Will South Korea Join U.S. Effort to Deny Technology Sales to China?
Here is the latest strategy to counter China by the Biden administration:
The Biden administration is moving to put semiconductors, artificial intelligence and next-generation networks at the heart of U.S. strategy toward Asia, attempting to rally what officials are calling “techno-democracies” to stand up to China and other “techno-autocracies.”
The new framing for the U.S. rivalry with China has been given added urgency by the sudden global shortage of microchips needed in products such as cars, mobile phones and refrigerators. The strategy would seek to rally an alliance of nations fighting for an edge in semiconductor fabrication and quantum computing, upending traditional arenas of competition such as missile stockpiles and troop numbers.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link, but the article says there is a global shortage of microchips because China has been stockpiling them. The theory is that if major microchip producers like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan restrict sales of technology to China it will quash large Chinese companies like Huawei.
Of these three nations I would expect there would be little pushback from Taiwan or Japan on such a strategy, but the Moon administration in South Korea may be a tougher sell. Samsung is the world’s largest producer of semiconductors so restricting sales to China would be a huge loss for them. Additionally the Moon administration has arguably a policy of not upsetting China or the U.S.; siding against China on this issue they know will lead to severe retaliation far worse than what they experienced on the THAAD issue. This is not an easy policy decision for the Moon administration and I would not be surprised if they just delayed any decision on this as long as possible to see if it goes away.
Let’s put this in perspective. Walmart in China, even with lower prices, is only affordable to about 25% of the population there. However, that’s still more than the combined population of Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
Greedy and thoughtless leftists think they can sway a communist government by offering their products to a large market, forgetting that the Chinese have been stealing intellectual property, reverse-engineering hardware and software, and reselling it to the West. It’s a loser’s game.
Look at the recent events in Hong Kong. That’s what they have planned for all of us. All of us deemed worthy to keep breathing, that is.
Look at the Uighurs–slave labor for Apple, Nike, and others. “But it’s okay because they’re Muslims”, right?
Look at various innocuous religionists like the buddhists in Tibet, the Falun Gong, and the Christians around China.
China is asshoe and so are the greedy corporatists making money over there.
ummm…. Japan doesn’t make any semiconductors other than some image sensors by Sony. Japan doesn’t even have any chip fabrication facilities. All of their semiconductor companies went bust or got bought out by foreign companies. I think you need to come out of the 1980’s time machine. Things are way different today.
I shouldn’t have said “doesn’t make any”, since they do make image sensors and chips for autos (which are in serious shortage now, but in normal times those chips are not hugely profitable). I should have said, they are a bit player in semiconductor industry. Biden probably included Japan into the group due to the fact that Japan is still a supplier of chemicals and parts for the semiconductor industry, even though they are also gradually losing that remaining advantage .
So let me ask this. The US wants South Korea to give up 25% of their entire trade. Then what does South Korea get out of this other than losing slew of jobs and cuts to the GDP growth? What is the US doing to do to set an example for South Korea and others? The US continues to do normal business with China, while expecting countries like South Korea to not do any business with China. Oh yeah, that’s totally fair and normal. This, coming from a country that backstabbed Korea during Thaad crisis.
Lenin once said the last Capitalist would be hanged with a rope he sold his hangmen.
Go ahead. Sell technology to China. Maybe they’ll hang you last.