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Tag Archives: Digitimes

Those Stubborn Facts: About Those Low-Tech Chinese….

16 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Those Stubborn Facts

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China, Digitimes, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, semiconductors, technology, Those Stubbprn Facts

Number of front-end semiconductor manufacturing facilities forecast to begin operating worldwide 2017-2020: 62

Number forecast to begin operations in China: 26 (c. 42%)

Number forecast to begin operations in “the Americas”: 10 (c. 16%)

(Source: “China to join top-3 semiconductor equipment spenders for first time, says SEMI,” by Jessie Shen, Digitimes, December 14, 2016, http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20161214PR200.html)

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Trump’s Globalization Promises are Already Producing Victories

01 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Uncategorized

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Canada, China, Digitimes, H1B visas, Immigration, India, Infosys, Mexico, NAFTA, Reuters, Taiwan, Trade, Trade Deficits, trade surpluses, trade wars, Trump, {What's Left of) Our Economy

America’s political and media establishments keep warning of the disastrous consequences of President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to conduct international economic policy by in effect telling U.S. competitor countries and offshoring multinational companies to “Jump.” And rather than responding indignantly by promising to resist or retaliate and touch off a series of international trade wars and other conflicts, businesses in these countries keep responding by in effect asking “How high?”

As a result, they keep adding to the already copious body of evidence indicating that the United States boasts more than enough leverage (thanks to the matchless power of its market) to achieve better terms of trade unilaterally. Here are two of the latest examples.

Yesterday, the reliable Taiwanese technology publication Digitimes reported that “US-based high-tech enterprises are expected to reduce their reliance on data centers abroad and add ones in the US.” In addition, the Digitimes piece quoted a Taiwanese tech magnate speculating – reasonably – that tech companies (like his) that have already built significant manufacturing capacity in the United States will have advantages over more foreign-centric competitors – who will “have to evaluate the feasibility of shifting factories from Mexico or other areas to the US….”

Meanwhile, on Sunday, Reuters quoted the COO of the Indian tech services giant Infosys as stating that because they expect Mr. Trump to curb significantly the visa programs that enable American tech companies to replace U.S. workers with low-paid imported Indian counterparts, companies such as his will “speed up acquisitions in the United States and recruit more heavily from college campuses there.”

Specifically, according to this Indian executive, “We have to accelerate hiring of locals if they are available, and start recruiting freshers from universities [in the United States].”

Previously, it should be noted, both Canada and Mexico announced in the wake of the Trump victory that they would indeed be willing to renegotiate or “discuss” NAFTA.

China may still apparently believe it can bluff Mr. Trump. But good luck to Beijing and its still export-heavy economic growth strategy if it thinks it can find foreign markets to substitute for America’s, with which it ran a $367 billion goods trade surplus last year. Good luck also to China’s efforts to maintain political stability if, as likely, declaring a trade war on such a crucial foreign customer raises unemployment.

America’s economic competitors are fully aware that its enormous trade surpluses have fueled much of their own, and global, growth for decades. The biggest change on this front represented by Trump’s election is that now a U.S. president clearly understands – and has been publicly touting – this indisputable reality as well.  In otherwise, for the first time in decades, America is led by someone well versed in “the art of the deal.”   

Following Up: How Intel May Wind Up Inside China’s Military

06 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Following Up

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China, cyber-security, Digitimes, Following Up, hacking, Intel, multinational corporations, national security, Obama, Office of Personnel Management, South China Sea, technology transfer, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal

China keeps challenging American security interests, notably by staging damaging cyber attacks on key U.S. strategic and commercial targets, and by asserting territorial claims in Asian waters that could threaten global shipping and air traffic. And evidence keeps pouring in of U.S. technology companies showering China with valuable capital and defense-related know-how – and of a decided “What, me worry?” attitude taken by the Obama administration.

Last week, a post of mine summarized two recent New York Times articles reporting the beginnings of some concerns in the national security community about these dangerous corporate activities, along with a Wall Street Journal piece that summarized some especially troubling recent tie-ups involving entities part of or clearly controlled by the Chinese government.

This week, the Taiwanese publication Digitimes shed major new light on the American tech sector’s role in beefing up China’s capabilities in a piece focusing on Intel’s operations. According to Digitimes, by the end of this year, the world’s biggest semiconductor company will have committed nearly $1.80 billion to helping Chinese companies develop advanced new products and services. Just as alarming as the scale of this investment are some of the specific recipients.

Digitimes correspondents Monica Chen and Joseph Tsai report that the company now owns part of a Hong Kong company that makes unmanned aerial vehicles, and parts of firms in China proper involved in smart devices, robotics, cloud computing services, artificial intelligence, machine vision, three-dimensional modeling, virtual reality technologies, and advanced optics.

Every single one of these investments could easily find its way into Chinese weapons – which could easily wind up using them against the American military. But although tensions in the South China Sea may be rising, and the files of tens of millions of federal employees may have been hacked earlier this year, don’t tell any of Intel’s top executives or anyone making China policy for President Obama. For them, it’s clearly business as usual with Beijing.

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The Snide World of Sports

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  • Golden Oldies
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  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
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Guest Posts

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

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Terence P. Stewart

Protecting U.S. Workers

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Upon Closer inspection

Keep America At Work

Sober Look

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

Credit Writedowns

Finance, Economics and Markets

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So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

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Michael Pettis' CHINA FINANCIAL MARKETS

New Economic Populist

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

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So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

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