0 Persons are tagged with #geopolitics

#geopolitics

wazoox@diasp.eu
Emmanuel Florac

The spirit of Brexit has infected the EU - Yanis Varoufakis

#geopolitics #UE

Since the pandemic, EU exports to China have flatlined while the United States almost doubled its imports from Europe. Totally reliant on America for arms, fossil fuels, and external demand, the EU is immensely vulnerable. If Donald Trump wins the coming presidential election and introduces his promised tariffs on EU exports, Europe will face deeper stagnation and fragmentation.

It is a tragic indictment of Europe’s leaders that, by holding out for so long against moderate but fundamental political reform of the EU, they guaranteed its disintegration.

https://diem25.org/the-spirit-of-brexit-has-infected-the-eu/

The spirit of Brexit has infected the EU - Yanis Varoufakis

It is a tragic indictment of the EU's leaders that, by holding out against moderate but fundamental political change, they guaranteed the Union's disintegration

waynerad@diasp.org
Wayne Radinsky

Export controls not working on semiconductor equipment to China.

"Huawei has been able to scoot around TSMC's weak end customer checks and secure thousands of leading edge wafers through Bitmain / Sophgo, and many other established Chinese design firms. While this is a huge failure in enforcement of the export controls, it's also relatively low volume compared to domestic fabrication of the Ascend 910B. Huawei has been relying on primarily Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) to produce their domestic AI chip and they have run tens of thousands of wafers of the main compute chiplet on their domestic SMIC N+2 (~7nm) and N+3 (~6nm) process nodes."

"SMIC produces 7nm-class chips including the Kirin 9000S mobile system-on-chip (SoC) and Ascend 910B AI accelerator. Two of their fabs are connected via wafer bridge, such that an automated overhead track can move wafers between them. For production purposes, this forms a continuous cleanroom and effectively one fab. But for regulatory purposes, they are separate! One building is entity-listed by the US and working on advanced logic for AI chips, a clear national security concern. The other is free to import 'dual use' tools as it runs only 'legacy processes.' Do you believe they aren't sharing anything over the wafer bridge?"

"An isotropic etch chamber, essential to producing the latest 2nm Gate-All-Around transistors, cannot be exported to China from Lam's US factories. This same etch chamber, manufactured in Lam's Malaysia facility, can legally be sold to an advanced logic fab in China if no US persons are involved (in manufacturing, sales, installation, and servicing). This includes even customers on the US entity list. Other companies follow the same playbook, including Applied Materials & KLA with their Singapore facilities."

"ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT)'s advanced DRAM with 18nm half pitch was subject to the original 2022 export controls. A new method of calculating half-pitch in the 2023 rules put them back above the minimum line for controls. Without changing the underlying process, they went from restricted to not. They also changed the node name from 17nm or 18.5nm to 19nm, to avoid any appearance of impropriety. The subtleties of the rule change that so specifically moved them from under to a literal nanometer or two over the restriction are, at least, very fortunate for CXMT. Lobbying efforts by giants such as Applied Materials who has made over $3 billion from CXMT may be noteworthy."

"Pengjin High-Tech, a gallium nitride (GaN) startup that is not entity-listed, is building its cleanroom across the street from entity-listed advanced logic producer Peng Xin Wei (PXW). Pengjin is free to import nearly all advanced Western production equipment, including equipment critical to producing advanced logic at 7nm or below (again the exceptions are a small number of tools on the control list, including extreme ultraviolet (EUV))."

Fab whack-a-mole: Chinese companies are evading US sanctions

#solidstatelife #semiconductors #geopolitics

Fab Whack-A-Mole: Chinese Companies are Evading U.S. Sanctions

Huawei Fab Network, WFE Vendors Cry Wolf, Framework for Future Controls

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waynerad@diasp.org
Wayne Radinsky

"Russia says it might build its own Linux community after removal of several kernel maintainers."

The Russian Ministry of Digital Development said it is planning to create its own Linux community, which "will unite developers from those countries that are ready to work with Russia." (Me quoting the Google Translate version of the Russian text, see the rbc.ru link below).

"Russia's response came after the Linux community blocked 11 Russians from maintaining the Linux kernel -- the operating system's core code -- citing 'various compliance requirements.' Linux creator Linus Torvalds stated that this decision 'is not getting reverted,' adding that as a Finn, he will not 'support Russian aggression.'" (This time quoting the English news article, which provides some context.)

"One of the Linux maintainers later explained that the restrictions would apply to developers whose companies are owned or controlled by entities on the US Office of Foreign Assets Control list, designated as involved in activities that 'threaten the national security, foreign policy, or economy' of the country."

Russia says it might build its own Linux community after removal of several kernel maintainers

#solidstatelife #linux #geopolitics #ukraineconflict

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wazoox@diasp.eu
Emmanuel Florac

Inconvenient Truths by Jennifer Zeng on X: "The CCP's People's Liberation Army withdrawing from the Ladakh region (ironically, they even added such heroic music as background for the video), all outposts and fortifications must be dismantled, and all supplies and equipment must be removed. This land will now be entirely under Indian jurisdiction.

India has already announced the establishment of the Ladakh Union Territory. This area is roughly equivalent to three Taiwans, forty Hong Kongs, totaling 90,000 square kilometers.

I can tell you that the CCP has not at all informed the Chinese people about the specifics of this agreement with India to "resolve the border dispute." Anyway, the media is controlled by the CCP, and the public has no right to know, only to be brainwashed and incited.

#geopolitics #China #India #Taiwan #leGrandRoque
https://xcancel.com/jenniferzeng97/status/1850918852693033027

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wazoox@diasp.eu
Emmanuel Florac

The Post-Cold War Apotheosis of Liberal Managerialism

#geopolitics #imperialism #war #totalitarianism

This includes uncovering some rather spectacular facts and quotes that I at least was unaware of, such as an open declaration by Bill Clinton’s National Security Advisor that America’s post-Cold War strategy would be to “pursue our goals through an enlarged circle not only of government officials but also of private and non-governmental groups,” including “private firms” and “human rights groups,” in order to fight the “intolerant energies of racism” across the planet and isolate “backlash states” “diplomatically, militarily, economically, and technologically.” Which is exactly the foreign policy chimera we got and still labor under decades later.

Or the fact that it was not some shadowy cabal of Blackrock and the UN that first invented manipulative “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) investing standards, but the George W. Bush administration’s national security staff, who noted that private finance “could drive the isolation of rogue entities more effectively than governments” and predicted that “the banks will fall into line” once “our campaigns leveraged the power of this kind of reputational risk.”

Or the timely reminder that in 1989 the supposedly conservative Wall Street Journal declared its commitment to achieving the following constitutional amendment: “there shall be open borders.”

https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/the-post-cold-war-apotheosis-of-liberal

The Post-Cold War Apotheosis of Liberal Managerialism

A response to Nathan Pinkoski

wazoox@diasp.eu
Emmanuel Florac

(1) Arnaud Bertrand on X: "Incredible, even the US Congress now admits that Australia will probably not get the AUKUS submarines. And they propose an alternative that achieves the feat of being even far worse than AUKUS (which was already a terrible deal).

In a new report (which you can find here: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL32418) the US Congressional Research Service admits that the country's industrial base is very far from achieving the target of building 2.33 submarines per year needed to build replacement submarines for those sold to Australia: in fact the rate is currently only "1.2 to 1.4".

Given this, they actually propose to just forgo the sale of submarines entirely (!) and go for an alternative approach where the US deploys US submarines manned by the US Navy to Australia instead: "up to eight additional Virginia-class SSNs would be built, and instead of three to five of them being sold to Australia, these additional boats would instead be retained in U.S. Navy service and operated out of Australia."

But since they don't want to miss out on the Australian money meant for the subs, they conveniently propose that Australia instead spends it on other US military products: "Australia, instead of using funds to purchase, build, operate, and maintain its own SSNs, would instead invest those funds in other military capabilities—such as, for example, long-range anti-ship missiles, drones, loitering munitions, B-21 long-range bombers, or other long-range strike aircraft".

All this for the purpose of "performing military missions for both Australia and the United States".

So essentially, from Australia's standpoint, the new deal would mean:
- Zero control over the submarines operated on its territory since it'd all be manned by the U.S. Navy
- Australia still spends a similar eyewatering amount of money ($368 billion) on US military equipment that is mostly "long-range": "long-range anti-ship missiles", "B-21 long-range bombers", "long-range strike aircraft". Meaning by definition not used for the defense of Australia but undoubtedly to attack China. Which is pretty clear: China is mentioned 44 times in the document...
- This US military equipment is to be used, as per the document, to "perform military missions for both Australia and the United States" which is extremely unusual: militaries normally don't perform missions FOR another military. Allied countries might perform missions alongside each other or in support of each other, but not explicitly "for" each other.

How could Australia possibly justify such a deal to its public? AUKUS was already, according to former Australian PM Paul Keating the “worst deal in all history” because it'd "turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States", but this new proposal would strip away even the illusion of Australian sovereignty.

#geopolitics #war #imperalism #Anstralia #USA
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1847162340829262239