicon wafer. Then they etch away those lines, like a knife carving into wood, but with chemicals. The remaining silicon squares become transistors.
The more transistors on a piece of silicon, the more powerful the chip. One of the best ways to pack more transistors into silicon is to draw thinner lines. That is ASML’s specialty: Its machines print the world’s thinnest lines.
The machines, which require three Boeing 747s to ship, use a laser and mirrors to draw lines five nanometers wide. Within a few years, that is expected to shrink to less than a nanometer wide. By comparison, a strand of human hair is 75,000 nanometers wide.
#TSMC eyes expansion in #US & #Japan to meet high chip demand. Expansion plans come amid concern over the concentration of chipmaking capability in #Taiwan. #China does not rule out the use of force for Taiwan's most advanced #semiconductor #technology. https://www.reuters.com/technology/taiwans-tsmc-posts-11-jump-q2-profit-global-chip-demand-2021-07-15/
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) (2330.TW) signalled on Thursday plans to build new factories in the United States and Japan, riding on a pandemic-led surge in demand for chips that power smartphones, laptops and cars.
TSMC, which posted record quarterly sales and forecast higher revenue for the current quarter, said it will expand production capacity in China and does not rule out the possibility of a "second phase" expansion at its $12 billion factory in the U.S. state of Arizona.
The world's largest contract chipmaker and a major Apple Inc (AAPL.O) supplier also said it is currently reviewing a plan to set up a speciality technology wafer fabrication plant, or fab, in Japan.
TSMC's overseas expansion plans come amid concern over the concentration of chipmaking capability in Taiwan, which produces the majority of the world's most advanced chips and is geographically close to political rival China, which does not rule out the use of force to bring the democratic island under its control.
Taiwan and TSMC have also become central in efforts to resolve a pandemic-induced global chip shortage that has forced automakers to cut production and hurt manufacturers of smartphones, laptops and even appliances. read more
"We are expanding our global manufacturing footprint to sustain and enhance our competitive advantages and to better serve our customers in the new geopolitical environment," TSMC chairman Mark Liu told an analyst call.
"While our overseas fabs are not initially able to match the costs of our manufacturing operations in Taiwan, we will work with governments to minimise the cost gap," Liu said.
He did not give details of its plans in America and Japan, adding the company was working to "firm up" wafer prices to reflect cost increases.
Reuters reported in May TSMC was eyeing expansion in Arizona beyond the one currently planned. read more
Liu said TSMC was also planning a capacity expansion in China's Nanjing due to the "urgent need" of clients, using the mature 28 nanometre semiconductor manufacturing technology.
It is scheduled to enter production next year and will eventually reach a production of 40,000 wafers per month by mid-2023, he said.
Revenue for April-June at TSMC , Asia's most valuable manufacturing company, climbed 28% to a record $13.29 billion.
For the quarter ending in September, TSMC forecast revenue of $14.6 billion to $14.9 billion, compared with $12.1 billion in the same period a year earlier.
TSMC said the auto chip shortage will gradually reduce for its customers from this quarter but expects overall semiconductor capacity tightness to extend possibly into next year.
The Taiwanese firm, which also makes chips for Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O), had previously flagged a $100 billion expansion plan over the next three years, as fifth-generation telecommunications (5G) technology and artificial intelligence applications drive global demand for advanced chips. read more
Deepglint, a chinese facial-recognition firm, was one of 14 companies slapped with American sanctions on July 9th for alleged links to human-rights abuses in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang. It is also a globally recognised leader in its field and has raised money from Sequoia Capital and other big American investment firms. DeepGlint’s founders, who graduated from Stanford and Brown universities in America, must now discuss with their foreign backers the prospect of decoupling from the Western commercial sphere. Many Chinese companies have been forced to hold similar talks.
https://www.economist.com/business/2021/07/17/china-incs-new-inconspicuous-expansion
China Inc appears to be on the back foot. In America President Joe Biden has picked up where Donald Trump left off, placing restrictions on Chinese companies. Last year Congress passed a bill that may eventually force Chinese firms to delist from American stock exchanges, which would affect nearly $2trn in market value. Huawei, banned from America, has struggled to sell its 5g telecoms kit elsewhere in the West. ByteDance was nearly forced to divest from its prized short-video app, TikTok, over American fears that the Chinese regime could access global users’ personal data. Tencent, another internet giant, is said to be haggling with American regulators worried about its 40% stake in Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite.
Indian fantasizes having a major semiconductor manufacturer on its shores. It wants to lure a #Taiwanese name to burnish its #semiconductor #tech credentials but #Taiwan doesn't see much point in the exercise given #India's lack of expertise in the field https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-03/india-s-chip-dreams-with-taiwan-aren-t-crazy-they-re-just-misguided
For more than two decades, India has maintained the fantasy that a major semiconductor manufacturer will set up shop on its shores, kicking off the nation’s journey along an inevitable path toward chip glory. It never happened, but there’s now a very clear script for how it might be done, if only government and industry leaders would take a more pragmatic approach.
In the latest incarnation of the dream, officials in India and Taiwan are apparently in talks to lure a new factory worth up to $7.5 billion. The local government is likely to foot half the bill to build and kit out such a project, Bloomberg News reported. While Taipei is eager to build closer ties with New Delhi, facilitating the construction of a chip fab in South Asia is not high on its priority list. That’s not due to Taiwan being particularly protectionist, but because it can’t see much point in the exercise given India's lack of expertise in the field.
#US @StateDept Spokesman Ned Price: “Pakistan is a strategic partner of the United States. We have an important relationship with the government in Islamabad, and it’s a relationship that we value across a number of fronts” #India #Pakistan #China https://indianexpress.com/article/world/china-pakistan-rahul-gandhi-remarks-us-response-7754255/
The United States does not endorse Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s comment that China and Pakistan are closer than ever due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ineffective policies, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Thursday.
Price was answering a question about Gandhi’s comments in the Lok Sabha Wednesday.
Price was further asked if Pakistan and China have become closer because “they feel abandoned” by the US.
“We’ve made the point all along that it is not a requirement for any country around the world to choose between the United States and China. It is our intention to provide choices to countries when it comes to what the relationship with the United States looks like. And we think partnership with the United States conveys a series of advantages that countries typically would not find when it comes to the sorts of partnerships that – “partnerships” may be the wrong term; the sorts of relationships that the PRC has seeked to – has sought to have around the world,” he replied.
“Pakistan is a strategic partner of the United States. We have an important relationship with the government in Islamabad, and it’s a relationship that we value across a number of fronts,” added the spokesperson.
Pakistan’s alliance with China has grown considerably in the past few years, with China investing billions of dollars in the strategic Gwadar Port in Balochistan province. The two countries have also been among the few nations to call for international engagement with the Taliban government in Afghanistan following a botched US-led exit of Western forces from Kabul in August 2021.
How the West Can Win a Global Power Struggle
In an economic Cold War pitting China and Russia against the U.S. and its allies, one side holds most of the advantages. It just has to use them.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-west-can-win-a-global-power-struggle-11647615557?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1
In the years preceding its invasion of Ukraine, Russia set out to sanction-proof its economy by developing local substitutes for key foreign products, such as microprocessors. The only problem: Since it lacks advanced semiconductor fabrication capacity, production of these Russian-designed chips was outsourced, mainly to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. After the invasion of Ukraine, Taiwan joined the U.S. in banning the export of sensitive technology to Russia. TSMC immediately promised to comply.
Russia may be an energy superpower but Taiwan is a semiconductor superpower, and semiconductors are harder to replace than oil. Therein lies a critical insight about the emerging Cold War between Russia and China on one side and the West—the U.S. and its democratic allies—on the other. This Cold War will be much more of an economic contest than the first, and the balance of economic power favors the U.S. and its allies. And it’s not even close.
Chinese President Xi Jinping likes to boast, “The East is rising, the West is declining.” When the rivalry was limited to China and the U.S., this had some resonance: At current rates of growth, China will surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest economy as soon as 2030 despite U.S. gains in the last year.
But with China partnered with Russia and the West more united than ever, this is turning into a contest of alliances, and Xi couldn’t be more wrong. In this framing, “East” and “West” are not geographic, but geopolitical, labels. If “the East” is defined as those countries with which China is closely aligned (it eschews formal alliances), only China is any sense rising. Russia was a stagnating petrostate even before sanctions eviscerated its economy. The others, such as Kazakhstan, Belarus, Pakistan, North Korea, Cambodia and Laos, are poor, slow-growing, or both. The West, defined as the European Union, the anglosphere (the U.S., Australia, Canada, Britain and New Zealand) and East Asia’s three big, rich democracies, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, may not be growing rapidly, but it is growing and has a gigantic head start. As former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said a Chinese official once told him: “You have all the good allies.”
By itself, China accounted for 18% of global gross domestic product at current exchange rates last year, based on International Monetary Fund data. Adding Russia and their assorted allies brings the total to just 20%. The U.S., meanwhile, accounted for 24%, and adding its allies vaults the total to 59%.
While sanctions on Russia demonstrate the West’s control of the global financial system, long-run economic advantage will come from technology and knowledge. In pure science—such as space travel and atomic energy—Russia and China certainly hold their own. But in commercially useful technology, Western companies lead in almost every field, from commercial aviation and biotechnology to semiconductors and software.
“If you have a coherent strategy across the major democracies, you’re in an enormously robust position in terms of financial, economic and technological leverage,” said former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, now president of the Asia Society think tank.
How the West Can Win a Global Power Struggle
In an economic Cold War pitting China and Russia against the U.S. and its allies, one side holds most of the advantages. It just has to use them.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-west-can-win-a-global-power-struggle-11647615557?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1
Of course the East plays a central role in the global economy. As recent market turmoil illustrates, Russia is a key supplier of not just oil and gas but metals such as palladium, used in catalytic converters, and nickel. China dominates manufacturing of countless goods whose value became abundantly clear during the pandemic, when demand for some, such as protective personal equipment, skyrocketed.
To a great extent these strengths reflect Russia’s comparative advantage in geology and China’s in factory labor. The West’s comparative advantage is in knowledge. That’s why Russia and China court Western investment. For example, to develop a complex liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in the Arctic, Russia relied on Norwegian, French and Italian contractors for essential expertise, research firm Rystad Energy notes.
Catching up with the West is no easy task, as semiconductors illustrate. Western companies dominate all the key steps in this critical and highly complex industry, from chip design (led by U.S.-based Nvidia, Intel, Qualcomm and AMD and Britain’s ARM) to the fabrication of advanced chips (led by Intel, Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung ) and the sophisticated machines that etch chip designs onto wafers (produced by Applied Materials and Lam Research in the U.S., the Netherlands’ ASML Holding and Japan’s Tokyo Electron ).
Russia and China have made efforts to reduce this dependence. Russia developed locally designed microprocessors called Elbrus and Baikal to run data centers, cybersecurity operations and other applications. Though neither has achieved significant market share, they “represent the pinnacle of local design capability,” said Kostas Tigkos, principal at Jane’s, a defense intelligence provider. Russia hoped that they would eventually displace chips made by Intel and AMD, he said. “This would not only have been the foundation for diversifying their installed base, but a stepping stone for exports of those processors to other friendly nations.” But without manufacturers like TSMC to make the chips, Russia is facing “the complete disintegration of their aspirations to develop their own industry.”
China has a much bigger semiconductor industry than Russia, and its partly state-owned national champion, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Co. (SMIC), could in theory make Russia’s chips, but that would take at least a year, Mr. Tigkos said. Moreover, its efforts to catch up to its Taiwanese competitor have been set back by sanctions. In 2020 the U.S. required companies using American technology to obtain a license to sell to SMIC. This effectively limited its ability to acquire advanced equipment from Netherlands’ ASML, which is critical for “any country that wants to have a competitive semiconductor industry,” Mr. Tigkos said.
Why does all this matter to the outcome of the geopolitical contest? Over time economic weight, strength and vitality are what allow countries to sustain military capability, achieve and maintain technological superiority, and remain attractive partners for other countries.
How the West Can Win a Global Power Struggle
In an economic Cold War pitting China and Russia against the U.S. and its allies, one side holds most of the advantages. It just has to use them.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-west-can-win-a-global-power-struggle-11647615557?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1
Yet GDP does not automatically equate to strategic influence. To win a Cold War, it’s not enough for the West to hold the best economic cards, it has to know how to play them. Economic statecraft, as this is called, does not come naturally to the West: Its institutions are built on the assumption that companies are private enterprises, not instruments of the state. They do business wherever it’s profitable, regardless of their home countries’ strategic interests.
No such division exists in Russia and China. Russian President Vladimir Putin used state control of key industries such as natural gas to reward or threaten neighbors. The Chinese Communist Party insists that state-owned and even private enterprises give priority to the state’s interests. In return, China tilts the playing field in those companies’ favor at home and abroad. Chinese state-sponsored hackers steal commercial secrets from Western companies, the U.S. has alleged. China is a master of economic coercion, punishing countries such as Australia or Lithuania or companies that cross its diplomatic red lines by depriving them of access to the Chinese market, knowing other countries and companies will eagerly take their place.
China has also learned how to play companies and countries in the West off against one another—favoring whoever promises to share more of its technology with Chinese partners, or avoids criticism of China.
Western governments, such as Germany, exaggerate China’s economic power and underappreciate their own, said Luke Patey, an expert on China’s international economic strategy at the Danish Institute for International Studies. “Germany has a full house when it comes to geoeconomics but plays like it has a pair of threes,” Mr. Patey said. The West frets that Chinese companies lead in fifth-generation telecommunications equipment—such as Huawei Technologies—and electric vehicle batteries. But, he said, “We sell short the fact that up there with Huawei are Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung,” based in Sweden, Finland and South Korea, respectively. Meanwhile Japan’s Panasonic and South Korea’s LG “are making the most sophisticated electric vehicle batteries in the world.”
For the West to play this game, it will have to more skillfully employ its ample economic assets toward geopolitical ends. The sanctions on Russia show that it can: The West showed a remarkable breadth and unity in its willingness to sustain significant economic discomfort in order to punish Russia. When the Trump administration imposed export controls on China, Taiwan did not join in but its companies were forced to comply because they use U.S. technology. This time Taiwan itself locked arms with the U.S. “Taiwan strongly condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Our country joins the U.S., EU & other like-minded partners in sanctioning Russia,” its Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted.
How the West Can Win a Global Power Struggle
In an economic Cold War pitting China and Russia against the U.S. and its allies, one side holds most of the advantages. It just has to use them.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-west-can-win-a-global-power-struggle-11647615557?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1
Still, in one sense this is an easy test. Will the West’s unity persist if Ukraine slips from the headlines and economic pain mounts? More important, could it muster the same effort with China, a critical market and supplier to many companies and countries in the West?
If China attacks Taiwan, which it considers a renegade province, ostracizing it from the global economy would be next to impossible. Nonetheless, Western governments have begun circumscribing business ties with China in response to its more aggressive behavior toward its neighbors and “Made in China 2025,” an economic blueprint for dominance in key technologies. Germany and Italy are applying more stringent criteria to foreign investment in their companies, wary of advanced technology being transferred to Chinese competitors. Japan is now debating an economic security law to safeguard supply chains and screen foreign investment and equipment used in sensitive infrastructure. Companies that had prioritized expansion on China are now boosting their Western presence. TSMC is building fabrication plants in Arizona and Japan while Intel has announced new or expanded facilities in Ohio, France, Germany and Italy.
Western cooperation in such efforts, though nascent, is growing. When the U.S. and European Union settled a long-running dispute over each others’ subsidies to Boeing and Airbus last year, they also agreed to develop a common approach toward “non-market economies,” i.e. Russia and China, on civil aircraft. For example, they agreed those countries cannot make investment in their aviation sectors contingent on “the transfer of technology or jobs to the detriment” of the U.S. and Europe.
Sustaining an economic edge also requires continuous reinvestment. At present, the West holds a comfortable lead. Based on purchasing power rather than current exchange rates, China and Russia spent $570 billion on research and development in 2019, the latest figures available; the U.S. and its largest democratic allies spent more than twice as much, $1.5 trillion, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
When it comes to human capital, the lead narrows slightly: Russia and China have 2.5 million researchers, the U.S. and its allies about 5.2 million. It’s in the future talent pool that the gap really starts to close. China alone awards more science and engineering undergraduate degrees than the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Japan and South Korea combined. Students in China are more likely to pursue science and engineering than in other countries. This pool of talent is a formidable engine for domestic innovation and a magnet for foreign and domestic investment. The lack of a similar pool constrains American efforts to bring critical manufacturing back to the U.S. In a speech in Taiwan last year Morris Chang, the founder of TSMC, complained that American engineers “don’t want to work in the manufacturing industry…Taiwan’s superiority in this is that it has a large number of excellent and dedicated engineers willing to throw themselves into manufacturing.”
How the West Can Win a Global Power Struggle
In an economic Cold War pitting China and Russia against the U.S. and its allies, one side holds most of the advantages. It just has to use them.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-west-can-win-a-global-power-struggle-11647615557?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1
The West makes up for the shortage of homegrown talent through immigration. A study by the Peking University Institute of International and Strategic Studies earlier this year lamented that 34% of China’s top artificial intelligence talents worked in China while 56% worked in the U.S., whose “relatively relaxed and innovative scientific research environment is…favored by scientific and technological talents.” Tech entrepreneurs are motivated by freedom and wealth, both of which are slipping out of reach in China and Russia.
Thus a key factor in whether the West can sustain its edge is whether it can remain a magnet for talent. Yet the West’s openness to trade and immigration and even its commitment to democracy have come under stress. In the last decade support in Europe and the U.S. has surged for right-wing populists opposed to immigration and free trade, skeptical of NATO, and admiring of Mr. Putin. These include Marine Le Pen, a contender for president in France’s elections this spring, and former U.S. President Donald Trump, who may seek the White House again in 2024. Democracy has backslid in Hungary, Poland and the U.S., according to the think tank Freedom House.
This points to the final and perhaps biggest challenge for Western nations. Having shown how effectively they can sever ties with Russia, can they be equally effective in strengthening ties with each other and unaligned players like India, Brazil and Vietnam—and thus be an attractive alternative to the autocratic East?
After World War II the U.S. used trade to strengthen other democracies and bind allies, and its reward was a democratic and prosperous West. Yet since the 2000s Americans have soured on this model, as expanded trade with the likes of China brought economic turmoil and little geopolitical benefit. Mr. Trump saw trade as a zero-sum game and hit allies and adversaries alike with tariffs. He pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership with 11 other Pacific rim countries, a pact covering not just tariffs but investment, intellectual property, data and the behavior of state-owned enterprises, intended as an alternative to China. Mr. Biden has resolved tariff disputes but pushed to expand “Buy American” regulations that penalize imports. He has offered no trade-agreement analog to his expanded military ties with allies in Europe and Asia, although he has promised a less ambitious “Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.”
How the West Can Win a Global Power Struggle
In an economic Cold War pitting China and Russia against the U.S. and its allies, one side holds most of the advantages. It just has to use them.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-west-can-win-a-global-power-struggle-11647615557?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1
Meanwhile, China is fast cultivating its own economic sphere of influence, via foreign investment, its “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative, and trade agreements, even applying to join the TPP, renamed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
“China has studied very carefully the American postwar model of how their global and regional military domination was augmented by financial and economic domination,” said Mr. Rudd. China, he said, seeks to achieve its foreign policy aims by making countries throughout Asia, including American allies, dependent on its trade and investment, and eventually its currency. Mr. Rudd urged the U.S. to return to the TPP and revive a similar pact with Europe. The U.S. needs to recognize where its strategic advantage lies, “which is through free trade, open commerce and open capital flows.”
Chip Sanctions Challenge Russia’s Tech Ambitions
Losing access to some top-end chips from Asia over the invasion of Ukraine undercuts efforts to develop advanced weaponry, AI, robotics
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chip-sanctions-challenge-russias-tech-ambitions-11647682202
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s biggest contract chip maker, said it is committed to complying with the new export-control rules. South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co., a leading memory-chip maker and an electronics producer, said this month it has suspended shipment of all its products to Russia because of geopolitical developments and is monitoring the situation to determine its next steps.
Russia’s chip-building technology lags behind that of industry leader TSMC by more than 15 years, said Western semiconductor-industry executives who have studied the state of Russia’s industry. The country’s leading chip maker, Mikron Group, has said it is the only local company capable of mass producing semiconductors with 65-nanometer circuitries—a technology introduced to the industry for mass production around 2006. Mikron didn’t respond to a request for comment.
--------
An international tech blockade threatens to deprive Russia of sophisticated semiconductors needed to power advanced weaponry and cutting-edge technologies like 5G, artificial intelligence and robotics, experts say.
In late February, the U.S. imposed a ban on selling high-tech products including semiconductors and telecommunications systems used by the defense, aerospace and maritime industries to Russia and its ally Belarus, days after Russia invaded Ukraine. The ban also extended to certain foreign items produced with U.S. equipment, software or blueprints.
South Korea and Taiwan, which dominate in high-end chips, and Japan, strong in chip-making materials and tools, have also banned exports of the items that the U.S. has put on its export-control list. Their moves cut off Russia’s access to many top-end chips, and materials and components needed to re-create production of such items locally.
For Russia, the impact from the coordinated sanctions will be significant, said Tom Rafferty, Asia regional director at the Economist Intelligence Unit. “The big export bans are going to be on semiconductors and high-end semiconductors in particular, for which Korea and Taiwan almost monopolize production. So there won’t be supply of that anywhere that Russia can lean on.”
While the sanctions would appear to limit Russia’s access to chip supplies, the actual impact couldn’t fully be determined. Russia’s Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the Ministry of Economic Development didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Russia continues to largely rely on foreign technology to design chips and has limited chip-production capabilities of its own. In 2020, Russia imported roughly $440 million worth of semiconductor devices, including components like diodes and transistors, and around $1.25 billion worth of electronic integrated circuits, or “chips,” built by incorporating various components, according to the United Nations Comtrade database.
While the majority of these imports come from Asian countries that aren’t imposing sanctions, Russia would still be left in the dark on high-end chips or homegrown chips. Taiwan produces most of the world’s cutting-edge semiconductors, with the rest produced in South Korea, data from Washington, D.C.-based trade group Semiconductor Industry Association showed. South Korea also dominates in memory chips, while Japan is a stronghold of semiconductor materials and manufacturing tools, both crucial for chip building.
TSMC has suspended all sales to Russia and to third parties known to supply products to Russia while it sorts through the sanctions rules to ensure it fully complies, according to a person familiar with the company’s business, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/25/ukraine-russia-chips-sanctions-tsmc/
In a statement, TSMC said it is “fully committed to complying with the new export control rules announced.”
GlobalFoundries, the chip manufacturer based in Malta, N.Y., said it also has begun complying with the rules. The company has a system to review and block any prohibited sales to Russia, said Karmi Leiman, the company’s head of global government affairs and trade, though he added that the size of the company’s sales to Russian buyers is “not material.”
Leiman said the internal review system is similar to the one the company uses for Huawei, the Chinese tech giant that has been a target of U.S. sanctions for several years.
Intel, based in Santa Clara, Calif., said it “complies with all applicable export regulations and sanctions,” including the new Russia-focused export controls.
Russia is vulnerable to the export ban because it doesn’t produce consumer electronics or chips in large quantities, analysts say. In particular, it doesn’t make the highest-end semiconductors needed for advanced computing, an area dominated by Taiwan, South Korea, the United States, Europe and Japan.
TSMC’s participation in the sanctions is particularly damaging because the company is the world’s largest manufacturer of chips, including the most advanced.
Among the chips TSMC is no longer manufacturing and shipping are Elbrus-branded semiconductors that are designed in Russia, according to the person familiar with TSMC’s business.
Russia’s military and security services use Elbrus chips in some computing applications, according to Kostas Tigkos, an electronics expert at Janes, a U.K.-based provider of defense intelligence, who described the loss of TSMC’s help with the chips as “devastating” for Russia.
The Russian government has also been encouraging large domestic companies and banks to use Elbrus chips in their computers because the components are designed in Russia.
Russian drones shot down over Ukraine were full of Western parts
The Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade group representing big chipmakers, said its members are “fully committed to complying” with the new rules “in response to the deeply disturbing events unfolding in Ukraine.”
“While the impact of the new rules to Russia could be significant, Russia is not a significant direct consumer of semiconductors, accounting for less than 0.1% of global chip purchases, according to the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization,” the group’s president, John Neuffer, said in a statement.
The United States and other Western nations have long regulated sales to Russia of chips and other electronic components specifically designed for military use. Any such sales already required a government license to proceed, industry experts said.
The new rules largely block the sale of dual-use chips, which have both military and commercial applications, to nonmilitary users in Russia, including those in high-tech industries.
In a novel move that the United States has used only once before — against China’s Huawei — it is also requiring companies worldwide to abide by the rules and block such sales to Russia if they use U.S. manufacturing equipment or software to produce chips. Most chip factories around the world use software or equipment designed in the United States, analysts say.
U.S. tech dominance could offer leverage over Russia — or backfire
Silicon Valley’s increasingly aggressive stance against Russia could fuel the growth of rivals there and in China, Iran, too
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/03/us-russia-technology-dependence/
Withholding technology can be a soft-power weapon to potentially turn a population against its leaders. Yet it also can be costly to the U.S. economy, slow to deliver results and scattershot in its effects — much more likely to affect ordinary Russians using their iPhones than generals firing missiles into Ukrainian cities.
There is another cost, as well. The United States’ dominance of global technology, experts warn, was built over generations but could be eroded in just a few years as rival powers — and especially Russia and China — invest billions of dollars to develop alternative technologies at home, in part to decrease U.S. leverage at moments such as these.
Even as Russians furiously buy iPads, Android devices and Windows-based computers, President Vladimir Putin is pushing hard to wean the country from Western technologies. And if Russia and other U.S. rivals succeed, there also could be long-term damage to the ability of American intelligence agencies — particularly skilled in exploiting U.S.-made tech — to track developments in the next conflict, experts say.
The upshot is that although technology sanctions can be unquestionably powerful, it’s a power that, when deployed, can spark backlashes that undermine its long-term utility. Depriving rivals of American-made technology also threatens the future global prospects of an industry that has driven U.S. economic growth for most of this century. The rise of a Russian Google — or a Chinese Facebook or an Iranian YouTube — are not theoretical developments. They are happening already.
“When you cut them off from American tech, they will find alternatives,” said Peter Micek, general counsel for Access Now, a human rights group that lobbies to keep Internet services available to people worldwide.
U.S. officials and technology executives are attempting to navigate this chessboard of risk and reward as they assemble a potent set of punitive moves against Russia.
The result has been growing restrictions on hardware, with Apple joining others in blocking sales to Russia, and moves by major social media platforms to curb the spread of Russian propaganda through its state-funded RT information service — often in response to the demands of Western governments. Digital purchasing tools, such as Apple Pay, also have stopped working as Western sanctions cut off Russian banks for ordinary operations.
But calls by Ukrainian officials to deprive Russians in general of access to social media and even the Internet itself have sparked significant resistance from both the companies and digital rights groups, which argue that the likes of Twitter, WhatsApp and Telegram are key to delivering information in Russia. They often are the only sources of news on the horrors Putin is inflicting on Ukrainians at a time when his control over national news media is nearly total.
The Russian government, meanwhile, has been squeezing these same companies, throttling Facebook and Twitter, and threatening action against Google in retaliation for its YouTube subsidiary limiting access to RT in response to demands by Western governments.
But as this conflict plays out, the idea of depriving Russia of software updates or online support from U.S. companies has not gained traction, even though such moves could gradually erode the functioning of technological tools used every day by the Russian government and its citizens.
Mr .Kishor who has written this article must understand that America is not necessarily spending its budget on military and defence to have full contact war with China but to have pyscological superiority over China so that China remains under the impression that America is a super power . In other words America wants to maintain deterrence level in this world , so that China never thinks about attacking America .
Dear Sir
Do you really agree with this article ? This article is published on Indian news site and Indians always compare themselves with 1st world countries ? Do you really think their is any comparison of India with America or between Indian democracy and American democracy ?
Dear Sir
Do you agree with this article ? This article is written on Indian news website and Indians always compare their country with America . Do you really think their is any comparison between Indian democracy and American democracy ?
#Apple to use #TSMC’s next 3-nm #semiconductor chip #technology in iPhones, Macs next year. There is a cost increase of at least 40% for the same area of silicon when moving to 3-nm chips from the 5-nm family, which includes 4-nm chips. #computers #phones https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/Apple-to-use-TSMC-s-next-3-nm-chip-tech-in-iPhones-Macs-next-year
TAIPEI -- Apple aims to be the first company to use an updated version of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s latest chipmaking technology next year, with plans to adopt it for some of its iPhones and Mac computers, sources briefed on the matter told Nikkei Asia.
The A17 mobile processor currently under development will be mass-produced using TSMC's N3E chipmaking tech, expected to be available in the second half of next year, according to three people familiar with the matter. The A17 will be used in the premium entry in the iPhone lineup slated for release in 2023, they said.
N3E is an upgraded version of TSMC's current 3-nanometer production tech, which is only starting to go into use this year. The next generation of Apple's M3 chip for its Mac offerings is also set to use the upgraded 3-nm tech, two sources added.
Nanometer size refers to the width between transistors on a chip. The smaller the number, the more transistors can be squeezed onto a chip, making them more powerful but also more challenging and costly to produce.
N3E will offer better performance and energy efficiency than the first version of the tech, TSMC said in a recent technology symposium in Hsinchu. Industry sources said the upgraded production tech is also designed to be more cost-effective than its predecessor.
As TSMC's largest customer and the biggest driver for new semiconductor technologies, Apple is still its most loyal partner when it comes to adopting the latest chip technology. The U.S. tech giant will be the first to use TSMC's first generation of 3-nm technology, using it for some of its upcoming iPads, Nikkei Asia reported earlier.
Previously, Intel told TSMC that it would like to secure 3-nm production by this year or early next year to be among the first wave of adopters like Apple, but it has since delayed its orders to at least 2024, three people told Nikkei Asia.
However, 2023 could mark the second year in a row that Apple uses TSMC's most advanced chipmaking technology for only a part of its iPhone lineup. In 2022, only the premium iPhone 14 Pro range has adopted the latest A16 core processor, which is produced by TSMC's 4-nm process technologies, the most advanced currently available. The standard iPhone 14 range uses the older A15, which was used in the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro models released in the second half of 2021.
Meanwhile, the race is on among chipmakers to roll out ever more advanced production tech. TSMC and Samsung each hopes to be the first to put 3-nm tech into mass production this year. This technology is suitable for all types of central and graphics processors for smartphones, computers and servers, as well as those used in artificial intelligence computing.
Apple, meanwhile, is likely to use the different levels of production tech to introduce greater differences between its premium and nonpremium models, according to Dylan Patel, chief analyst with Semianalysis. Previously the biggest differences have been in screens and cameras, but this could be expanded to include processors and memory chips, he said.
According to the analyst's estimate, there is a cost increase of at least 40% for the same area of silicon when moving to 3-nm chips from the 5-nm family, which includes 4-nm chips.
TSMC, Intel and Apple declined to comment.
Foxconn and Vedanta to build $19bn India chip factory
https://www.bbc.com/news/62873520
Foxconn and Vedanta have announced $19.5bn (£16.9) to build one of the first chipmaking factories in India.
The Taiwanese firm and the Indian mining giant are tying up as the government pushes to boost chip manufacturing in the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government announced a $10bn package last year to attract investors.
The facility, which will be built in Mr Modi's home state of Gujarat, has been promised incentives.
Vedanta's chairman Anil Agarwal said they were still on the lookout for a site - about 400 acres of land - close to Gujarat's capital, Ahmedabad.
But both Indian and foreign firms have struggled in the past to acquire large tracts of land for projects. And experts say that despite Mr Modi's signature 'Make in India' policy - designed to attract global manufacturers - challenges remain when it comes to navigating the country's red tape.
Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendrabhai Patel, however, said the project "will be met with red carpet... instead of any red tapism".
The project is expected to create 100,000 jobs in the state, which is headed for elections in December, where the BJP is facing stiff competition from oppositions parties.
According to the Memorandum of Understanding, the facility is expected to start manufacturing chips within two years.
"India's own Silicon Valley is a step closer now," Mr Agarwal said in a tweet.
India has vowed to spend $30bn to overhaul its tech industry. The government said it will also expand incentives beyond the initial $10 billion for chipmakers in order to become less reliant on chip producers in places like Taiwan, the US and China.
"Gujarat has been recognized for its industrial development, green energy, and smart cities. The improving infrastructure and the government's active and strong support increases confidence in setting up a semiconductor factory," according to Brian Ho, a vice president of Foxconn Semiconductor Group.
Foxconn is the technical partner. Vedanta is financing the project as it looks to diversify its investments into the tech sector.
Vedanta is the third company to announce plans to build a chip plant in India. A partnership between ISMC and Singapore-based IGSS Ventures also said it had signed deals to build semiconductor plants in the country over the next five years.
India Absent, 19 Countries Attend China Forum's Indian Ocean Region Meet
India was reportedly not invited, according to informed sources.
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/china-holds-its-first-meeting-with-19-countries-in-indian-ocean-region-without-india-3555791
Beijing: China held a meeting this week with 19 countries from the Indian Ocean region in which India was conspicuously absent.
The China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA), an organisation connected with the Chinese Foreign Ministry held a meeting of the China-Indian Ocean Region Forum on Development Cooperation on November 21, in which 19 countries took part, according to a press release issued by the organisation.
The meeting was held in a hybrid manner under the theme of "Shared Development: Theory and Practice from the Perspective of the Blue Economy" in Kunming, Yunnan Province, it said.
Representatives of 19 countries, including Indonesia, Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iran, Oman, South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Seychelles, Madagascar, Mauritius, Djibouti, Australia and representatives of 3 international organisations were present, it said.
India was reportedly not invited, according to informed sources.
Last year, China held a meeting with some South Asian countries on COVID-19 vaccine cooperation without the participation of India.
CIDCA is headed by Luo Zhaohui, the former Vice Foreign Minister and Ambassador to India.
According to the official website of the organisation, he is the Secretary of the CPC (the ruling Communist Party of China) Leadership Group of CIDCA.
CIDCA's official website said the aims of the organisation is to formulate strategic guidelines, plans and policies for foreign aid, coordinate and offer advice on major foreign aid issues, advance the country's reforms in matters involving foreign aid, and identify major programmes, supervise and evaluate their implementation.
During his tour of Sri Lanka in January this year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi proposed to establish a “forum on the development of Indian Ocean Island Countries.” When asked whether the CIDCA meeting is the same that is proposed by Wang, the Chinese Foreign Ministry here has clarified to the media that the November 21 meeting was not part of it.
At the November 21 meeting, China has proposed to establish a marine disaster prevention and mitigation cooperation mechanism between China and countries in the Indian Ocean region, the CIDCA press release said.
China is ready to provide necessary financial, material, and technical support to countries in need, it said.
China is vying for influence in the strategic Indian Ocean region with substantial investments in ports and infrastructure investments in several countries, including Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
While China has established a full-fledged naval base in Djibouti, its first outside the country, Beijing has acquired the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka on a 99-year lease besides building the port at Pakistan's Gwadar in the Arabian Sea opposite India's western coast besides infrastructure investments in the Maldives.
The Chinese forum apparently is aimed at countering India's strong influence in the Indian Ocean region where India-backed organisations like the Indian Ocean Rim Association, (IORA), which has a membership of 23 countries have taken strong roots.
China is a dialogue partner in the IORA formed in 1997.
IORA became an observer to the UN General Assembly and the African Union in 2015.
Besides the IORA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has proposed “Security and Growth for All in the Region” (SAGAR) in 2015 for active cooperation among the littoral countries of the Indian Ocean region.
The Indian Navy-backed ‘Indian Ocean Naval Symposium' (IONS) seeks to increase maritime cooperation among navies of the region.
Since the June 2020 Galwan Valley clash between Chinese and Indian armies, bilateral ties have been severely hit.
5G technology to be launched next year
https://www.nation.com.pk/06-Dec-2022/5g-technology-to-be-launched-next-year
The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication is likely to launch 5G technology next year in the country to cope with the challenges of the digital world. The official of ministry of IT and telecommunication said that the provision of broadband services across the country was the topmost priority of the ministry of IT. He said that the ministry of IT through the Universal Service Fund (USF) had launched some 70 projects of optical fiber cable (OFC) and broadband infrastructure development in four provinces at a cost of Rs 65 billion. “All projects are underway in far-flung areas would be completed by June next year,” he added. “In the province of Sindh alone, 20 projects of NGBSD and OFC worth Rs16.3 billion have been started so far in 20 districts, including Tharparkar, Nawabshah, Khairpur, Larkana, Badin, Jacobabad, Shikarpur, Mirpurkhas, and Dadu,” the official said. He said that projects of connectivity of the un-served and underserved communities of Balochistan, Punjab, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) provinces had also been launched. He said, through USF aimed to connect all the citizens of the country as digitalisation had become a priority for businesses and communities. Under its Next Generation Optic Fiber (NG-OF) Network and Services programme, USF had contracted over 16,000km of Optic Fiber Cable (OFC) to benefit 31.5 million populations across the country.
Post a Comment