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US-China Relations - 46. page

SMIC Stockpiling Supplies Far More Than One Year’s Needs

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is the Chinese partially state-owned publicly-listed semiconductor foundry company. The U.S. Department of Commerce has placed an export restriction on its suppliers. It is scaling up its procurement from upstream suppliers in the United States, Europe, and Japan, with a size exceeding a full-year’s demand for 2020. The procurement items include etching, lithography and wafer cleaning equipment. The purchase of consumables used to maintain the operation of the equipment is also more than one year’s need. SMIC is even cooperating with other Chinese chip manufacturers to establish a shared reserve of such parts, and has established a central warehouse to store these products.

A source from a U.S. chip equipment manufacturer said that SMIC is eager to stock up on equipment. The company ordered more equipment than needed for its current expansion plan. At the end of last year, ASML (ASML.US), Europe’s largest chip manufacturing equipment manufacturer, shipped an advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) chip production tool to SMIC. However, the transaction has been put off.

SMIC relies heavily on foreign semiconductor equipment suppliers, including U.S. based Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA, Taradyne, ASML in the Netherlands and Tokyo in Japan.

Source: Sina.com, October 4, 2020
https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/2020-10-04/doc-iivhvpwz0355862.shtml

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology US-China Relations

People’s Daily: U.S. Presidential Debate Should Not Discuss China

Hours before the September 29, 2020, presidential debate, People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), published a commentary titled, “The U.S. Election Should not Manipulate the ‘China issue’ as in a Spectacle.”

 

The author of the commentary was Zhongsheng, a homophonic abbreviation of the “Voice of China” which is generally viewed as representing the opinion of the CCP leadership on international issues.

 

The commentary stated, “It must be emphasized that the U.S. election is an internal affair of the United States. China is not interested in it and has never interfered with it. Distractions and shifting conflicts cannot resolve the problems that the United States faces. The biggest ‘enemy’ of the United States is itself.”

 

The commentary further stated, “As an independent country, China has the right to safeguard its sovereignty, security, and development interests. It will not sacrifice its principles to cooperate with the U.S. election game. Some U.S. politicians should immediately stop playing tricks that drag China into American domestic politics.”

 

Source: People’s Daily, September 29, 2020

http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2020-09/29/nw.D110000renmrb_20200929_2-03.htm

Briefings | | |   Government/Politics US-China Relations

LTN: U.S. Sanctions China’s Chip Maker SMIC

Major Taiwanese news network Liberty Times Network (LTN) recently reported that, according to an official document that the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued, the U.S. government has decided to apply export controls on goods sold to SMIC based on the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR) Section 744.21. The restriction is based on the fact that SMIC products are ultimately used for military purposes. The U.S. Department of Commerce has informed U.S. export companies about this decision. The document listed SMIC and its branches as well as directly related companies inside and outside of China. SMIC is China’s largest chip maker and Huawei’s only hope for a domestic supply of chips. However, SMIC depends heavily on U.S. technology for manufacturing equipment and software. Also, SMIC technology is generations behind leading chip-making vendors like TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company). This new U.S. sanction will place huge pressure on Huawei as well as the entire Chinese chip-making industry.

Source: LTN, September 26, 2020
https://ec.ltn.com.tw/article/breakingnews/3304204

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology US-China Relations

Chinese Netizens Challenge China’s Spokesperson’s Comments on US COVID-19 Death Count

On September 25, Hua Chunying, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, once again tweeted and criticized the U.S. In the tweet, Hua wrote “200,000. This is not cold statistics but real lives. Without the right to survival, #HumanRights is only an illusion and nonsense.” At the same time, she attached a picture of a poster from the #COVIDMemorialProject with the following words, “In memory of the 200,000+ Americans who have needlessly lost their lives to COVID-19.”

After Hua’s remarks were posted on Sina Weibo, many people criticized them and made sarcastic remarks. By September 27, all the negative comments had been deleted. Below is the translation of some of those comments that were in the screenshot:

“Not sure how many deaths you (the CCP) have concealed! Have Americans been denied their human rights? Remember those people from Hubei (who died). Their names were not even reported.”

“You only care about fighting with foreign countries and don’t even care about the massive flooding in China!”

“Those who died in Wuhan do not mean anything! I prefer human rights rather than the right to survive. I own the right to survive and it has nothing to do with others.”

“The pigs in a pigpen are limited in their rights to survive. Do they have human rights?”

“The U.S. has compared human rights and freedom in the U.S. with what is going on in China (in the CCP), and China (the CCP) is now comparing its death toll with the death toll in the United States. China has taken the comparison and called its lower death toll a so-called victory. The CCP uses it as evidence that the Chinese people enjoy better human rights. Thus they deluded themselves that they have won a mental victory.”

“Auntie Hua, you are an Idiot. You will become a schizophrenic sooner or later.”

Comments were also left on twitter:

AbhiSpeaksStrait: “They have died because of the China Vi-Rus.”

Phantom： “What’s the real Chinese number?”

Jeri Carroll: “These numbers are not accurate. Most were in nursing homes. Most died from other medical conditions and it was then listed as COVID. It was fraud to the extreme in order to get federal money.”

Source:
1. Epoch Times, September 27, 2020
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/20/9/27/n12433654.htm
2. Twitter

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

China’s C919 Aircraft Repeatedly Delayed amid Doubts about U.S. Sanctions

The Comac C919, which aerospace manufacturer Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) developed is China’s first domestically-made large passenger aircraft. It now has 815 orders from 28 customers. As the delivery date of the aircraft has been repeatedly delayed, doubts have emerged as to whether China’s aircraft industry will come under U.S. sanctions, following in the footsteps of Huawei.

Aiming to compete against the Airbus A320neo and the Boeing 737MAX, the C919 was originally scheduled to roll out its first aircraft by the end of 2015. However, it did not make its maiden flight until May 2017.

Voice of America quoted an internal document from COMAC that the company’s goal was to produce 150 C919’s annually after 2019, but did not provide a detailed schedule. Its first customer, China Eastern Airlines, is scheduled to receive the first C919 in 2021.

Shukor Yusof, founder of the aviation consulting firm Endau Analytics, has reservations about whether COMAC can deliver on time. He believes that although the aircraft is almost completed, it may not deliver until 2022 because China depends greatly on third-party suppliers from Europe and the United States. The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic is another factor.

Although China’s state media claimed that the C919 has achieved a localization rate of nearly 60 percent, the aircraft relies, to a large extent, on Western technology. Its propeller systems, flight control system, fuel system, power supply system and landing gear either use foreign products directly or come from joint ventures with foreign companies. China is mainly responsible for the design of the fuselage, wings, tail and interior.

Scott Kennedy, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), considers that China’s dependency on the West for China’s aircraft parts and assembly is far greater than Huawei’s dependence. Due to China’s strategic path in recent years and the tension between the U.S. and China, it is very likely that the U.S. will sanction China’s aviation industry in the future.

Source: Central News Agency, September 22, 2020
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202009220343.aspx

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

CCP Continues Attacking Miles Yu

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) keeps attacking Miles Yu, a chief China policy adviser to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Miles Yu also addressed a panel, saying the Hong Kong experiment of one-country, two systems is a “bankrupt idea.” After having the high school that Yu attended in China chisel his name off the honor stone tablet, the CCP recently arranged a group of people of his genealogy to take his name out of their genealogical chart.

An online video posted last month showed a group of seniors in the Yu genealogy in Anhui Province. China held a meeting to denounce Miles Yu, though he does not have a direct relative living there. The meeting room hung up a banner that said, “Angrily condemn traitor Miles Yu, remove him from the genealogical chart, and drive him out of the genealogical chart.” The group announced six “crimes” that Yu had committed but the video didn’t show them.

The traditional Chinese culture emphasized a person’s heritage and genealogy. Taking a person out of the genealogical chart used to be a great humiliation for that person. However, after the CCP took control of China, it destroyed the traditional culture, so the genealogical charts do not mean much to the Chinese people nowadays. It is somehow bizarre for the CCP to use the genealogical chart to humiliate Miles Yu.

On September 19, Miles responded to this incident on Twitter:

“Taking my name off a genealogical chart （族谱？）that I have never heard of, and never cared about, seems bizarre. The farce crumbles under the weight of its absurdity.”

Sources:
1. Chinascope, July 31, 2020

Pompeo’s Advisor’s Name Removed from Honor Stone in China


2. Radio France International, September 14, 2020
https://www.rfi.fr/tw/中國/20200914-蓬佩奧智囊余茂春被逐出族譜
3. Radio France International, September 19, 2020
https://www.rfi.fr/cn/政治/20200919-被斥-漢奸-逐出族譜-余茂春-鬧劇在其荒謬的重壓下瓦解
4. Twitter, Miles Yu’s account, September 19, 2020

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

SMIC’s Claim of Having No Military Tie Is Questionable

Taiwanese news site NewTalk recently reported that U.S. Pentagon officials advised that the Trump administration is considering blacklisting Chinese domestic chip maker SMIC due to its ties to the Chinese military. This could cause major damage to the Chinese chip-making industry, since SMIC is China’s largest and the most advanced chip manufacturer. It is also Huawei’s only hope for low-end chip supply. SMIC has issued announcements claiming it has no relationship with the Chinese military. However, according to Mainland media reports, SMIC was the sole manufacturer for the KD5660 Level-A network exchange chip designed by a company named ArmyFly, which is headquartered in Beijing and is dedicated to serving the Chinese military with focuses on army information network and equipment innovation. The KD560 chip even won the highest award issued by the Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission. ArmyFly’s customers are all military branches and SMIC, as its award-winning chip supplier, now declares it has nothing to do with ArmyFly.

Source: NewTalk, September 10, 2020
https://newtalk.tw/news/view/2020-09-10/463575

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology US-China Relations