Miscellaneous News

[pmc]

Russia/Ukraine-Nato war has shown us that weapon production capacity is the single most important thing in a prolonged warfare

And this is where China is heads and shoulders above every country

This will be incorrect to put it mildly. Ukraine will always have shortages of things if it cannot solve its fundamental problem of protection and striking effectively whats not Ukrainian. there are many really complex technologies that needed like night operations of choppers that can sniff things what is happening to drones in front of it. This concept of prolong war and doing some thing else under guise of fighting some one else in modern form need way more experience in Soft Power. you just need to love the Desert.

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[FairAndUnbiased]

Raimundo's an idiot and her interview was made to sway the ignorant. When the chip war started, China was doing 90-135nm and the leading global standard was 7nm with the leading standard moving faster than China. Now, China's doing 5-7nm and the leading standard is 3-5nm with China moving much much faster than the leading global standard. Those are the net effects of the sanctions. If anybody points that out on live Air, Raimundo is going to soil her pants thinking of a response and it'll have to cut to a commercial break due to "technological difficulties."

And all this is only compared to the leading global standard, which is a cooperation between mainly the Netherlands (with parts from the US and many other countries) and the ROC. America is just a cheerleader in this competition; it's not even a qualified competitor.

When the chip wars started China's leading edge (with foreign tools, but theres still use of foreign tools now) was 14 nm.

The first shot was sanctions on direct chip imports. Then they did 3rd country foundry use sanctions. Only when that was found ineffective, they moved to direct sanctions on tools. The sanctioning of tools that 3rd countries bought and paid for years ago was very novel and had no guarantee of working. We can only say that the big surprise was that other countries and regions are far more spineless than expected.

The limit has always been lithography but it is the limit for the US too. China and US have similar non lithography tools. Etch/deposition/clean - US has AMAT and LAM, China has NAURA and AMEC. Inspection: US has KLA, China has Dongfang Jingyuan.

But even full 3rd country sanctions would fail, because Nikon makes lithography tools independently and they're losing hundreds of millions per year. It's either sell to China, keep alive as zombie or go out of business. Only by getting Japan to cooperate in 2017 would've worked but now it's already too late. Japanese cooperation is nice but not necessary at this point.

 

[Maikeru]

Right ahead of Blinken's visit to China:

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[manqiangrexue]

Huawei sold the Honor 10X Lite with it.

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This was back when Huawei still owned Honor.

Also the Huawei Y7a.

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And many others.

This was important to validate that you could make an SoC with SMIC's FinFET process. It was probably a lot of work to get it to be produced reliably. I remember reading back then that Huawei offered a smartphone with the processor in it to each of the SMIC workers at the factory which made the chips.


You can pretty much bet the 7nm FinFET process from SMIC right now is still using imported equipment. We still have no confirmation of the 28nm process being fully made with Chinese machines. Let alone more advanced processes. Although it should be close.


Back then the 28nm process was available.

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You are way more on top of this than I am. I'm not a tech guy and had no interest in chips and phones until this became the tech war.

But still, even with all the new information here, I'm getting that before the tech war, China was about ~2-3 generations behind the leading global edge and relied extensively and heavily on imports without any security other than contracts with the West that are worth less than the paper they are written on. Now, China is ~1 generation behind the leading global edge, moving much faster, and with minimal and diminishing reliance, which are largely fortified against sanction. That's a fair statement, right?

Furthermore, if we calculated by the same degree of autonomy today that we have in the advanced nodes, maybe 5-14nm, that is to say, defended against sanction, what nodes would correlate to a similar degree of autonomy from 2016? I mean if all the sanctions in place today had suddenly been slammed on in 2016, what could we make? 90-135nm? Or better?

Yes. This is the major change. Now the Chinese chip sector will irreversibly move towards self-reliance.

I got the most important thing right, eh?

 

[FriedButter]

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(Norilsk Nickel) to transfer some (copper) production to China​

Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel will move some copper smelting production to China in the wake of Western sanctions pressure, the company’s chief executive Vladimir Potanin said in an interview with Interfax on Monday.

The US and UK have targeted Russian-origin aluminum, copper, and nickel in an attempt to reduce Moscow’s export revenues.

“This [sanctions] pressure forced us to think about how to get our goods to the distribution market in the right way,”Potanin told the news outlet, adding that “one of these non-standard solutions is to transfer part of production to markets of direct consumption.”

The businessman highlighted that Norilsk Nickel would create a joint venture in China to build a new plant, which is expected to be constructed by mid-2027, and would supply it with about 2 million metric tons of copper concentrate a year.

According to Potanin, the final product will be sold as Chinese, and “Chinese goods are much more difficult to sanction in China than Russian goods coming to China.”

The initiative would reportedly also protect the company’s exports from growing sanctions pressure on financial transactions with Russia. “Settlements are one of the biggest obstacles even in friendly jurisdictions, they don’t let exporters and importers work normally,”Potanin argued.

According to a recent Bloomberg report, as part of a shift away from the US dollar in settlements Norilsk Nickel is selling metal on the spot market in yuan using a mix of London and Shanghai prices.

Potanin also told Interfax that the company was seeking to gain access to China’s battery technologies in order to scale up domestic production.

China has become a major destination for Russian commodity exports in the wake of Western sanctions. This month, the US and UK prohibited metals exchanges from accepting new Russian-origin aluminum, copper, and nickel and barred imports of the metals.

However, the Kremlin described the new sanctions as a weapon that cuts both ways, claiming the “illegal” restrictions will backfire on the countries that imposed them.

Russia currently accounts for 6% of the global nickel supply, 5% of aluminum, and 4% of copper. According to Forbes, most analysts agree that the new sanctions will lead to an increase in Russian supplies of metals to China.

China, the world’s top copper consumer, is expected to account for more than half of Norilsk Nickel’s metal sales, according to Potanin.

Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel will move some copper smelting production to China in the wake of Western sanctions pressure

According to a recent Bloomberg report, as part of a shift away from the US dollar in settlements Norilsk Nickel is selling metal on the spot market in yuan using a mix of London and Shanghai prices

According to Potanin, the final product will be sold as Chinese

The West is going to buy “Chinese copper” just like how they are jumping over themselves on “Indian oil.”

 

[CasualObserver]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1782356283393503700

China also spends its reserves to massively financially de-risk from the US, and invest in significant quantities of copper, oil, nickel, iron, and everything that isn't US treasuries, not just gold, since they have excess capital they need to invest somewhere (BRI lending also grew big-time in 2023). In general, everyone is de-dollarizing rapidly in many ways.

Currency/trade wars, economic isolationism, and resource accumulation like the ones happening nowadays globally were historical preludes to many big-time wars, signifying periods of instability, between the old hegemon dying, and new powers appearing.

Generally, countries around the world could 'tolerate' the US's aggressive hegemony over them, in return for global economic and international prosperity and stability, but now that that isn't the case anymore, there is no reason to 'tolerate' the US anymore.

It is time to move to someone else, who is capable of once again resetting the global world order back to stability and growth both geopolitically, and economically (won't cause wars everywhere around the world, instability, that all slows down global GDP growth, etc).

In my opinion, that is clearly China, which has proven to be a much smarter, more peaceful, and more stable superpower. In fact, it exports deflation, instead of inflation like the US. It boosts global standards of living instead of decreasing it at the current time.

And instead of sucking up capital from around the world, as the US does, it exports it and invests massively in developing other countries, etc. Therefore, I don't think that anyone would truly "miss" US after they are gone, as they delusionally and arrogantly believe.

Everything will just return to the better version of the current reality the next day they are gone, although there will be some short-term pain, but overall long-term gain and a way better version of the world.

Strictly-objectively speaking, "Turkish-American alliance" died the minute those moronic American officials decided to support terrorist groups in ME that threaten Turkish security. Those groups are even openly in bed with Russia and Iran but for some unknown ..ing reason America still protects them. Nowadays they even train said terrorists with MV-22B Ospreys and Bradleys.

They don't have any Mideast policy whatsoever, They dug their own grave and now they're paying for it. They lost Turkey and Iraq, and possibly soon enough they're going to lose the Gulf as well. These countries will keep the existing military ties of course, but that will be it. The U.S. will only have Israel on their side for obvious reasons but even then that's only a one sided alliance.

The hegemon is clearly losing blood fast. The downfall is not going to happen anytime soon due to the sheer size of their power, but at least they're now dead set on going that path.

 

[gelgoog]

Strictly-objectively speaking, "Turkish-American alliance" died the minute those moronic American officials decided to support terrorist groups in ME that threaten Turkish security. Those groups are even openly in bed with Russia and Iran but for some unknown ..ing reason America still protects them. Nowadays they even train said terrorists with MV-22B Ospreys and Bradleys.

The funniest thing is the US is supporting Marxist insurgents in both Syria and Iran. Namely the PKK in Syria and the MEK in Iran.
That isn't even the worst of it with regards to Turkey. The attempted coup against Erdogan a couple years ago also has all the hallmarks of being sponsored by the US.

They don't have any Mideast policy whatsoever, They dug their own grave and now they're paying for it. They lost Turkey and Iraq, and possibly soon enough they're going to lose the Gulf as well.

The US policy in the Middle East is pretty simple. Keep the local powers weak so the oil can be extracted cheaply. For much the same reason Libya was destroyed.

These countries will keep the existing military ties of course, but that will be it. The U.S. will only have Israel on their side for obvious reasons but even then that's only a one sided alliance.

I suspect within this generation we will see another major war in the Middle East. And it will be Egypt and Turkey against Israel.

The hegemon is clearly losing blood fast. The downfall is not going to happen anytime soon due to the sheer size of their power, but at least they're now dead set on that path.

The US collapse as a global hegemon is still not assured but the US political class sure seem to be working on making it happen.

 

[Sardaukar20]

Right ahead of Blinken's visit to China:

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Well. There goes Blinken's 10 minute appointment with Xi Jinping. Even his meeting with Wang Yi might turn into a lecture by Wang Yi. If only Blinken could just keep his stupid mouth shut just for awhile.

If Blinken continues to talk stupid, he might not even get a courtesy state banquet like Yellen. He might have to get Nicolas Burns to take him to the nearest Mc Donald's and Starbucks in Beijing to get food and drinks.

If he continues to make noise about the "Uighur Genocide", then China might as well divert his flight to land on Urumqi. Have the mayor of Urumqi "welcome" him and show him around. Or maybe not, just leave him to wait on the tarmac indefinitely.

 

[CasualObserver]

The funniest thing is the US is supporting Marxist insurgents in both Syria and Iran. Namely the PKK in Syria and the MEK in Iran.
That isn't even the worst of it with regards to Turkey. The attempted coup against Erdogan a couple years ago also has all the hallmarks of being sponsored by the US.

The funny thing is, all they had to do to stay in Turkey's good grace was to keep their existing policies. I.e. don't try to tip the balance in the Aegean, and don't ever support terrorist groups, whose goals are to try to split the country. To give you some context, those groups present themselves to the West as representatives of the Kurds but their actions mainly effect Kurds (suicide bombing, killing civilians, etc.). I know what I'm saying since I'm half Kurdish and am from the Eastern Mediterranean region.

It was that easy. Don't take any sides on the Aegean-issue, and don't get involved with any groups that threaten the internal security of your NATO ally.

But what're they doing now, I hear you ask? They openly encourage another ally (Greece) to have a shot against Turkey and give them the necessary equipment such as F-35s, PAC-3s and soon PrSMs to do so; and they are in bed with hostile non-state actors in the Middle East....

And does Turkey righteously tell them to piss off? Unfortunately not yet, since the economy is still weak and they still need subcompontents for prototype stage productions of indigenous weapons.

But the pressure's building up fast. If the US doesn't change course on their ME policies, expect a major crisis happening between them soon.

 

[CasualObserver]

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