The effect is counterproductive, as the US continues to hype up technology sanctions against China

In the past two weeks, discussions about the expiration of US sanctions against China have flooded the US public opinion arena.

Some voices are starting to hype up the need to escalate sanctions against China.

The stress response of the United States is consistent with the description of a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

The United States is constantly promoting competition, but what the international community sees is that in order to gain an advantage, the United States uses its national machinery in the name of competition to suppress and contain China in all aspects and fields, engaging in a war of tariffs, trade, technology, chips, and rules.

Seeing the various performances of the United States, Tan Zhu has a feeling: the United States thinks that upgrading its sanctions against China can contain China, but it is still too unfamiliar with China.

Who is the one hyping up the escalation of sanctions against China?

Tan Zhu used big data to sort out recent reports on US media sanctions against China and extracted relevant US departments that appeared in them. It can be observed that the frequency of the "China Special Committee" in the United States House of Representatives is particularly high.

| | Chairman of the "China Special Committee" of the House of Representatives, Gallagher

The chairman of this committee, Gallagher, stated without any evidence that without American technology, the chips used in China may not be produced. The meaning of this statement is very clear. The current sanctions are not yet effective enough.

So he suggested that the US Department of Commerce should stop all technology exports to companies such as Huawei.

US Commerce Secretary Raymond, who recently concluded his visit to China, has just stated that he will continue to export billions of dollars in chips to China. Even US National Security Assistant Sullivan only said that he would not comment until more technical details were obtained.

Why is Gallagher particularly proactive in emphasizing that "sanctions are useless"?

This starts with the establishment of this committee. The China Special Committee is a special committee established by the US House of Representatives in January this year specifically targeting China. It has been less than a year since its establishment and its important goal is to defeat China.

Ironically, the process of determining this goal is quite arbitrary.

Gallagher once revealed that his original focus was on the Middle East, and it was his closest friend Bomin who convinced him that China was more worth paying attention to.

Since its establishment, the committee has held 11 committee meetings and roundtable dialogues in two states in the United States, proposing multiple legislative proposals.

In other words, the results of implementation are lackluster. According to Gallagher's goal of proposing 10 China related bills, the completion rate is 0%, which reveals the true nature of the committee's "grassroots team".

From the composition of this committee, it further confirms this point. Among the 24 members, the proportion of elected members of Congress after 2016 reached 87.5%, which is much higher than the proportion of elected members of Congress after 2016, which accounts for 56.9% of the entire House of Representatives.

A group of newly elected members of the House urgently need to take the lead through this ad hoc committee. Whenever it comes to China, they can only work harder, speak up frequently, and charge forward. As long as they can launch the first shot to contain China, they will do everything they can to the extreme.

In July, they wrote letters to four American venture capital firms expressing serious concerns about their investments in technology fields such as semiconductors in China and launched investigations.

Mr. Tan analyzed that previously, the White House was contemplating investment restrictions on China. July is the peak of American media hype on this issue. When the White House was still evaluating whether to restrict investment in China and discussing the extent and impact of the restrictions, the "China Special Committee" took the lead and began collaborating with American media to investigate American companies' investment in China, disregarding the potential negative impact on American companies in China and eager to unify consensus within the United States.

The current clamor for escalating sanctions against China follows the same logic.

If you truly realize that sanctions are useless, you should avoid rushing all the way in the wrong direction. As a result, Gallagher intensified her proposal to stop all technology exports to companies such as Huawei.

However, these lawmakers sitting on Capitol Hill may not truly understand what chips are all about, as half of the members of this "China Special Committee" have military and intelligence backgrounds and have little to do with technology.

In their imagination, absolute suppression can be exchanged for absolute victory.

These Americans are still too unfamiliar with China.

Why do CEOs of Intel, Nvidia, and Qualcomm, the three major chip giants in the United States, have to go to Capitol Hill to urge against restricting exports to China? Why does the US Secretary of Commerce, who is in charge of export controls, end his visit to China and return to the US to continue selling chips to China?

| | CEOs of Intel, Qualcomm, and Nvidia

Because they know that if they don't sanction China, they will give up. If they really want to fully sanction China, Chinese companies will start from the first line of code. In the end, the United States may lose its market and technological advantage.

The discussion on sanctions and breakthroughs is not limited to the United States, but has also sparked discussions in other countries and regions, all of which are important links in the global semiconductor industry chain.

A few days ago, upon seeing China's new breakthrough, the President of Dutch lithography giant Asma, Wenningke, once again spoke up. He publicly stated on a TV program, "If we don't share technology, they will research it themselves. They will come up with solutions we haven't thought of yet." He bluntly stated that there is no hope of completely isolating China.

| | Asma CEO Wenningke accepts an interview with Dutch media

In his speech a year ago, Wenningke also expressed a similar view: "Never say it's impossible, they will definitely try."

The expression of Wen Ningke has a certain meaning.

In the first half of the year, the United States wooed the Netherlands and Japan and issued restrictions on exporting high-end lithography machines to China.

In fact, in order to enhance the effectiveness of sanctions, the United States has been trying to weave a big web of sanctions by wooing allies. As soon as a small circle was formed in the first half of the year, good news came from China.

The United States does not reflect on its own policies, but instead focuses on external factors. US media reports that there are still many gaps in US sanctions that need to be filled. The implication is that US sanctions require cooperation from other countries.

Is it really possible for the United States to coordinate the national interests of other countries with just a few meetings and newly established small circles? Is it really enough to cut off the chip industry chain by coordinating with several countries and companies?

| | Dutch lithography machine manufacturer Asma

Take lithography machine giant Asme as an example. Although Asme is a Dutch company and the final assembly of lithography machines is also in the Netherlands, in reality, lithography machines are extremely complex and precise. If you delve deeper into Asme's component suppliers, you will find that different countries such as Germany are providing components for it. The ecosystem of the entire chip industry is also like this.

Chris Miller, the author of the book "Chip Wars," has systematically analyzed the history of chip development and concluded that if you dig from the beginning of the chip supply chain to the bottom of the chip, you will find that thousands of companies are involved in many different countries.

A few people with different heads playing with two or three legs may not necessarily walk well. The United States wants to use its own efforts to command the pace of thousands of companies around the world, and the effect can be imagined.

In fact, from the perspective of enterprise survival and profitability, no enterprise voluntarily loses its market in China.

Not long ago, the President of the Semiconductor Industry Association of America went to Beijing and shared this judgment with Mr. Tan: no country can reverse the chip supply chain.

It should be noted that the semiconductor industry chain itself is very complex. In addition to the core industries we often mention, such as chip design, contract manufacturing, and packaging testing, there are also a large number of supporting industries including semiconductor materials, equipment, software services, etc. The chip terminal application industries such as computers, consumer electronics, communication, and automotive electronics are even more numerous.

It is certainly difficult to reverse the global industrial chain ecosystem.

At present, when discussing Sino US relations, the United States always mentions competition. Specifically in the field of technology, the United States is using all means to create obstacles for us and attempt to pull us down.

When sanctions have become normalized, the discussion about the effectiveness of so-called sanctions is no longer significant.

Imagine, if the current sanctions are really ineffective, wouldn't the United States use other means to contain China? If sanctions are really effective, will we stop developing?

In the field of technology, the United States has included over 1000 Chinese companies in its physical list. In addition, restrictions have been imposed on high-tech product exports, Chinese investment in the United States, and US investment in China. Even so, we cannot easily assume that this is the entirety of the American toolbox.

If chips are the first battlefield of current technological competition, then more battlefields have emerged. Just like the latest investment restrictions on China, they have extended to the fields of artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

These industries, in the eyes of the United States, are all on the list of emerging and key technologies.

Since the introduction of the Export Control Reform Act in August 2018, the United States has been focusing on this list.

According to this list, products and technologies from more than ten fields, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum computing, 3D printing, logistics technology, biotechnology, etc., are all included in the scope of the US technology war against China.

In the future, wherever China's high-tech develops, the US technology war against China will continue. We should be mentally prepared for this.

As for the impact of sanctions, we must certainly acknowledge that it is a bad thing for Americans to impose additional sanctions.

But after several years of technological warfare, unconsciously, more and more Chinese companies have begun to take pride in the "physical list" of the United States. It seems that they have been on the "physical list", which further demonstrates that the company has truly innovated and made breakthroughs. This change in understanding precisely conveys the spiritual background of the Chinese people.

For thousands of days and nights, we have reason to believe that sparks gather in unseen days and nights.

Compared to today's American politicians, former US Secretary of State Kissinger once described his understanding of China as follows: Chinese people are always well protected by the bravest among them.

In fact, every generation of Chinese people is like this.

The Chinese civilization has outstanding innovation, which fundamentally determines the enterprising spirit of the Chinese nation to uphold integrity and respect the past, and the fearless character of the Chinese nation to not be afraid of new challenges and to accept new things.

For the United States, we will not have any illusions. Around these hard measures of sanctions, the United States will also cooperate with cognitive warfare. If we were to focus on attacking key enterprises in the past in an attempt to release a huge "psychological deterrence," then now the United States may also mislead us into overconfidence through the "high-profile" approach of "sanctions being ineffective.".

No matter how much means the United States still has to resort to, we will not underestimate ourselves, nor be arrogant or complacent. What we want is to be neither humble nor arrogant, and to speak endlessly.