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Showing posts with label Tech War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tech War. Show all posts

Sunday, 17 September 2023

Chips, politics and economic dominance

Officially Huawei became the world’s number one smartphone player after shipping 55.8 million handsets, surpassing Samsung in the second quarter of 2020. — Bloomberg

SMIC'S progress in industry commendable effort despite sanctions

 
TWO weeks ago, without much fanfare or large-scale promotional event, Huawei Technologies launched a surprise pre-sale of its latest Mate flagship model.

This was out of the blue, considering that Huawei suffered for the past three years since the United States trade sanction during the Donald Trump-led administration which placed Huawei on the export blacklist depriving the phone and network giant from key semiconductor components necessary to manufacture its successful premium smartphone products.

At its peak in 2020, Huawei had 38% of China’s total smartphone market share with Vivo coming in second at 17.7% and Oppo coming in third at 17.4%.

Globally, Huawei had just over 10% with much room to catch up to Samsung and Apple, which had an estimated 30% and 26% respectively.

Despite that, it officially became the world’s number one smartphone player after shipping 55.8 million handsets, surpassing Samsung in the second quarter of 2020.

This did not last long, as in the year after the trade sanctions kicked in, Huawei suffered immensely when its revenue for the consumer division plunged 47% in the first half of 2021 and fell out of the world’s top five smartphone maker for the first time in six years. 

 If that wasn’t enough, Huawei had to endure a prolonged winter because of the sanctions with market commentators even speculating they will exit the smartphone market entirely.

To stay afloat, Huawei sold off its entire stake in Honor, the budget range smartphone business for Us$15.2bil to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co Ltd, a consortium made up of over 30 dealers and includes a state-owned enterprise of the municipal government of Shenzhen.

Hence, when social media caught wind of Huawei Mate 60 pro with videos of long queues for the launch of the smartphone, it attracted global attention. The two questions on everyone’s mind were, “how did Huawei do it with the sanctions ongoing?” and “is this the start of Huawei’s path to reclaim its smartphone throne?”

For those who are not too familiar, one should understand that chips are denominated in different measurements such as 5nm, 7nm and 10nm. It represents the specific generation of chips made with a particular technology and the smaller numbers represent more advanced and efficient technology.

In the past, these numbers indicated the size of the smallest features or transistors that can be produced on a chip using a particular manufacturing process.

What is interesting about Huawei’s latest smartphone launch is that the Kirin 9000s System on Chip that powers the phone model appears to be manufactured using an advanced 7nm process.

Following the trade sanction which was meant to cripple Huawei’s advancement in smartphone manufacturing, most would assume that Huawei would not have access to advanced chips.

In addition, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), China’s state-backed chip manufacturer which is widely regarded to be the top in China, is only capable of producing 14nm at that time. In addition, SMIC has not been able to procure the advanced Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems that are used to produce chips at 7nm and below before they were sanctioned as well.

Based on teardown analysis by reviewers online, the chip’s overall performance seems to match that of Snapdragon 888 or Apple A13 chipsets which were launched in 2019-2020. But for those who might have some familiarity with the chip fabrication industry, this is likely not the case as the 7nm chip could be produced using the older generation deep ultraviolet machines which China manufacturers can still import.

This would require usage of multi-patterning, a technique that has been utilised by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd (TSMC) in 2017 of producing 7nm chips before EUV was introduced.

In fact, SMIC reportedly used this technique to produce a 7nm chip for bitcoin miners last year, so they are no stranger to the technique.

The downside of this technique is that it will waste more time, energy, water, while also resulting in higher defects and lower yield. Hence the cost of production is likely much higher.

Nonetheless, EUV machines are still needed to advance beyond 5nm process, and at 3nm and below, multi-patterning would be required even with EUV machines. Hence, we can say that the real bottleneck of the United States trade sanction will hit it hard beyond 5nm.

Currently, SMIC, while improving, is still lagging its global peers; TSMC and Samsung have already started mass production of chips using the 3nm process in 2022 which is two generations ahead of the 7nm process used by SMIC.

The gap is around four years but without access to EUV machines, it could take much longer for SMIC to reach 3nm. It is important to note that all its competitors are now working towards mass production of 2nm chips in 2025.

Considering how SMIC is also sanctioned by the United States, it is remarkable to see it making progress. SMIC will likely continue to be supported by the Chinese government in developing advanced chips.

So long as self-interest politics remains the priority over mutual prosperity and the technology transfer agenda, we will see companies and manufacturing bases move across regions based on the countries’ political alignments or foreign policies rather than merits.

Apart from the United States and European manufacturers that have been diversifying production out of China, even some Chinese suppliers are building new factories in our country as they do not want to lose their markets outside of China.

For now, most are setting up in the existing states with matured industry supply chains such as in Penang and Johor.

Hence, sad to say, while this fight between the two economic powerhouse is detrimental to the world in the long term, in the short term, it appears that it is good for our nation, and we should continue to capitalise on the opportunity.

At the end of the day, every country, especially the larger economies, hopes to maintain its economic dominance over the rest of the world. This era, thankfully, is not an era where the wars between countries are fought with guns and bullets. It is an era where the race is on technological advancement and scientific breakthrough.

Apart from the semiconductor chip competition that has been ongoing since the start of the United States-china trade war, the Covid-19 global pandemic has raised the awareness for the government on the importance on advancing research and development in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry.

Even countries with the strongest military power cannot avoid the same fate of being engulfed in the effects of the pandemic like any other Third World country.

Unlike the United States, Europe, Taiwan and South Korea, China started research and development in the semiconductor industry much later. We must remember China only started focusing on developing its advanced chip technology recently.

Before the decoupling with the United States happened in 2020, there was no urgency to do so, given that they could still rely on imported technology.

As nations around the world continue to become more tribal, it is crucial to be self-sufficient, be it in the area of technology development, healthcare or food security. It may take awhile but eventually, government leaders ought to revert to multilateralism and focus on the benefits of building a global economy in the interests of mankind.

That is the best way forward for humanity.

By NG ZHU HANN

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Ten Republican lawmakers jointly sent a letter dated Thursday to Alan Estevez, undersecretary of Commerce for Industry and Security, exerting pressure and presenting seven demands. These demands include the establishment of a new agency dedicated to controlling the export of American technology to China, imposing “full blocking sanctions” on both Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) and Huawei, and placing all their subsidiary companies on the Entity List.

Monday, 28 September 2020

US, China and the indelicate art of insults

'We lied, we cheated, we stole', ‘the Glory of American experiment’ by US Secretary of State/Ex-CIA director Mike Pompeo 


Strong words are being hurled at each other but there is calibration in the cursing.


THERE’S this memorable anecdote in Mario Puzo’s crime classic, The Godfather, where the mafia don from New York sends his henchman to reason with a Hollywood mogul who is standing in the way of his godson getting a film role perfect for him in every way, except that he has alienated the studio big shot who now hates his guts.

Where words fail, more potent nudges are sometimes needed – in this case, a horse’s head placed in the studio chief’s bedroom while he is asleep, blood and reedy tendons included, did the trick. It persuaded the man that the favour requested, and declined, is serious business. And thus he yields, shouting invectives and threats at the actor and his Italian origins, the consigliere who had reached out to him with the initial contact on behalf of his boss, and the mafia.

But not a word against the Godfather, himself. Genius, writes Puzo, has its rewards.

There’s no special genius, and even less reward, in the acrimonious exchanges that are causing a tailspin in ties between the world’s two biggest military powers and economies.

If anything, it bespeaks dangerous brinkmanship as a once-overwhelmingly dominant hegemon confronts a resolute challenger now picking a cue or two from its own playbook on how to throw weight around.

Nevertheless, the curses the movie mogul held back from uttering came to mind as I checked around the region about the goings-on at the Asean Ministerial Meeting and related meetings with dialogue partners hosted earlier this month by Vietnam.

Perhaps the two warring sides were mildly cramped by the fact that the conference did not take place in a single hall but over video link. Even so, while both the United States and China did robustly put forth their positions, each seemed to be taking care to keep the attacks from getting too immoderate.

Indeed, the rare frisson, according to Asian diplomats privy to the talks, came when China’s Vice-Foreign Minister Luo Zhaohui, standing in for Foreign Minister Wang Yi, dropped an acid comment about “drunken elephants in the room”.

Faint light at the end of the dark tunnel of US-China ties? Maybe not. But then again, maybe.

Some cultures, particularly in Asia, teach their young that even insults have to be measured; if you spit up at a person high above you, the mucus falls back on yourself. If you do that to someone far below you, it is a waste of time to descend so low. Insults have to be exchanged between equals. But most important of all, never insult so completely that the door to a reconciliation is closed forever. Perhaps that’s what we are witnessing.

A real estate and casino mogul before he ran for his first elected office, which happened to be the US presidency, the New York-born and raised Donald Trump, whose most trusted counsel is close family, has ordered his administration to pile on his strategic adversary the most intense pressure seen in a halfcentury. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has enthusiastically fallen in line, as have his key deputies, including Max Pottinger. Other arms of US government such as the Pentagon have fallen in line as well.

In July, two aircraft carrier groups led by the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan conducted war games in the South China Sea, joined by subsurface vessels and nuclear-armed bombers. Technology links built up over decades are being torn apart like the wanton act of a child and within the US, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is putting Chinese nationals and Americans of Chinese ethnicity under unprecedented scrutiny.

Trump’s long arm has even snatched Meng Wanzhou, the powerful daughter of the Huawei founder, one of China’s most respected tech tycoons.

Chinese diplomats and media have pushed back, and unfeelingly for a nation where the virus was first identified, sometimes suggesting that the US could learn a lesson or two from Beijing on how to control a pandemic. Also mocked at have been the racial tensions and the rioting that have scarred the US in the wake of the pandemic and the resultant economic hardship.

Nevertheless, through it all, most of the US vitriol has targeted the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), not the Chinese nation.

In a landmark speech in July at the Nixon Presidential Library, Pompeo declared that the “free world must triumph over this new tyranny”. At the Asean forum earlier this month, he underlined US “commitment to speak out in the face of the Chinese Communist Party’s escalating aggression and threats to sovereign nations”.

This week, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs David Stilwell began his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by saying he was there to “discuss the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party to the US and the global order” in three geographical regions, before going on to say that “it is now clear to us, and to more and more countries around the world, that the CCP under general secretary Xi Jinping... seeks to disrupt and reshape the international environment around the narrow self-centred interests and authoritarian values of a single beneficiary, the Chinese Communist Party”.

Just as the US has tried to separate the CCP from the Chinese people, Trump and Xi have been careful to not throw barbs directly at each other.

Indeed, Trump has claimed to have a “tremendous relationship” with Xi and he has described Xi as a “man who truly loves his country” and is “extremely capable”. He has also stressed that the two will be friends “no matter what happens with our dispute on trade”, and he also has spoken of his liking and “great respect” for China. On the other side, Chinese anger seems to be largely directed at Pompeo, rather than his boss.

At a recent panel discussion I moderated for the FutureChina Global Forum, I asked Professor Randall Kroszner, former member of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System and who currently serves on the advisory board of the Paulson Institute, which works to promote US-China ties, whether he saw wiggle room for a patch-up after the election.

“Ultimately, there’s an understanding that major economic and military powers need to have connections, need to be able to talk and work with each other,” Prof Kroszner responded.

“There is a lot of manoeuvring and posturing that’s going on right now, but I don’t think anyone wants to burn any bridges. They want to make sure the bridges are still there, even if there are some blockades now.

“(That said) I don’t see those obstacles being removed right now.”

For now, of course, it does look as though things will get worse before they get better.

In July, the US shifted position on the South China Sea, proclaiming that it held as illegal all of China’s claims outside its territorial waters. This has emboldened some, Vietnam and the Philippines particularly, to be more assertive with China over the South China Sea dispute.

Still, some in Asean suspect a certain fakery in all this, a sense that a lot of the noise coming from the US is mere posturing. There are few illusions about China either.

Indeed, the lull in assertive Chinese behaviour in the South China Sea witnessed in the lead-up to the Asean ministerial meet and forums is generally seen as nothing more than temporary easing of pressure to get a “good meeting”.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein spoke for many when he said the South China Sea issue “must be managed and resolved in a rational manner” and Asean has to “look at all avenues, all approaches, to ensure our region is not complicated further by other powers”.

Indeed, some even think Trump is capable of doing a deal with Beijing the week after election day, should he win.

Already, the latest iteration of the TikTok deal is being called by some analysts as a watered-down version of what Trump originally sought to demand, something that had been on the table months ago, although it is not quite clear if China could live with it.

Likewise, it is not lost that China has held back on announcing its own blacklist of US firms – “unreliable entity list” as it is called, although its intentions were announced more than a year ago.

Beijing is said to be staying its hand to both not exacerbate tensions, as well as to wait for the US election results. While the document explaining the unreliable entity list is 1,500 characters long, the attached clarifications are double in length – suggesting much of this is shadow play.

If a deal needs to be made, the Pompeos and Pottingers can always be switched out and more moderate voices brought in; Trump does not shrink from letting people go. Indeed, given that he is said to harbour ambitions about a 2024 presidential run, it might even help Pompeo’s political career to be made a casualty of a rapprochement with China, so he can distance himself from the deal.

Still, it hardly needs to be said that Trump is capable of busting every code in the book, spoken or unspoken. With the election looming and his own standing in pre-election surveys not looking too promising, he let fly this week at the United Nations, returning to his “China virus” theme, boasting about three US-developed vaccines in Phase III trials, and the unprecedented rearmament of America under his watch. America’s weapons, he declared, “are at an advanced level, like we’ve never had before, like, frankly, we’ve never even thought of having before”.

Judging from Chinese media, Beijing read it for what it was; while made to a global audience, the speech was targeted at the domestic voting public. Nevertheless, it did not go without a response.



An editorial comment in the Global Times on Wednesday reminded Trump that the “hysterical attack on China violated the diplomatic etiquette a top leader is supposed to have”.

In short, never omit to leave that bit of margin for a future reconciliation.
 

by Ravi Velloor, is an associate editor at The Straits Times, a member of the Asia News Network (ANN) which is an alliance of 24 news media entities. The Asian Editors Circle is a series of commentaries by editors and contributors of ANN.

 
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Trump's speech jeopardized the atmosphere of this UN General Assembly, and threw the assembly's theme astray. His hysterical attack on China violated the diplomatic etiquette a top leader is supposed to have. This means Washington elites do not take the UN into consideration and pay no heed to diplomacy.


US fails to act like a major power at UN: Global Times editorial

Both Xi and Trump addressed the General Debate on Tuesday with pre-recorded videos. Xi emphasized unity and cooperation, while Trump mentioned China 12 times, making the country his most outstanding stunt. Judging from such different performances, it is easy to tell which side was more reliable. If the 21st century would finally become a century of divisions, the US ruling elites shall be regarded as the sinners of history.
 

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This morning!  Seriously warn the United States: China’s nuclear weapons are not for viewing!  We are not afraid of things, but you are not qualified! 
Foreign Minister Wang was furious and seriously warned the United States that 2 million troops are ready at any time?

1. At the press conference, a reporter asked Wang Yi, a spokesperson for the outreach ministry: US President Trump wanted to send his own investigator to China to investigate the epidemic-related situation. If China has deliberate responsibility for the spread of the virus, Need to bear the consequences, do you have any comments?

2. Wang Yi’s answer: The virus is the common enemy of all mankind and may appear at any time and anywhere. Like other countries, China has been attacked by the new coronavirus and is the victim, not the perpetrator, nor the virus. "accomplice".

At that time, H1N1 flu was first diagnosed in the United States and broke out in a large area, spreading to 214 countries and regions, resulting in the death of nearly 200,000 people. Has anyone asked the United States to compensate?

In the 1980s, AIDS was first discovered in the United States and quickly spread to the world, causing pain to many people and many families. Has anyone sought compensation from the United States?

The financial turmoil that occurred in the United States in 2008, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, and eventually evolved into a global financial crisis. Does anyone demand compensation from the United States?

The United States must be clear that their enemy is a virus, not China.

3. Wang Yi went on to say: If Trump and Pompeo were not guilty of geriatric madness, then they should be clear that China is not the one that was allowed to be trampled on by the "eight-nation coalition", nor is China even Iraq. Venezuela, not Syria, is not where you want to come, what you want to check.

China is not guilty, but you are not qualified, nor are you qualified! In the early stage of the epidemic, we took the initiative to invite WHO and Chinese experts to conduct a joint inspection in the epidemic area, and put forward preliminary inspection results on the outbreak and spread of new coronavirus.

The investigation request made by Trump is purely unreasonable and is a manifestation of hegemony. They override the United States above international organizations and all humankind, and it seems that only they can be trusted. But is the United States really credible? Iraq and Venezuela are a lesson.

4. We have to warn Trump that if we want to calculate China's abacus, it is better to think about it. Because 1.4 billion people will not agree, China's 2 million army is not a decoration, but China's steel Great Wall. China's Dongfeng missiles are not used to rake, but to fight dog jackals.

China's nuclear submarines are not used to travel on the seabed, but to combat uninvited guests. Chinese nuclear weapons are not used to frighten anyone, but from self-defense. Anyone who wants to taste something, think about it, you tell me.

5. We want to warn Trump that if China wants compensation, it will count from the time when the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded China, until the cases that Wang Yi has just proposed are counted together. You have to compensate the old historical accounts of China and the world.

6. Now China is in a very good position in the world, the first to control the new coronary pneumonia, the first to enter the stage of economic recovery, and now it is to increase horsepower to export anti-epidemic materials to the world, China is catching up with the total economy The time to go beyond the United States is also greatly advanced. This is unacceptable to Trump. The United States has been dragged into the quagmire by Trump. At this time, Trump wants to make China and the world feel better. Harmfulness is indispensable, anti-Trumping indispensability is absolutely indispensable, and wicked people have their own harvest!

I hope that every Chinese can turn this article out so that our China becomes stronger and stronger and support all patriotic groups. 
 
 
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US, China and the indelicate art of insults

'We lied, we cheated, we stole', ‘the Glory of American experiment’ by US Secretary of State/Ex-CIA director Mike Pompeo 


Strong words are being hurled at each other but there is calibration in the cursing.


THERE’S this memorable anecdote in Mario Puzo’s crime classic, The Godfather, where the mafia don from New York sends his henchman to reason with a Hollywood mogul who is standing in the way of his godson getting a film role perfect for him in every way, except that he has alienated the studio big shot who now hates his guts.

Where words fail, more potent nudges are sometimes needed – in this case, a horse’s head placed in the studio chief’s bedroom while he is asleep, blood and reedy tendons included, did the trick. It persuaded the man that the favour requested, and declined, is serious business. And thus he yields, shouting invectives and threats at the actor and his Italian origins, the consigliere who had reached out to him with the initial contact on behalf of his boss, and the mafia.

But not a word against the Godfather, himself. Genius, writes Puzo, has its rewards.

There’s no special genius, and even less reward, in the acrimonious exchanges that are causing a tailspin in ties between the world’s two biggest military powers and economies.

If anything, it bespeaks dangerous brinkmanship as a once-overwhelmingly dominant hegemon confronts a resolute challenger now picking a cue or two from its own playbook on how to throw weight around.

Nevertheless, the curses the movie mogul held back from uttering came to mind as I checked around the region about the goings-on at the Asean Ministerial Meeting and related meetings with dialogue partners hosted earlier this month by Vietnam.

Perhaps the two warring sides were mildly cramped by the fact that the conference did not take place in a single hall but over video link. Even so, while both the United States and China did robustly put forth their positions, each seemed to be taking care to keep the attacks from getting too immoderate.

Indeed, the rare frisson, according to Asian diplomats privy to the talks, came when China’s Vice-Foreign Minister Luo Zhaohui, standing in for Foreign Minister Wang Yi, dropped an acid comment about “drunken elephants in the room”.

Faint light at the end of the dark tunnel of US-China ties? Maybe not. But then again, maybe.

Some cultures, particularly in Asia, teach their young that even insults have to be measured; if you spit up at a person high above you, the mucus falls back on yourself. If you do that to someone far below you, it is a waste of time to descend so low. Insults have to be exchanged between equals. But most important of all, never insult so completely that the door to a reconciliation is closed forever. Perhaps that’s what we are witnessing.

A real estate and casino mogul before he ran for his first elected office, which happened to be the US presidency, the New York-born and raised Donald Trump, whose most trusted counsel is close family, has ordered his administration to pile on his strategic adversary the most intense pressure seen in a halfcentury. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has enthusiastically fallen in line, as have his key deputies, including Max Pottinger. Other arms of US government such as the Pentagon have fallen in line as well.

In July, two aircraft carrier groups led by the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan conducted war games in the South China Sea, joined by subsurface vessels and nuclear-armed bombers. Technology links built up over decades are being torn apart like the wanton act of a child and within the US, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is putting Chinese nationals and Americans of Chinese ethnicity under unprecedented scrutiny.

Trump’s long arm has even snatched Meng Wanzhou, the powerful daughter of the Huawei founder, one of China’s most respected tech tycoons.

Chinese diplomats and media have pushed back, and unfeelingly for a nation where the virus was first identified, sometimes suggesting that the US could learn a lesson or two from Beijing on how to control a pandemic. Also mocked at have been the racial tensions and the rioting that have scarred the US in the wake of the pandemic and the resultant economic hardship.

Nevertheless, through it all, most of the US vitriol has targeted the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), not the Chinese nation.

In a landmark speech in July at the Nixon Presidential Library, Pompeo declared that the “free world must triumph over this new tyranny”. At the Asean forum earlier this month, he underlined US “commitment to speak out in the face of the Chinese Communist Party’s escalating aggression and threats to sovereign nations”.

This week, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs David Stilwell began his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by saying he was there to “discuss the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party to the US and the global order” in three geographical regions, before going on to say that “it is now clear to us, and to more and more countries around the world, that the CCP under general secretary Xi Jinping... seeks to disrupt and reshape the international environment around the narrow self-centred interests and authoritarian values of a single beneficiary, the Chinese Communist Party”.

Just as the US has tried to separate the CCP from the Chinese people, Trump and Xi have been careful to not throw barbs directly at each other.

Indeed, Trump has claimed to have a “tremendous relationship” with Xi and he has described Xi as a “man who truly loves his country” and is “extremely capable”. He has also stressed that the two will be friends “no matter what happens with our dispute on trade”, and he also has spoken of his liking and “great respect” for China. On the other side, Chinese anger seems to be largely directed at Pompeo, rather than his boss.

At a recent panel discussion I moderated for the FutureChina Global Forum, I asked Professor Randall Kroszner, former member of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System and who currently serves on the advisory board of the Paulson Institute, which works to promote US-China ties, whether he saw wiggle room for a patch-up after the election.

“Ultimately, there’s an understanding that major economic and military powers need to have connections, need to be able to talk and work with each other,” Prof Kroszner responded.

“There is a lot of manoeuvring and posturing that’s going on right now, but I don’t think anyone wants to burn any bridges. They want to make sure the bridges are still there, even if there are some blockades now.

“(That said) I don’t see those obstacles being removed right now.”

For now, of course, it does look as though things will get worse before they get better.

In July, the US shifted position on the South China Sea, proclaiming that it held as illegal all of China’s claims outside its territorial waters. This has emboldened some, Vietnam and the Philippines particularly, to be more assertive with China over the South China Sea dispute.

Still, some in Asean suspect a certain fakery in all this, a sense that a lot of the noise coming from the US is mere posturing. There are few illusions about China either.

Indeed, the lull in assertive Chinese behaviour in the South China Sea witnessed in the lead-up to the Asean ministerial meet and forums is generally seen as nothing more than temporary easing of pressure to get a “good meeting”.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein spoke for many when he said the South China Sea issue “must be managed and resolved in a rational manner” and Asean has to “look at all avenues, all approaches, to ensure our region is not complicated further by other powers”.

Indeed, some even think Trump is capable of doing a deal with Beijing the week after election day, should he win.

Already, the latest iteration of the TikTok deal is being called by some analysts as a watered-down version of what Trump originally sought to demand, something that had been on the table months ago, although it is not quite clear if China could live with it.

Likewise, it is not lost that China has held back on announcing its own blacklist of US firms – “unreliable entity list” as it is called, although its intentions were announced more than a year ago.

Beijing is said to be staying its hand to both not exacerbate tensions, as well as to wait for the US election results. While the document explaining the unreliable entity list is 1,500 characters long, the attached clarifications are double in length – suggesting much of this is shadow play.

If a deal needs to be made, the Pompeos and Pottingers can always be switched out and more moderate voices brought in; Trump does not shrink from letting people go. Indeed, given that he is said to harbour ambitions about a 2024 presidential run, it might even help Pompeo’s political career to be made a casualty of a rapprochement with China, so he can distance himself from the deal.

Still, it hardly needs to be said that Trump is capable of busting every code in the book, spoken or unspoken. With the election looming and his own standing in pre-election surveys not looking too promising, he let fly this week at the United Nations, returning to his “China virus” theme, boasting about three US-developed vaccines in Phase III trials, and the unprecedented rearmament of America under his watch. America’s weapons, he declared, “are at an advanced level, like we’ve never had before, like, frankly, we’ve never even thought of having before”.

Judging from Chinese media, Beijing read it for what it was; while made to a global audience, the speech was targeted at the domestic voting public. Nevertheless, it did not go without a response.



An editorial comment in the Global Times on Wednesday reminded Trump that the “hysterical attack on China violated the diplomatic etiquette a top leader is supposed to have”.

In short, never omit to leave that bit of margin for a future reconciliation.
 

by Ravi Velloor, is an associate editor at The Straits Times, a member of the Asia News Network (ANN) which is an alliance of 24 news media entities. The Asian Editors Circle is a series of commentaries by editors and contributors of ANN.

 
Related
 

Trump addresses US voters in UN speech: Global Times editorial

Trump's speech jeopardized the atmosphere of this UN General Assembly, and threw the assembly's theme astray. His hysterical attack on China violated the diplomatic etiquette a top leader is supposed to have. This means Washington elites do not take the UN into consideration and pay no heed to diplomacy.


US fails to act like a major power at UN: Global Times editorial

Both Xi and Trump addressed the General Debate on Tuesday with pre-recorded videos. Xi emphasized unity and cooperation, while Trump mentioned China 12 times, making the country his most outstanding stunt. Judging from such different performances, it is easy to tell which side was more reliable. If the 21st century would finally become a century of divisions, the US ruling elites shall be regarded as the sinners of history.
 

Five reasons why US lost COVID-19 epidemic fight: Global Times editorial

As strong as the US is, it's not a country that serves its people heart and soul. That's why the coronavirus is so ravaging in the world's most developed country.  

 

Related
 

Searching for Covid-19’s origin

This morning!  Seriously warn the United States: China’s nuclear weapons are not for viewing!  We are not afraid of things, but you are not qualified! 
Foreign Minister Wang was furious and seriously warned the United States that 2 million troops are ready at any time?

1. At the press conference, a reporter asked Wang Yi, a spokesperson for the outreach ministry: US President Trump wanted to send his own investigator to China to investigate the epidemic-related situation. If China has deliberate responsibility for the spread of the virus, Need to bear the consequences, do you have any comments?

2. Wang Yi’s answer: The virus is the common enemy of all mankind and may appear at any time and anywhere. Like other countries, China has been attacked by the new coronavirus and is the victim, not the perpetrator, nor the virus. "accomplice".

At that time, H1N1 flu was first diagnosed in the United States and broke out in a large area, spreading to 214 countries and regions, resulting in the death of nearly 200,000 people. Has anyone asked the United States to compensate?

In the 1980s, AIDS was first discovered in the United States and quickly spread to the world, causing pain to many people and many families. Has anyone sought compensation from the United States?

The financial turmoil that occurred in the United States in 2008, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, and eventually evolved into a global financial crisis. Does anyone demand compensation from the United States?

The United States must be clear that their enemy is a virus, not China.

3. Wang Yi went on to say: If Trump and Pompeo were not guilty of geriatric madness, then they should be clear that China is not the one that was allowed to be trampled on by the "eight-nation coalition", nor is China even Iraq. Venezuela, not Syria, is not where you want to come, what you want to check.

China is not guilty, but you are not qualified, nor are you qualified! In the early stage of the epidemic, we took the initiative to invite WHO and Chinese experts to conduct a joint inspection in the epidemic area, and put forward preliminary inspection results on the outbreak and spread of new coronavirus.

The investigation request made by Trump is purely unreasonable and is a manifestation of hegemony. They override the United States above international organizations and all humankind, and it seems that only they can be trusted. But is the United States really credible? Iraq and Venezuela are a lesson.

4. We have to warn Trump that if we want to calculate China's abacus, it is better to think about it. Because 1.4 billion people will not agree, China's 2 million army is not a decoration, but China's steel Great Wall. China's Dongfeng missiles are not used to rake, but to fight dog jackals.

China's nuclear submarines are not used to travel on the seabed, but to combat uninvited guests. Chinese nuclear weapons are not used to frighten anyone, but from self-defense. Anyone who wants to taste something, think about it, you tell me.

5. We want to warn Trump that if China wants compensation, it will count from the time when the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded China, until the cases that Wang Yi has just proposed are counted together. You have to compensate the old historical accounts of China and the world.

6. Now China is in a very good position in the world, the first to control the new coronary pneumonia, the first to enter the stage of economic recovery, and now it is to increase horsepower to export anti-epidemic materials to the world, China is catching up with the total economy The time to go beyond the United States is also greatly advanced. This is unacceptable to Trump. The United States has been dragged into the quagmire by Trump. At this time, Trump wants to make China and the world feel better. Harmfulness is indispensable, anti-Trumping indispensability is absolutely indispensable, and wicked people have their own harvest!

I hope that every Chinese can turn this article out so that our China becomes stronger and stronger and support all patriotic groups. 
 
 
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 President Xi addresses UNGA

 

   

🇨🇳 China - President Addresses General Debate, 75th Session

US, China and the indelicate art of insults

'We lied, we cheated, we stole', ‘the Glory of American experiment’ by US Secretary of State/Ex-CIA director Mike Pompeo 


Strong words are being hurled at each other but there is calibration in the cursing.


THERE’S this memorable anecdote in Mario Puzo’s crime classic, The Godfather, where the mafia don from New York sends his henchman to reason with a Hollywood mogul who is standing in the way of his godson getting a film role perfect for him in every way, except that he has alienated the studio big shot who now hates his guts.

Where words fail, more potent nudges are sometimes needed – in this case, a horse’s head placed in the studio chief’s bedroom while he is asleep, blood and reedy tendons included, did the trick. It persuaded the man that the favour requested, and declined, is serious business. And thus he yields, shouting invectives and threats at the actor and his Italian origins, the consigliere who had reached out to him with the initial contact on behalf of his boss, and the mafia.

But not a word against the Godfather, himself. Genius, writes Puzo, has its rewards.

There’s no special genius, and even less reward, in the acrimonious exchanges that are causing a tailspin in ties between the world’s two biggest military powers and economies.

If anything, it bespeaks dangerous brinkmanship as a once-overwhelmingly dominant hegemon confronts a resolute challenger now picking a cue or two from its own playbook on how to throw weight around.

Nevertheless, the curses the movie mogul held back from uttering came to mind as I checked around the region about the goings-on at the Asean Ministerial Meeting and related meetings with dialogue partners hosted earlier this month by Vietnam.

Perhaps the two warring sides were mildly cramped by the fact that the conference did not take place in a single hall but over video link. Even so, while both the United States and China did robustly put forth their positions, each seemed to be taking care to keep the attacks from getting too immoderate.

Indeed, the rare frisson, according to Asian diplomats privy to the talks, came when China’s Vice-Foreign Minister Luo Zhaohui, standing in for Foreign Minister Wang Yi, dropped an acid comment about “drunken elephants in the room”.

Faint light at the end of the dark tunnel of US-China ties? Maybe not. But then again, maybe.

Some cultures, particularly in Asia, teach their young that even insults have to be measured; if you spit up at a person high above you, the mucus falls back on yourself. If you do that to someone far below you, it is a waste of time to descend so low. Insults have to be exchanged between equals. But most important of all, never insult so completely that the door to a reconciliation is closed forever. Perhaps that’s what we are witnessing.

A real estate and casino mogul before he ran for his first elected office, which happened to be the US presidency, the New York-born and raised Donald Trump, whose most trusted counsel is close family, has ordered his administration to pile on his strategic adversary the most intense pressure seen in a halfcentury. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has enthusiastically fallen in line, as have his key deputies, including Max Pottinger. Other arms of US government such as the Pentagon have fallen in line as well.

In July, two aircraft carrier groups led by the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan conducted war games in the South China Sea, joined by subsurface vessels and nuclear-armed bombers. Technology links built up over decades are being torn apart like the wanton act of a child and within the US, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is putting Chinese nationals and Americans of Chinese ethnicity under unprecedented scrutiny.

Trump’s long arm has even snatched Meng Wanzhou, the powerful daughter of the Huawei founder, one of China’s most respected tech tycoons.

Chinese diplomats and media have pushed back, and unfeelingly for a nation where the virus was first identified, sometimes suggesting that the US could learn a lesson or two from Beijing on how to control a pandemic. Also mocked at have been the racial tensions and the rioting that have scarred the US in the wake of the pandemic and the resultant economic hardship.

Nevertheless, through it all, most of the US vitriol has targeted the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), not the Chinese nation.

In a landmark speech in July at the Nixon Presidential Library, Pompeo declared that the “free world must triumph over this new tyranny”. At the Asean forum earlier this month, he underlined US “commitment to speak out in the face of the Chinese Communist Party’s escalating aggression and threats to sovereign nations”.

This week, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs David Stilwell began his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by saying he was there to “discuss the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party to the US and the global order” in three geographical regions, before going on to say that “it is now clear to us, and to more and more countries around the world, that the CCP under general secretary Xi Jinping... seeks to disrupt and reshape the international environment around the narrow self-centred interests and authoritarian values of a single beneficiary, the Chinese Communist Party”.

Just as the US has tried to separate the CCP from the Chinese people, Trump and Xi have been careful to not throw barbs directly at each other.

Indeed, Trump has claimed to have a “tremendous relationship” with Xi and he has described Xi as a “man who truly loves his country” and is “extremely capable”. He has also stressed that the two will be friends “no matter what happens with our dispute on trade”, and he also has spoken of his liking and “great respect” for China. On the other side, Chinese anger seems to be largely directed at Pompeo, rather than his boss.

At a recent panel discussion I moderated for the FutureChina Global Forum, I asked Professor Randall Kroszner, former member of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System and who currently serves on the advisory board of the Paulson Institute, which works to promote US-China ties, whether he saw wiggle room for a patch-up after the election.

“Ultimately, there’s an understanding that major economic and military powers need to have connections, need to be able to talk and work with each other,” Prof Kroszner responded.

“There is a lot of manoeuvring and posturing that’s going on right now, but I don’t think anyone wants to burn any bridges. They want to make sure the bridges are still there, even if there are some blockades now.

“(That said) I don’t see those obstacles being removed right now.”

For now, of course, it does look as though things will get worse before they get better.

In July, the US shifted position on the South China Sea, proclaiming that it held as illegal all of China’s claims outside its territorial waters. This has emboldened some, Vietnam and the Philippines particularly, to be more assertive with China over the South China Sea dispute.

Still, some in Asean suspect a certain fakery in all this, a sense that a lot of the noise coming from the US is mere posturing. There are few illusions about China either.

Indeed, the lull in assertive Chinese behaviour in the South China Sea witnessed in the lead-up to the Asean ministerial meet and forums is generally seen as nothing more than temporary easing of pressure to get a “good meeting”.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein spoke for many when he said the South China Sea issue “must be managed and resolved in a rational manner” and Asean has to “look at all avenues, all approaches, to ensure our region is not complicated further by other powers”.

Indeed, some even think Trump is capable of doing a deal with Beijing the week after election day, should he win.

Already, the latest iteration of the TikTok deal is being called by some analysts as a watered-down version of what Trump originally sought to demand, something that had been on the table months ago, although it is not quite clear if China could live with it.

Likewise, it is not lost that China has held back on announcing its own blacklist of US firms – “unreliable entity list” as it is called, although its intentions were announced more than a year ago.

Beijing is said to be staying its hand to both not exacerbate tensions, as well as to wait for the US election results. While the document explaining the unreliable entity list is 1,500 characters long, the attached clarifications are double in length – suggesting much of this is shadow play.

If a deal needs to be made, the Pompeos and Pottingers can always be switched out and more moderate voices brought in; Trump does not shrink from letting people go. Indeed, given that he is said to harbour ambitions about a 2024 presidential run, it might even help Pompeo’s political career to be made a casualty of a rapprochement with China, so he can distance himself from the deal.

Still, it hardly needs to be said that Trump is capable of busting every code in the book, spoken or unspoken. With the election looming and his own standing in pre-election surveys not looking too promising, he let fly this week at the United Nations, returning to his “China virus” theme, boasting about three US-developed vaccines in Phase III trials, and the unprecedented rearmament of America under his watch. America’s weapons, he declared, “are at an advanced level, like we’ve never had before, like, frankly, we’ve never even thought of having before”.

Judging from Chinese media, Beijing read it for what it was; while made to a global audience, the speech was targeted at the domestic voting public. Nevertheless, it did not go without a response.



An editorial comment in the Global Times on Wednesday reminded Trump that the “hysterical attack on China violated the diplomatic etiquette a top leader is supposed to have”.

In short, never omit to leave that bit of margin for a future reconciliation.
 

by Ravi Velloor, is an associate editor at The Straits Times, a member of the Asia News Network (ANN) which is an alliance of 24 news media entities. The Asian Editors Circle is a series of commentaries by editors and contributors of ANN.

 
Related
 

Trump addresses US voters in UN speech: Global Times editorial

Trump's speech jeopardized the atmosphere of this UN General Assembly, and threw the assembly's theme astray. His hysterical attack on China violated the diplomatic etiquette a top leader is supposed to have. This means Washington elites do not take the UN into consideration and pay no heed to diplomacy.


US fails to act like a major power at UN: Global Times editorial

Both Xi and Trump addressed the General Debate on Tuesday with pre-recorded videos. Xi emphasized unity and cooperation, while Trump mentioned China 12 times, making the country his most outstanding stunt. Judging from such different performances, it is easy to tell which side was more reliable. If the 21st century would finally become a century of divisions, the US ruling elites shall be regarded as the sinners of history.
 

Five reasons why US lost COVID-19 epidemic fight: Global Times editorial

As strong as the US is, it's not a country that serves its people heart and soul. That's why the coronavirus is so ravaging in the world's most developed country.  

 

Related
 

Searching for Covid-19’s origin

This morning!  Seriously warn the United States: China’s nuclear weapons are not for viewing!  We are not afraid of things, but you are not qualified! 
Foreign Minister Wang was furious and seriously warned the United States that 2 million troops are ready at any time?

1. At the press conference, a reporter asked Wang Yi, a spokesperson for the outreach ministry: US President Trump wanted to send his own investigator to China to investigate the epidemic-related situation. If China has deliberate responsibility for the spread of the virus, Need to bear the consequences, do you have any comments?

2. Wang Yi’s answer: The virus is the common enemy of all mankind and may appear at any time and anywhere. Like other countries, China has been attacked by the new coronavirus and is the victim, not the perpetrator, nor the virus. "accomplice".

At that time, H1N1 flu was first diagnosed in the United States and broke out in a large area, spreading to 214 countries and regions, resulting in the death of nearly 200,000 people. Has anyone asked the United States to compensate?

In the 1980s, AIDS was first discovered in the United States and quickly spread to the world, causing pain to many people and many families. Has anyone sought compensation from the United States?

The financial turmoil that occurred in the United States in 2008, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, and eventually evolved into a global financial crisis. Does anyone demand compensation from the United States?

The United States must be clear that their enemy is a virus, not China.

3. Wang Yi went on to say: If Trump and Pompeo were not guilty of geriatric madness, then they should be clear that China is not the one that was allowed to be trampled on by the "eight-nation coalition", nor is China even Iraq. Venezuela, not Syria, is not where you want to come, what you want to check.

China is not guilty, but you are not qualified, nor are you qualified! In the early stage of the epidemic, we took the initiative to invite WHO and Chinese experts to conduct a joint inspection in the epidemic area, and put forward preliminary inspection results on the outbreak and spread of new coronavirus.

The investigation request made by Trump is purely unreasonable and is a manifestation of hegemony. They override the United States above international organizations and all humankind, and it seems that only they can be trusted. But is the United States really credible? Iraq and Venezuela are a lesson.

4. We have to warn Trump that if we want to calculate China's abacus, it is better to think about it. Because 1.4 billion people will not agree, China's 2 million army is not a decoration, but China's steel Great Wall. China's Dongfeng missiles are not used to rake, but to fight dog jackals.

China's nuclear submarines are not used to travel on the seabed, but to combat uninvited guests. Chinese nuclear weapons are not used to frighten anyone, but from self-defense. Anyone who wants to taste something, think about it, you tell me.

5. We want to warn Trump that if China wants compensation, it will count from the time when the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded China, until the cases that Wang Yi has just proposed are counted together. You have to compensate the old historical accounts of China and the world.

6. Now China is in a very good position in the world, the first to control the new coronary pneumonia, the first to enter the stage of economic recovery, and now it is to increase horsepower to export anti-epidemic materials to the world, China is catching up with the total economy The time to go beyond the United States is also greatly advanced. This is unacceptable to Trump. The United States has been dragged into the quagmire by Trump. At this time, Trump wants to make China and the world feel better. Harmfulness is indispensable, anti-Trumping indispensability is absolutely indispensable, and wicked people have their own harvest!

I hope that every Chinese can turn this article out so that our China becomes stronger and stronger and support all patriotic groups. 
 
 
Related posts:
 

王外長震怒,對美嚴肅警告! Wang Yi’s response during a press conference on Trump’s demand !

 

2+2=22 The videos below show a teacher telling a student that he failed because he wrote the incorrect answer – that 2 + 2 equals 4, not 2...
 

https://youtu.be/uR_LfkGwBG8 As readers will recall from the earlier article (above), Japanese and Taiwanese epidemiologists and pharma...
 

https://youtu.be/Y_dU2RCqWs4 FORCED TO SHUT DOWN WHEN VIRUSES LEAKED AUGUST 2019    US SOLDIERS WERE INFECTED 300 HUNDRED CAM
 

 President Xi addresses UNGA

 

   

🇨🇳 China - President Addresses General Debate, 75th Session

Wednesday, 14 August 2019

Singapore growth forecast down to 1%

Unknown future: As Singapore further cut its growth forecast, New Zealand, India and Thailand also cut their interest rates signalling concerns on growth outlook. — AFP

SINGAPORE: Singapore slashed its full-year economic growth forecast as global conditions were seen worsening and data confirmed the slowest growth rate in a decade amid mounting fears of recession in the city-state.

The government cut its forecast range for gross domestic product in Singapore – often seen as a bellwether for global growth because international trade dwarfs its domestic economy – to zero to 1% from its previous 1.5%-2.5% projection.

Singapore’s downgrade adds to concerns globally about the effect of increasing protectionism on exports and production.

The deterioration in the global outlook has pushed central banks to cut interest rates and consider unconventional stimulus to shield their economies.

“GDP growth in many of Singapore’s key final demand markets in the second half of 2019 is expected to slow from, or remain similar to, that recorded in the first half, ” the trade ministry said in a statement to the media yesterday.

The ministry flagged a host of growing economic risks including Hong Kong’s political situation, the Japan-Korea trade dispute, the Sino-US tariff war, slowing growth in China and Brexit.

Final second quarter GDP data yesterday showed a 3.3% on-quarter contraction on a seasonally-adjusted annualised basis. That was slightly smaller than the 3.4% decline seen in the government’s advance estimate but deeper than a 2.9% fall predicted in a Reuters poll and a sharp contrast to the robust 3.8% first quarter expansion, which was driven by brisk construction activity.

Yesterday’s data also confirmed annual GDP expanded 0.1% in April-June from a year earlier, its slowest rate in a decade, and lower than poll expectations of 0.2% and the first quarter’s 1.1%.

Singapore’s benchmark stock index fell 1.2% to a two-month low in early trade, underperforming other bourses in the region.

Singapore has been hit hard by the Sino-US trade war, which has disrupted world supply chains in a blow to business investment and corporate profits.

Also yesterday, Singapore cut its full-year forecast for non-oil domestic exports to a 9% contraction from an 8% fall previously.

That comes after a 26.9% drop in electronics exports in the second quarter year-on-year.

“With trade tensions between the US-China unlikely to abate anytime soon, we expect exports and trade-related services to push the economy into technical recession in Q3, ” said Sian Fenner, lead Asia economist at Oxford Economics.

New Zealand, India and Thailand all cut interest rates last week, signalling major concerns about the outlook for economic growth. Last month, the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the first time since 2008.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in an annual speech last week that the government stood ready to stimulate the economy.

“It feels like the storm is coming if you look at the whole macro economic fundamentals softening, ” said Selena Ling, head of treasury and strategy at OCBC Bank.

“All the downside risks are piling up on one side, ” Ling added, pointing to the myriad of global risks flagged in the trade ministry statement. — Reuters

Read more:

FBM KLCI dives below 1,600 level to near four-year low
FBM KLCI dives below 1,600 level to near four-year low
by Wong Ee Lin



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