On Biden's China Chips Strategy

 One of the more significant political moves which Biden has done, even if it's somewhat under the radar in terms of national news reporting, is the place extensive new restrictions on China's access to advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology. For a primer, see: https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/10/27/biden-s-unprecedented-semiconductor-bet-pub-88270

I've been trying to wrap my head around the motivation for this. After all, the status quo seemed fine from an outsider perspective, and aggravating China seems politically dangerous. It's also the kind of move which would traditionally be done by the more right-wing people in the US political sphere's (despite Trump's essentially "rhetoric only" approach to foreign policy, which was fairly damaging to the US efforts in general). However, I have another theory now, which I'll expound upon; no idea if this is accurate, but it's conceptually interesting.

Currently, a lot of US semiconductors are manufactured in Taiwan, and production had been migrating to China based on costs (and China's government subsidizing those efforts, so that they could steal the technology). The first-order read of Biden policy change is to slow those migration efforts, and perhaps encourage some high-end talent to be moved out of China, which has already happened. However, the longer term play might be larger.

Consider that China has pledged to eventually invade Taiwan, and take its stuff (land, resources, facilities, etc.). Rhetoric-wise, this is about national unity and other nationalistic concerns; realistically, though, it's probably more economically pragmatic, due to the advanced technology and financial resources in the other country. The US has pledged to defend Taiwan, but they do not have a formal treaty, and in-practice they could not significantly impede and invasion. Moreover, China is sacrificing some potential political leverage by staying biased towards Russia in regards to its invasion of Ukraine, presumably because they know they will need to invade Taiwan in a similar manner. This has "shown their hand", so to speak, as they would not miss the opportunity at world leadership if there wasn't a political need to support Russia's actions.

I hypothesize that Biden's move is sending a somewhat different message than just stopping the flow of technology into China. In essence, he's creating a policy that makes it such that if Taiwan is invaded, then US companies can no longer produce chips there, and must move talent and manufacturing abroad. Indeed, this is already happening: Taiwanese companies are already moving production facilities to the US, in pragmatic anticipation of the possibility (see: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/21/business/taiwan-tsmc-arizona-plant-hnk-intl).

What does this mean for geopolitical strategy? Well, it creates a conundrum for China. Economically, the value of Taiwan is in the business and technology, but in the case of an invasion, the former would be largely disrupted (because the financial industry doesn't play well with Communist dictatorship), and now the latter would also be effectively destroyed (based on US policy, and the reactions of the Taiwanese companies). Currently, Taiwan can (and does) export chips to China, and supports a large part of their tech industry. If China invades, they could now lose that, and economically take a big hit.

This puts the Chinese government in a more difficult position: continue with the nationalistic push at potentially significant economic cost, or make a more pragmatic economic decision at the cost of losing some credibility in your nationalistic rhetoric? That won't be an easy call: China is already having some economic issues, and recently some domestic unrest, and causing significant damage to their technology access might be bad for the regime there. In essence, Biden's new policy is leveraging economics to achieve what military cannot, and in that sense it might be brilliant.

Anyway, just my opinion, and I could certainly be wrong.

On Bad Decisions, the Brittney Griner Edition

I don't care about Brittney Griner.

That's somewhat inaccurate, I suppose. In relation to her as a human being, I care about her: I don't want her to be abused, or mistreated, or killed, etc. But in relation to the plethora of stories and attention that her situation continues to receive, I don't care as much, and I certainly don't think any of it warrants news media or Presidential administration copy. If you need to catch up, here's the latest as of today, for reference: https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/34982248/brittney-griner-moves-russian-penal-colony-exact-location-unknown

I don't care about her (beyond as any other person) because she's largely responsible for her current situation. First, she's a criminal: she brought known-illegal stuff into Russia, without respecting their laws. As Americans, we project our views and opinions a lot on other countries, but Russia has their own laws, and if you're going to visit there and you ignore them, you do so at your own peril. Second, while there's a reasonable argument that Russia is trying to use her as a bargaining chip in their tensions with the US (vis-a-vis their invasion of Ukraine), she knew (or should have known) that reality when she chose to travel to Russia. If you choose to put yourself in a known-dangerous situation, you also have to bear some of the responsibility when something bad happens.

Third, just for reference, consider the broader context. Russia is a terrorist state which literally assassinates people their leaders don't like enough to get on their radar, even if those people are totally innocent of any crimes. Griner is being punished for a crime, which she did actually commit, and is also nominally a crime in the US also (lest we forgot), and is serving the "normal" sentence for such. The fact that she is a professional athlete in the US shouldn't really be a factor in how she's treated in a criminal justice system, and it seems like Russia is the country here which is practicing that ideal.

So yeah... I don't care. Moreover, as an ironic side-note, the less people in the US cared, the less power Russia would think this "bargaining chip" had; if the White House wasn't talking about it, it would probably actually increase the chances of a exchange deal or something. Like many, many, many other criminals in the world who are serving time, she made some bad decisions, and now she's paying the price for them. Let's stop writing stories like the situation is something more than that, okay?

An Interesting Parallel, re Dmographics

So I was watching Jon Steward recently, briefly discussing Kanye West's comments about Jewish people in the entertainment industry, and the resulting backlash. It's not the main focus of the podcast, but it was interesting to listen to that segment (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVTXI-G0g4c).

To summarize, Jon was discussing how Kayne has asserted that Jewish people controlled a disproportionately large amount of the entertainment business, and how while people generally objected to the characterization as anti-semetic, there was an undercurrent among some who noted that Jewish people were overly-represented in those positions relative to general population demographics. Jon was discussing (along with two of his writers, one of which is also Jewish) how that put him in a somewhat uncomfortable position, where he felt like more of an outsider who people felt the need to stand up for, and that didn't seem necessarily appropriate.

The conversation touched on the parallel with the BLM movement, and how some black people, even while benefitting from the attention/protests and feeling like the sentiment may have been well overdue, might also be uncomfortable with the idea that they needed or deserved special protection or sympathy in that context. It was also interesting for Jon, in the sense that there is a demographic disparity, even though he doesn't feel like he or his organizations are responsible for propagating that disparity/advantage. Rather, as his writer alluded to, the disparity somewhat self-propagates, as people of the demographics which are overly represented feel more inclined to gravitate toward that industry, and as a result the demographics in the industry don't normalize to the population norm.

I was personally struck by the parallel to racial disparities in the country in general, and how in that sense we have negative labels like "critical race theory" to describe the implicit harm in such. After all, it's the exact same situation: you have a demographic disparity which is somewhat self-propagating, even if the overwhelming majority of participants are not purposefully propagating it. Moreover, in both cases, it's likely that a small percentage of people are purposefully propagating it, but both groups feel it's manifestly unfair to paint the entire demographic group with that same brush, and that in general, there is equal opportunity for all demographics within the industries.

Yet, it's interesting to me that the societal sentiment for these two different areas seems vastly different, and I think that was bothering Jon a little as well. To wit, if one suggests that Jewish people are over-represented in an industry (entertainment, financial, etc.), even if the sentiment is statistically accurate, you would likely be labeled as racist, anti-semetic, a bigot, etc., and shunned within society. On the other hand, suggesting the exact same thing with respect to (for example) white males in executive business positions would be met with approval, respect, and societal programs designed to directly employ race and gender discrimination to force the demographics toward a preferred alternative distribution (either representative of average societal demographics, or in some cases, explicit other biases, as long as they are not the "bad guys" race/gender; see [demographic]-owned business movements, or [demographic]-specific college scholarships, for example). The disparity in sentiment with respect to the same fundamental issue/situation is discordant and disconcerting, and when you're in the target demographic, it's also uncomfortable.

Now, I don't know if that disparity in opinion is based on whether or not you are in the target demographic, for example (ie: you feel the situation is fine as long as you're advantaged, and wrong if you are not). It might also be based on historical treatment. A more disturbing thought, though, is that it might also be based on media manipulation and subtle propaganda. Sometimes it can be hard to validate that you have an objective viewpoint on an issue, especially when confronted with a direct parallel where you hold a vastly different opinion. I think that one of the most fascinating things about Jon's segment, to me, was observing him coming close to being confronted with that situation, and observing how uncomfortable the participants were with confronting (and potentially needing to reconcile) that reality.

Personally, as an aside, I don't think discrimination is good, even if it's "well intentioned". I think the appropriate way to address demographic disparities in industries is to look at specific situations, and try to ensure that opportunity is equal. I have no issue if an org is hiring close to the demographics of applicants, even if those applicant demographics are not representative of the population in general: that makes sense, given types of jobs, industries, and applicant pools. The right place to address that problem is in the upstream opportunities, not by heavy-handed discrimination to manipulate the demographics downstream. But that's my opinion, and reasonable minds do vary on the topic.

Anyway, I found the discussion and resulting analysis interesting, fwiw.