East Asia chipmakers see high-tech decoupling with China as inevitable

2 comments

1. 20 November 2022.

   Excerpt:

   >BANGKOK – Major players in the semiconductor supply chain in East Asia appear to be seeing it as inevitable for them to decouple with China in advanced industries involving sensitive technology, given concerns about the rapid pace of Beijing’s military modernization.

   >The United States is taking the lead in building a “Chip 4” alliance with Taiwan, South Korea and Japan for increased economic security over a possible global chip crunch in the event of a contingency between Taiwan and China.

   >Japan — once the front-runner in the global semiconductor industry but now trailing leading chip producers like Taiwan and South Korea — eyes manufacturing and selling 2-nanometer generation chips at Rapidus, a new consortium involving Toyota, Sony and six other leading companies.

   >The issue of supply chain resiliency was addressed during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that ended Saturday in Bangkok, after chip shortages exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hit automobile and other industries hard.

   > 

   >Such efforts have been underway through the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, a U.S.-led initiative that seeks to build resilient supply chains in the Indo-Pacific.

   >The 14-member IPEF, also involving Japan, Australia, South Korea and India — but not China — will start formal negotiations in December.

   > 

   >Amid the cross-strait tensions, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen sent Morris Chang, founder of leading chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to the two-day APEC summit in the Thai capital.

   >In a meeting on the fringes of the summit, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chang underscored the importance of ensuring peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait.

   Takaki Tominaga for Kyodo, via *The Japan Times*.

2. we were *promised* that this war would play out with giant robots and intelligent computer viruses. HEY 1980s I WANT MY MONEY BACK