Could they prevented it in the envinronment where political leaders didn't care that much? I mean it stands in opposition to strong commercial flows, which logic dictates this to happen. As far as I know, it was only a few years ago some shift began. Maybe now it's time to make this possible.
In reality, in democratic countries the state is at the service of business, and in autocratic countries business is at the service of the state. And where will the "shifts" be faster?
Yes and unfortunately it historically seems to take direct involvement in a serious threatening war or some other major catastrophe to wake countries up. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Decoupling will be long and painful, but desperately needs to happen. Cultivate, even subsidize alternative markets, DO NOT penalize friends with tariffs, but keep hitting China/Russia with more and higher tariffs on everything. I would target China with 50-100% tariffs on every item just as starters, and endure the pain. Shift to friendlier nations, try to cultivate counterbalance.
That is totally rassist. As rassist as Trump was called out when closing the US airports for flights from China at the beginning of the Covid crisis. That was blatant rassism as yours is now, doesn't matter that in China inland flight travel was already banned, because they knew what was coming for them.
As a matter of fact, in the global community we are living now, there is no place for war anyway and China is also part of the WTO. So that is legally all fine.
End of text warned about in the beginning.
If you live in such environment as a security service, where you hands are bound like that - enjoy yourself...
You are definetly right that it would be painful and take time. How much time probably depends on the urgency felt. Definetly years, but Therese a difference between two and ten of course. I dothink people are more aware this days, but it is difficult for one single actor to do anything. Building alternative supply chains should be supported by goverments and EU.
And both of those actions are examples of Rive's final sentence.
They don't address the root causes of the problem - they just add another layer at the top of the heap.
Excessive regulation is ay the root of many of the decisions to outsource production to, for example, China. Once production was there developing new and better products at the site of the production naturally followed.
Not that China (or any other country with a reasonably educated population) would have needed that to have happened in order to develope new technology - it just provided incentive and a leg up.
Indeed, one of the solutions to this (and other matters of concern in similar areas) would actually be to see how much environmental and other regulation is actually necessary.
Reducing unnecessary regulation would greatly improve the ability of many Western industries to compete with China and other foreign competitors without subsidies and other artificial incentives.
I keep saying that Western countries need to insist (via law if necessary) that countries that supply them must regulate their manufacturing such that their workplaces are as safe as Western workplaces and that their workers are paid living wages and work reasonable hours.
I did a short stint with a company that imported appliances from China. The factories there are dangerous. The workers are not provided personal protective equipment and the factories are falling apart with chipping paint and leaky roofs.
The largest semiconductor location in Europe, specifically Germany, is Dresden, with the companies Globalfoundries (AMD), Infineon, ASMC, NXP and X-Fab. In addition, a 10 billion dollar plant is currently being built by TSMC.
If production at these plants runs at full capacity, which it is not, Europe could be reasonably supplied with chips.
A new Intel plant is also due to be built in Germany for 10 billion. However, due to Intel's losses, this is currently on hold and may not be built for a few years, assuming Intel recovers financially and becomes competitive again.
There's chips and there's chips. It's a bit like saying Europe has a huge transport manufacturing industry, but, just as you cannot build cars on a bicycle or aircraft assembly line, so different kinds of chips each need a dedicated production lines using different techniques and equipment. If those don't exist then it takes up to a decade to construct then. China's advantage is that, for example, the components for FPV drones can be manufactured very cheaply and in vast quantities. A better solution might be to start, as the Russians have done, using third parties to smuggle in what is needed.
Have you heard about this little European company called ASML? It's the biggest supplier of lithography equipment for production of chips in the world, and sole supplier of the newest technologies in this area.
People act like Europe doesn't have any industry nor technology for chips production, but it's really not true.
You make my point perfectly. Thank you. Do you know how long it takes to make just one of ASML's UV lithographic tools? Or how much they cost? Do you know how long the waiting list is to buy them? They are for cutting-edge processor production NOT for mass produced dirt cheap microprocessors. Put another way, their tools are part of multi-billion dollar production lines that take 5-10 years to build. In the same time east Asian nations can churn out billions of the components used in FPVs. Again, there are chips and there are chips.
My point is your are acting like Europe is starting from point 0, which is not true. And setting up cheap chips production is not harder, it's easier. The technology is the biggest hurdle and Europe does have a big chunk of the technology also.
I'm not saying we'll magically produce more than China in a few years, but it's also not like the race is lost before it even started.
I think you're picking a fight that does not need to be fought. It's unnecessary to put words in my mouth. Can you point to where I was saying Europe will start from scratch? No. I was merely pointing out that the semi-conductor industry is huge and varied and you cannot just assume that production of anything at scale is cheap and easy. Your mention of ASML makes my point perfectly. They do not even make chips, only high-end equipment used to make cutting-edge processors. They are entirely irrelevant to the problem being discussed here.
If Western oligarchs are not interested in the security of "democracy" for their countries, then is it worth hoping that they will care about protecting the "democratic choice" of Ukraine?
It turns out to be a paradox - the governments of the "democratic countries", serving the interests of these structures on the territory of these countries, act to the detriment of the safety of their voters!
The concern thus far (as in this article/post perhaps?) about Chinese increasing influence in the semiconductor markets does not involve yet the latest or forthcoming semiconductor technologies. Currently Taiwan is about 10 years ahead of China in developing, producing, and selling the forthcoming 2 nano-meter semiconductor class of digital chips based mostly on U.S. designs. Do not be all that surprised when China achieves parity at least eventually. Where will the U.S.A. and Europe, for example, be situated in development and production of the very latest semiconductor technologies should this occur? Currently, China needs Taiwain's latest semiconductor technologies as does the West. What happens when or if China becomes self-sufficient in the latest technologies and the West isn't? China could invade Taiwan, destroy Taiwan's semiconductor industry, and still fail militarily in such an invasion. Nonetheless, the West would be $hit out of luck when it comes to unfettered access to the latest semiconductor technologies, with China perhaps being the sole source for the latest and greatest chips.
All that China needs to do in such a scenario is oversaturating the air defence of Taiwan with drones. As the Ukrainians are able to strike against targets in Russia, the Chinese should be more than capable to simply level Taiwan to the ground.
It is one thing to be expansionist, it is another to be expansionist while staring a demographic and resource disaster in the face, which conquest could reasonably alleviate.
I'm thinking about writing an article on the current state of FPV drones, listing and examining every single component, down to the fasteners, describing the current state (component source, cost, necessary requirements) and proposing alternative whenever feasible.
Standard strike FPV drone (7"-10" inch props) is so simple from both mechanical (frame, props, attachments...), electromechanical (motors) and HW (FC, ESC, Cam, VTX, RX) point of view, that is shouldn't be too hard to follow and discuss for any technically minded person and yet there is a quite a lot of "low hanging fruit" in form of cheaper/easier to source/better performing alternative components.
Could they prevented it in the envinronment where political leaders didn't care that much? I mean it stands in opposition to strong commercial flows, which logic dictates this to happen. As far as I know, it was only a few years ago some shift began. Maybe now it's time to make this possible.
In reality, in democratic countries the state is at the service of business, and in autocratic countries business is at the service of the state. And where will the "shifts" be faster?
Yes and unfortunately it historically seems to take direct involvement in a serious threatening war or some other major catastrophe to wake countries up. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Decoupling will be long and painful, but desperately needs to happen. Cultivate, even subsidize alternative markets, DO NOT penalize friends with tariffs, but keep hitting China/Russia with more and higher tariffs on everything. I would target China with 50-100% tariffs on every item just as starters, and endure the pain. Shift to friendlier nations, try to cultivate counterbalance.
The demographic future is India and Africa.
Or allowed Chinese nationals access to their IP and did not maintain their security, hence the reason Blackberry died.
Warning: Hard irony ahead
That is totally rassist. As rassist as Trump was called out when closing the US airports for flights from China at the beginning of the Covid crisis. That was blatant rassism as yours is now, doesn't matter that in China inland flight travel was already banned, because they knew what was coming for them.
As a matter of fact, in the global community we are living now, there is no place for war anyway and China is also part of the WTO. So that is legally all fine.
End of text warned about in the beginning.
If you live in such environment as a security service, where you hands are bound like that - enjoy yourself...
You are definetly right that it would be painful and take time. How much time probably depends on the urgency felt. Definetly years, but Therese a difference between two and ten of course. I dothink people are more aware this days, but it is difficult for one single actor to do anything. Building alternative supply chains should be supported by goverments and EU.
The EU has also passer Chips Acts. But while this is good it will still take some years before any meaningful results can be seen. Its a start though.
The story in short:
If you want industry, somebody has to pay for it.
If you want industry and environmental protection, somebody has to pay a lot for it.
...
If you want industry, environmental protection, excessive administration and high salaries, then industry will flee.
Now, how can you fix all that overdoin'?
Right now most of that fixin' is about even more rigorous overdoin'.
And both of those actions are examples of Rive's final sentence.
They don't address the root causes of the problem - they just add another layer at the top of the heap.
Excessive regulation is ay the root of many of the decisions to outsource production to, for example, China. Once production was there developing new and better products at the site of the production naturally followed.
Not that China (or any other country with a reasonably educated population) would have needed that to have happened in order to develope new technology - it just provided incentive and a leg up.
Indeed, one of the solutions to this (and other matters of concern in similar areas) would actually be to see how much environmental and other regulation is actually necessary.
Reducing unnecessary regulation would greatly improve the ability of many Western industries to compete with China and other foreign competitors without subsidies and other artificial incentives.
I keep saying that Western countries need to insist (via law if necessary) that countries that supply them must regulate their manufacturing such that their workplaces are as safe as Western workplaces and that their workers are paid living wages and work reasonable hours.
I did a short stint with a company that imported appliances from China. The factories there are dangerous. The workers are not provided personal protective equipment and the factories are falling apart with chipping paint and leaky roofs.
That also requires the presence of a serious industry, contrary to some who takes all the subsidies and relocates once theyre absorbed.
Simply speaking you need someone that is willing to put legislation into place to shut off your market from international price-dumping competition.
No, the labour unions now rallying for Trump do that only because he is a rassist, orange fascist...
Please read again, that is not what I proposed
The largest semiconductor location in Europe, specifically Germany, is Dresden, with the companies Globalfoundries (AMD), Infineon, ASMC, NXP and X-Fab. In addition, a 10 billion dollar plant is currently being built by TSMC.
If production at these plants runs at full capacity, which it is not, Europe could be reasonably supplied with chips.
A new Intel plant is also due to be built in Germany for 10 billion. However, due to Intel's losses, this is currently on hold and may not be built for a few years, assuming Intel recovers financially and becomes competitive again.
There's chips and there's chips. It's a bit like saying Europe has a huge transport manufacturing industry, but, just as you cannot build cars on a bicycle or aircraft assembly line, so different kinds of chips each need a dedicated production lines using different techniques and equipment. If those don't exist then it takes up to a decade to construct then. China's advantage is that, for example, the components for FPV drones can be manufactured very cheaply and in vast quantities. A better solution might be to start, as the Russians have done, using third parties to smuggle in what is needed.
Have you heard about this little European company called ASML? It's the biggest supplier of lithography equipment for production of chips in the world, and sole supplier of the newest technologies in this area.
People act like Europe doesn't have any industry nor technology for chips production, but it's really not true.
You make my point perfectly. Thank you. Do you know how long it takes to make just one of ASML's UV lithographic tools? Or how much they cost? Do you know how long the waiting list is to buy them? They are for cutting-edge processor production NOT for mass produced dirt cheap microprocessors. Put another way, their tools are part of multi-billion dollar production lines that take 5-10 years to build. In the same time east Asian nations can churn out billions of the components used in FPVs. Again, there are chips and there are chips.
My point is your are acting like Europe is starting from point 0, which is not true. And setting up cheap chips production is not harder, it's easier. The technology is the biggest hurdle and Europe does have a big chunk of the technology also.
I'm not saying we'll magically produce more than China in a few years, but it's also not like the race is lost before it even started.
I think you're picking a fight that does not need to be fought. It's unnecessary to put words in my mouth. Can you point to where I was saying Europe will start from scratch? No. I was merely pointing out that the semi-conductor industry is huge and varied and you cannot just assume that production of anything at scale is cheap and easy. Your mention of ASML makes my point perfectly. They do not even make chips, only high-end equipment used to make cutting-edge processors. They are entirely irrelevant to the problem being discussed here.
If Western oligarchs are not interested in the security of "democracy" for their countries, then is it worth hoping that they will care about protecting the "democratic choice" of Ukraine?
It turns out to be a paradox - the governments of the "democratic countries", serving the interests of these structures on the territory of these countries, act to the detriment of the safety of their voters!
The concern thus far (as in this article/post perhaps?) about Chinese increasing influence in the semiconductor markets does not involve yet the latest or forthcoming semiconductor technologies. Currently Taiwan is about 10 years ahead of China in developing, producing, and selling the forthcoming 2 nano-meter semiconductor class of digital chips based mostly on U.S. designs. Do not be all that surprised when China achieves parity at least eventually. Where will the U.S.A. and Europe, for example, be situated in development and production of the very latest semiconductor technologies should this occur? Currently, China needs Taiwain's latest semiconductor technologies as does the West. What happens when or if China becomes self-sufficient in the latest technologies and the West isn't? China could invade Taiwan, destroy Taiwan's semiconductor industry, and still fail militarily in such an invasion. Nonetheless, the West would be $hit out of luck when it comes to unfettered access to the latest semiconductor technologies, with China perhaps being the sole source for the latest and greatest chips.
A good article on the subject of high tech semiconductors vis-à-vis China, Taiwan, and the West:
https://theconversation.com/with-china-seeking-ai-dominance-taiwans-efforts-to-slow-neighbors-access-to-advanced-chips-needs-support-from-the-west-234423
All that China needs to do in such a scenario is oversaturating the air defence of Taiwan with drones. As the Ukrainians are able to strike against targets in Russia, the Chinese should be more than capable to simply level Taiwan to the ground.
Thanks for all the thoughtful comments!
Thanks to nixons idea of manufacture in china...
It is one thing to be expansionist, it is another to be expansionist while staring a demographic and resource disaster in the face, which conquest could reasonably alleviate.
You let out, that the US needed a way out of the Vietnam war back then. That was quite a motivation back then.
Exactly
Very good article, although quite high-level.
I'm thinking about writing an article on the current state of FPV drones, listing and examining every single component, down to the fasteners, describing the current state (component source, cost, necessary requirements) and proposing alternative whenever feasible.
Standard strike FPV drone (7"-10" inch props) is so simple from both mechanical (frame, props, attachments...), electromechanical (motors) and HW (FC, ESC, Cam, VTX, RX) point of view, that is shouldn't be too hard to follow and discuss for any technically minded person and yet there is a quite a lot of "low hanging fruit" in form of cheaper/easier to source/better performing alternative components.
Great piece! I'd love to see more of this, more depth. Which parts exactly aren't being made in the West, etc..
Possible? Yes.
Easy/Cheap? No.
Can western countries re-learn to manufacture things instead of outsourcing everything?