
The New U.S.-China Rivalry: A Technology Race - montrose
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/business/us-china-trade-technology-deals.html
======
Sephr
NYT is portraying this issue as a technology race when it's really just a
surveillance infrastructure conflict of interest.

Qualcomm and Broadcom make closed source basebands, which are used (backdoors)
and abused (zero-day exploitation) for spying via wireless ISPs on behalf of
their respective parent governments.

If Broadcom acquires Qualcomm, it may become easier for some governments to
locate firmware vulnerabilities which can either be fixed to prevent U.S.
surveillance or exploited to expand local surveillance powers.

~~~
chapill
I found this pcmag link more enlightening than the NYT article.

[https://www.pcmag.com/news/359702/us-broadcom-qualcomm-
merge...](https://www.pcmag.com/news/359702/us-broadcom-qualcomm-merger-may-
pose-national-security-risk)

Specifically, the last paragraph,

"Broadcomm added that most of its board of directors and senior management
team is made up of Americans. It also contends that the company's plan to buy
Qualcomm will no longer fall under CFIUS's review when Broadcom finishes
relocating to the US."

It seems CFIUS wants solid assurance that this happens so the US can continue
scooping up all the communications of everyone world wide.

The US government didn't appoint Qualcomm winner of the LTE market with IP
protections just to let them sell it off to a company outside US control.

------
qiqing
There is something rather disingenuous about the way the article is written:
it takes advantage of an inattentive reader who only reads the title and not
the actual article text. Most readers will probably miss some things.

* Broadcom is a Singaporean company, not Chinese.

* The article asserts that Huawei and other Chinese chip manufacturers will indirectly benefit from the proposed merger.

* Cfius, who is looking closely at the Broadcom-Qualcomm proposed deal, looks closely at other investment / merger deals from China for national security reasons.

.... and most readers will at this point incorrectly assume that Broadcom is a
Chinese company, having forgotten what was read in the first 3 paragraphs.

~~~
mlb_hn
I see that as well. There's been an interesting trend over at least the last
several months where NYTimes has been promoting fears about China (No judgment
as to the veracity of those fears).

Definitely something to keep in mind when reading pieces like this.

~~~
qiqing
I've noticed that too. While there are legitimate criticisms of Chinese
surveillance over Chinese social media (just like there are legitimate
criticisms of American surveillance over American social media), I can't help
by worry about something else: that this is how it begins. I worry that people
who look like me will be deemed suspicious and discriminated against.

I worry when the FBI Director claims all Chinese student organizations are
under suspicion because they have evidence that one university student club
accepted donations from an embassy in order to fund a Chinese New Year party.
Can you imagine if a student organization supporting American students
studying abroad was deemed suspicious because the US Embassy bought them a
turkey or two at Thanksgiving?

~~~
darawk
> I've noticed that too. While there are legitimate criticisms of Chinese
> surveillance over Chinese social media (just like there are legitimate
> criticisms of American surveillance over American social media), I can't
> help by worry about something else: that this is how it begins. I worry that
> people who look like me will be deemed suspicious and discriminated against.

Let's not draw a moral equivalence between US surveillance and Chinese
surveillance. Chinese surveillance is explicit, and profoundly more invasive
and pervasive than the US's. It's also explicitly used as a political tool -
to enforce the will of the party, not the state. These are extremely critical
differences that it is irresponsible not to continually and stridently point
out. What China is doing to its citizens is infinitely more frightening than
anything the NSA has ever done.

~~~
qiqing
I'm not drawing a moral equivalence.

As someone who grew up in the US and has experienced racism, I fear where this
campaign could lead. Here, we have an article about a Singaporean company
trying to take over a US company. And the entire narrative is about China.

~~~
abacadabra
You're not going to find any empathy here on HN. Given your experiences you
should already know this. In the long run the only reliable way to avoid
racism in the US is to avoid the US. The fact that you have to worry about
potential racism already shows that you already know that it's an untenable
position associate with US.

------
SubiculumCode
While China has real innovators, particularly in manufacturing and AI tech, if
China continues on its path toward total surveillance of its people, I cannot
see China continue to innovate over the long term. Innovation often entails
replacing the old with new interests and stakeholders. In a total surveillance
state, stakeholders would have motivation and the means to squash innovative
change. So I see the future of homegrown technical innovation in China as
questionable, and bear.

China's history of innovation over the also decades is also a story of
supplementation by pervasive, state-sanctioned corporate espionage and theft
of intellectual property from the rest of the world. If China continues on its
current path, I can see actions by nation-states to boost their defenses
against espionage and IP theft by China.

~~~
dnomad
This is ]conjecture.

In reality the CPC are _technocrats_ in every sense of the word. Many of them
are engineers and they possess an engineer's faith in innovation. The idea of
them squashing innovation is silly. Look at the enormous investments in
electric cars, AI, mobile computing and genetic engineering. Westerners will
deny it until it's way too late but the amount of innovation going on in China
right now is mind blowing.

Which is the point -- the Chinese will more than likely win this technology
"race." Because the West isn't really competing. The days of Western
governments pouring real wealth into research and development is over. What
you have is very few highly innovative firms and a few military contractors
competing against the highly coordinated political-economic-military complex
of China. The outlook does not look good.

I suspect this is why ultimately companies like Apple and Microsoft and even
Tesla are so focused on getting a foothold into China. These guys know where
the future is and they want to be at the table when it happens.

~~~
SubiculumCode
It is hardly baseless. If the CPC has done well to allow innovation, it is
likely because 1)China is enjoying the easy growth of an emerging economy
where outside wealth is willing to pay you to pollute your lands for trinket
manufacturing. 2) The party ALLOWED free thinking at Universities, and 3) the
party acted under rules of meritocracy.

Under the tightening grip of surveillance in China today, and the
centralization of power by the president and his "anti-corruption" campaign
against the party and businessman, I don't see how innovation will persist. If
the president and his party allies get entrenched, then I do not see how the
party can stay a meritocracy, and without that meritocracy, I don't see how
innovation won't get squashed.

Edit: thank you for removing the word baseless.

------
tabeth
Political tangents aside, it will be interesting to see how this race unfolds
as the next recession winds up (which is inevitable, really).

The seemingly limitless amount of capital, technological, human and otherwise
has led to this arms race of sort, but will both countries be able to focus on
this if there's a significant crisis? How much of this stuff is just a bubble?

~~~
vinchuco
Can you give someone clueless about this recession stuff some pointers or
material to mull over? How to estimate timeline and magnitude? Why inevitable?

~~~
atmanthedog
Well, personally, I subscribe to:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk_hypothesis)

------
chapill
If the US blocks a Broadcom/Qualcomm merger, what's to stop ${US_Corp} making
a hostile takeover of Qualcomm instead?

Clearly the two giant governments are battling over control of the closed
source baseband backdoors in all mobile devices.

~~~
asdsa5325
Note that the US can't stop Broadcom from just buying a majority of Qualcomm
shares.

~~~
zeusk
Actually, they can.

Also - by securities law you're required to report and even make a bid for the
business once you cross a certain threshold of ownership.

------
JudasGoat
There is a technology race we have lost due to Chinese government investment.
2018 will be the year China passes the US in 300mm wafer production.
[https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/6608-could-china-
take...](https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/6608-could-china-take-lead-
installed-300mm-capacity-q.html)

------
douglaswlance
Could a technological race between warring tribes of primitive homo sapiens be
responsible for the human intelligence explosion?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
No, it was more likely the diffusion of technology (agriculture, writing, the
wheel, and so on), not the competition between civilization, that led to
humanity’s intelligence explosion.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Do you have evidence for this claim?

------
mtgx
The US used to call out China over its human rights abuses. That seems to have
stopped around the start of Obama's second term. Now the US has gotten to the
point where its president _praises_ China's new _permanent president_ for
being so brave to do that.

My hope is the US' next president will be one that cares deeply about civil
rights and will start calling China out in the future, as its human rights
abuses inevitably increase under a dictator with all-seeing surveillance eyes.

~~~
factsaresacred
> its president praises China's new permanent president for being so brave to
> do that.

I believe that was said in jest during a speech at a charity dinner.

~~~
vatueil
The event was described as a political fundraiser for Republican donors in all
the reports I've seen, not a charity event.[NR, CNN]

The part about having a President for Life in the US was definitely presented
as a joke, though Trump's admiration of "strong" leaders has been a recurring
sentiment.[The Atlantic]

[NR]: [https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/donald-trump-xi-
jinpi...](https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/donald-trump-xi-jinping-joke-
not-funny/)

[CNN]: [https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/03/politics/trump-maralago-
remar...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/03/politics/trump-maralago-
remarks/index.html)

[The Atlantic]:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/554810/](https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/554810/)

------
jbob2000
China has been losing technical talent left right and center. If they want to
compete, they need to be able to attract top talent to their country. There's
a reason why their military and space hardware is Russian or Russian-derived.

There is just no way someone is going to move from LA or New York to Beijing.
Maybe Hong Kong. The differences in living standards is huge, I don't think
you could pay people enough to get them to move.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
HK is not a tech startup place, programmers outside of banking and finance get
paid very poorly compared to Shenzhen. I lived in Beijing for 9 years and
found that, besides the air pollution, everything was definitely workable. I
only left because when my wife and I were expecting a baby. Beijing has gotten
better recently, though still too bad for the baby, while Shenzhen has always
been better and comparable to Shenzhen.

China has plenty of its own talent and has been attracting back those who went
overseas. While I agree that they will need to attract worldwide talent in the
long run to fully compete with the USA, they are not in a bad place ATM.

