The Chinese government plans to spend $150 billion on its chip industry over a span of 10 years. Of the initial $12.7 billion spent by one of the state funds as of 2017, 65 percent went to chip fabs ($8.3 billion) and eight percent to SME and materials ($1 billion). SMIC alone received nearly $6 billion between 2014 and 2018. In 2006, Israel won an order to supply SMIC with equipment for 65-nm process technology fabrication. When the trade war with China started, China was forced to go to Israel to buy Intel chips. It is likely any relationship between Israel and China's SMIC is kept quiet as much as possible. Chips and electronic components ordered by China from Israel nearly doubled in 2018.
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U.S. is in Middle East 'to protect Israel' not for oil, Trump says
SEPTEMBER 25, 2020 | By Philip Weiss, reposted from Mondoweiss, Sept. 12, 2020
Source: Zero Hedge
Trump Kneecaps Chip Giant SMIC Over 'Concerns' US Exports Being Shared With Chinese Military
by Tyler Durden | Saturday September 26, 2020
Investors expect a ruling on ByteDance's request for an injunction against the Trump Administration order banning TikTok by the end of the weekend (a hearing has been scheduled for Sunday), but in the meantime, it appears the White House is already moving on to its next action item in the ongoing economic war against China.
As was previewed a couple of weeks ago, the Trump Administration is moving to cut off Semiconduct Manufacturing International Corporation - or SMIC - China's biggest producer of microchips, with wafer fabrication sites all across the mainland, off from US-made supplies. A letter obtained by the FT dated on Friday orders American companies not to send any more products to SMIC.
The administration argued that the products pose an "unacceptable risk" of being diverted to "military end use," according to a copy of the letter seen by the Financial Times. Just like sanctions on Huawei, the move threatens to cut off China’s biggest chipmaker from crucial US software and chipmaking equipment. Any companies that do want to export to SMIC will need to secure a special license from the Commerce Department.
"It all depends on how the US implements this. In the worst-case scenario, SMIC is completely cut off, which would severely set back China’s ability to produce chips. This would be a tipping point for US-China relations," said Paul Triolo, head of tech policy analysis at consultancy Eurasia Group.
It's clear that the administration's move goes beyond national security, with the goal of knee-capping another Chinese 'national champion'. SMIC, a "national champion" that is crucial to Beijing's aims of achieving chip self-sufficiency, recently oversaw country's biggest domestic IPO in a decade, when it raised $7.6 billion in Shanghai earlier this year.
The administration's sanctions against Huawei have already seriously impacted SMIC. The rules appeared almost explicitly designed to stop SIMC from supplying certain chips to its largest customer, Huawei.
Please go to Zero Hedge to read more.
Trump Kneecaps Chip Giant SMIC Over 'Concerns' US Exports Being Shared With Chinese Military
by Tyler Durden | Saturday September 26, 2020
Investors expect a ruling on ByteDance's request for an injunction against the Trump Administration order banning TikTok by the end of the weekend (a hearing has been scheduled for Sunday), but in the meantime, it appears the White House is already moving on to its next action item in the ongoing economic war against China.
As was previewed a couple of weeks ago, the Trump Administration is moving to cut off Semiconduct Manufacturing International Corporation - or SMIC - China's biggest producer of microchips, with wafer fabrication sites all across the mainland, off from US-made supplies. A letter obtained by the FT dated on Friday orders American companies not to send any more products to SMIC.
The administration argued that the products pose an "unacceptable risk" of being diverted to "military end use," according to a copy of the letter seen by the Financial Times. Just like sanctions on Huawei, the move threatens to cut off China’s biggest chipmaker from crucial US software and chipmaking equipment. Any companies that do want to export to SMIC will need to secure a special license from the Commerce Department.
"It all depends on how the US implements this. In the worst-case scenario, SMIC is completely cut off, which would severely set back China’s ability to produce chips. This would be a tipping point for US-China relations," said Paul Triolo, head of tech policy analysis at consultancy Eurasia Group.
It's clear that the administration's move goes beyond national security, with the goal of knee-capping another Chinese 'national champion'. SMIC, a "national champion" that is crucial to Beijing's aims of achieving chip self-sufficiency, recently oversaw country's biggest domestic IPO in a decade, when it raised $7.6 billion in Shanghai earlier this year.
The administration's sanctions against Huawei have already seriously impacted SMIC. The rules appeared almost explicitly designed to stop SIMC from supplying certain chips to its largest customer, Huawei.
Please go to Zero Hedge to read more.
________
Source: Israel-Palestine News
U.S. is in Middle East 'to protect Israel' not for oil, Trump says
SEPTEMBER 25, 2020 | By Philip Weiss, reposted from Mondoweiss, Sept. 12, 2020
TRUMP SPEAKS IN WINSTON-SALEM, NC, SEPT. 8, 2020. SCREENSHOT FROM NBC NEWS VIDEO.
Four days ago, Donald Trump said the U.S. isn't involved in the Middle East for oil, but because we “want to protect Israel." The comments have gone all but unreported in the mainstream press.
Trump made the comment during a rally in Winston-Salem, N.C. on Sept. 8, when he was bragging about America’s energy independence, which he said Joe Biden would undermine if he gets the White House (minute 47):
I like being energy independent, don't you? I'm sure that most of you noticed when you go to fill up your tank in your car, oftentimes it’s below two dollars. You say how the hell did this happen? Thank you President Trump! Look at your electric bills and everything else– these guys, your electric would go up four, five, six times. The Green New Deal it's called the Green New Nightmare. While I'm president, America will remain the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world. We will remain energy independent. It should be for many many years to come. The fact is, we don't have to be in the Middle East, other than we want to protect Israel. We've been very good to Israel. Other than that, we don't have to be in the Middle East. You know there was a time we needed desperately oil, we don't need that anymore. We have more than they do, isn't that nice? After years of rebuilding other countries, we are finally building our country.The American Conservative's Barbara Boland is the only reporter who seems to have picked up Trump’s remarks. No one else cares, evidently.
Do you remember all the arguments about Why are we engaged in so many conflicts in the Middle East? And why we are going to war in Iraq? And the mainstream default position is that it's because of oil. Even though we lost concessions in Iraq.
These comments by Trump, the disrupter, tie into the long but shadowy pedigree of analysis from policymakers that we invaded Iraq to make Israel safer. Like the former head of the 911 Commission who said that the threat to Israel was the motivation for the war, but that was "the threat that dare not speak its name." Or Colin Powell's comment that we went into Iraq because the Secretary of Defense bought the neoconservative arguments of "the JINSA crowd," referring to the Israel lobby group the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.
Trump touches on a larger realpolitik understanding of the creation of Israel, that it helped foster unrest throughout the region. As the State Department warned that it would do, in the 1940s. But don’t expect anyone in our media to consider such ideas…
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Ed.'s note: Here is a more important question. What do these US generals know or understand about Israel that isn't discussed in the media that may cause them to be compromised? Is there opposition against Israel these generals dare not discuss in public that has caused this confrontation between them and President Trump? Yes, America is finished and it is likely Israel will take over in the not too distant future. Trump has fulfilled his mission. What are these US generals going to do about it? Nothing. They are all compromised because of their relations with lucrative deals with "defense" contractors" (including with Israel firms), private security technology firms and investment firms some of them even invested in China. At this juncture, there isn't anything the US can now do to separate China-Israel relations in technology, trade and infrastructure.
Ed.'s note: Here is a more important question. What do these US generals know or understand about Israel that isn't discussed in the media that may cause them to be compromised? Is there opposition against Israel these generals dare not discuss in public that has caused this confrontation between them and President Trump? Yes, America is finished and it is likely Israel will take over in the not too distant future. Trump has fulfilled his mission. What are these US generals going to do about it? Nothing. They are all compromised because of their relations with lucrative deals with "defense" contractors" (including with Israel firms), private security technology firms and investment firms some of them even invested in China. At this juncture, there isn't anything the US can now do to separate China-Israel relations in technology, trade and infrastructure.
Related news update for 22 September 2020:
More:
Three dead after huge fire at Huawei facility in China
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