US 'Won't Tolerate' China's Ban on Micron Chips, Commerce Secretary Says - Slash...

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• Re:

  Then as of this moment, they're on double secret probation!

• Re:

  Indeed. And they did it with claims of "backdoors!" which still have not been proven in any way. One would expect the US to have some people that could actually find these alleged backdoors if they were there and publish some evidence. Instead, nothing. By now a lot of other people will have looked. Again, nothing.

  I have to admit I am disappointed. I actually had some expectations that I could learn how telco equipment can be backdoored, given that SS7 firewalls are a thing and that there is no need for ope

  • • Re:

      Nonsense. You really do not understand how the IT security community works. It is not that hard to find placed backdoors. It certainly does not require the NSA. By now, if there were any, somebody would have found and published them. Instead, nothing. That is a very, very loud silence to anybody with an actual clue.

• Re:

  Are you kidding me? Hypocrisy is the number one tool in the US diplomatic arsenal!

• • Re:

    USA has been issuing a sh*tload of sanctions against China in the last few years, while at the same time heavily relying on them for a lot of manufactured goods (cheap labor) and resources (offshoring pollution). And now that China is getting stronger and stronger, they impose more and more sanctions/limitations, like those around chip design softwares.

    As the french say it, they want the butter, the butter’s money too, and the milk lady’s ass. Well, that's not how it works, at any level: between

    • • Re:

        Evil? The only "evil" I ever see are those such as yourself constantly pointing at things they don't like and calling them "evil". Because those people are cut from the same cloth as "christian" priests and GOP politicians that rape children and women while making false claims about "evil" drag queens molesting children, or freaking out for years about "them dirty muslims are bringing evil Sharia Law" to the US, ending our Democracy and way of life, yet Evangelical "christians" are working day and night to

• • Re:

    The Europeans are following the US's lead - probably necessary in the case of NATO countries - and the US have never at any time actually come up with any proof. They have had something along the lines of four years to analyse these devices and I think we can assume they would be screaming it from the rooftops if they had discovered anything at all. The original accusations were couched in terms of "they could" rather than "they are" because this was a purely political decision unsupported by any actual e

    • Re:

      What if the Huawei backdoors are actually Cisco backdoors?

    • Re:

      For a start, the USA doesn't need proof. It has enough leverage over the EU that they would go along with US sanctions etc just to stay friends.
      The problem China has with Micron is a supply chain security issue, the sort of thing the USA has been beating its own drum on.

      However, the US might not be screaming from the rooftops about backdoors in Huawei gear because... they might be using exactly the same kind of backdoors in US produced gear. And if it became public knowledge about what to look for, it'd be

  • The USA has been caught multiple times putting spyware etc into equipment
    https://www.theguardian.com/bo... [theguardian.com]
    Hacking world leaders phones
    https://www.thelocal.de/201602... [thelocal.de]
    
    The 96% of us who do not live in the USA know the USA is just as bad as China/Russia

• • Re:

    Looks as if they have made a good start with your comment being moderated "-1 Flamebait".

    Although actually I would have rated it "+1 Interesting"

  • • Re:

      How many major wars the USA has been involved with in the last 40 years and compare that with China...?
      How many overthrows of governments, regime change and other coups d'etat the USA has instigated in its history and compare that with China...?

      Ummm yeah I was starting to think about the pot calling the kettle black, but that would be a gross misrepresentation of the facts.

      • Re:

        The purpose of most of those coups was for business and resource reasons.

        Does it matter if the governments were over thrown by the cia or just bought out with the ccp belt and road loan scam?

• Re:

  Now THAT'S unfair. They have a huge advantage in duck-based cuisine AND sauces! All America has going for it in this fight is BBQ Chicken and roast turkey... and the latter only a couple of times a year. MAYBE we can add honey glazes if you're into that sort of thing, but we're at such a strategic disadvantage here. We're screwed! SCREWED I SAY!
  
  Oh, wait... I was forgetting blackened chicken alfredo and our famous bourbon chicken... we may yet come out on top, thanks to our various international culi

  • Fusion of la Cuisine !

    Oh, oui, monsieur!

    You must form ze strategique alliance of ze cuisine !

    We French can teach you ze amazing recette of ze Coq au vin, our secrette weapon to help you close ze chicken gap and beat ze Chinese in ze poultry race!

    Vive la France, and vive la French cuisine!

  • Re:

    I'm not so sure things are that dire. The proverb only refers to the preparation of geese and neither side has the clear culinary advantage there. They are more likely to use the Peking Duck, which while superior to our Fried Chicken is not available in anywhere near the same numbers. Furthermore, if NATO article 5 is invoked, we may certainly count on France's formidable Canard à l'Orange to help even up the score

• Re:

  "cuts into the profits of the corporations. "

  The continuous hate of US corps making a buck is baffling. People do realize that "profits" are how employees get paid, right? Is class warfare so strong that we must commit corporate suicide just so's some executives become pauperous, just to delight the masses and have-nots?

  If an American company posts a big gain, I'm all like "yay." How do we make the lives of Americans better by being all negative about things like profits?

  • becuase all most none of the profit goes to the mass of people yet all the external costs do,

    • Not only that, the people who these profits go do play hardly nothing in taxes. But when they loose money in a Bank, the US Gov gives it all back to them.

      For us, if we loose money, usually to a Corp., we get nothing but more taxes.

      • Re:

        meant to say pay instead of play, fat finger

    • Re:

      What do you think everyone's 401k is invested in???

  • Re:

    That turns out not to be the case. Profits are defined as what is left over to distribute to shareholders after all costs (such as salaries) are paid.

    • Re:

      Shareholders, like everyone's 401k? Their pension fund? Those shareholders?

  • Re:

    I often wonder how many jobs would be lost in the USA if it wasn't for the constant state of war.

    • Re:

      None. The money wasted on stupid wars could be used for useful things like rebuilding our infrastructure. We haven't had a serious infrastructure plan since before I was born.

  • Re: I fail to see the problem

    First off, you remind me of Fry from Futurama...
    Leela: Why are you cheering, Fry? You're not rich!
    Fry: True, but someday I might be rich. And then people like me better watch their step.

    Next, I know how being baffled feels! I'm the same way listening to my brother tell me that he got COVID and now he's going to have major issues making ends meet. Both he and his wife have full time jobs but both got sick. It's just baffling how they don't have a couple million set aside in the trust fund mommy and d

• Re:

  stupid thing is, the we spent $ on helping restart a minor part of a supply chain, and then are surprised that not enough is being sold.
  What is needed is for ALL parts of a manufacturing line has to be working.

• Re:

  It's not even retaliation or not eye for eye type retaliation.

  Micron can still be sold in China, just not for its infrastructure. Huawei is pretty much banned from the US in all form.

  Micron can still be sold and used all around the world, but not in China for its infrastructure. However US went on a diplomatic campaign to force all other nations to stop doing business with Huawei under the threat of sanctions.

• Re:Pot (Score:4, Informative)

  by test321 ( 8891681 ) on Monday May 29, 2023 @12:39PM (#63559155)

  Neither side can win this one, the best they can hope for is to lose more slowly than their opponent.

  the western economies becoming less reliant on a giant dystopian monster that has potential to become a war rival, is a win. There are temporary issues like some products become more expensive, but this will bring long term benefits. Without even talking about bringing back the manufacturing jobs into the western countries, several locations in the Asia/Pacific areas can pick up the missing production capacity and and that are not ferocious dictatorship like China. Major foundries and electronics makers are located in Malaysia and Indonesia; these countries do not align with the values of the western society but contrary to China they don't appear to be a major threat for world peace or the democratic governance model.

  • Re:

    Ah, so you want countries where you can offshore your pollution, and benefit from poor working conditions, but you don't like when they get big enough that they can put you in harm way. You should have said that first. That's called offshoring slavery.

    • Re:

      Obviously I'm fine with having jobs in the west and keeping our pollution here as well. I selected countries that I know have semiconductor foundries and that are sufficiently democratic for good practices, including in terms of better wages and environmental protection, to prevail in the long term. You seem to base your notion of international politics on who can harm others. I don't. The problem with China is not that it can "harm me", it's that it's a danger for the world, that we (greedy westerners) hav

  • Re:

    Funny that they chose Micron too considering it has manufacturing in the US (Boise and Manassas) and only one manufacturing site in China proper. The problem is that most assembly happens in China still so this cuts them off from a huge amount of final assembly deals.

    • Re:

      Maybe the goal is to force Micron to move production to China.

    • Re:

      It does not cut China out of anything. The Chinese government issued a directive so that Chinese state organizations and state owned companies stop buying anything with Micron products. The directive says nothing about assembling electronics with Micron chips in them for export.

  • The same argument applies to the US though. Europe shouldn't get too close to a country that elects people like Trump, impressions people without charge for decades, regularly violates human rights, doesn't respect privacy and data rights...

    Let's be real for a minute. This has nothing to do with the CCP being monsters or whatever, it's a trade war that Western companies wanted when Huawei and several others made better products than them. Nobody seriously thinks that Cisco network gear is more secure, or that the CCP can access every Hikvison camera over hidden 5G modems.

    There is a legitimate argument for stuff like chip manufacturing, where it's of strategic importance. That's it though.

    • Re:

      Which the EU is entirely aware of, especially when it comes to the US imposing differening philosophies on things like data privacy rights.

      I think, though, the Trump argument cuts both ways. While the US Constitution allows someone to be elected president without even a plurality of voters (and, technically speaking, without *any* public input), it also severely resrtricts what a president is able to do with the office. In fact, it doesn't seem like Trump fully understood the limitations of the office whe

    • Re:

      Do you remember a Canadian company called Nortel? They entered into a partnership with Huawei, the end of the story was that Huawei had access to Nortel's IP and Nortel was dead. Embrace and destroy.
      A lot of the Chinese excesses only seemed to start after this trade war had begun, although maybe the reporting of the same was ramped up at that point. I think we can assume China (Eastasia) has entered a semi-alliance with Russia (Eurasia) against Oceania because Eastasia's plans for Taiwan match what Euras

      • Re:

        If you check the details, Huawei copied some header files that were used for compatibility. Probably should have clean room recreated them, but the end result would have been the same.

      • Re:

        I like how people treat this like a sport, as though "historical team stats" mean anything.
        
        They don't even mean in anything in sport. There, it's just magical thinking.

    • Re:

      No one should get too close to a country that elects (for some idiosyncratic definition of "elects") people like Biden, Trump, Obama, either Bush, Clinton... all the way back. (With the possible exception of JFK).

      As far back as you care to go, they were all rotating sons of bitches. Some rotated faster than others, that's all.

      • Re:

        The UK isn't any better. We had brexit, Boris, Truss...

      • Re:

        They're all SOBs but they're _our_ SOBs!

• Re:

  That was the exact phrase that leapt into my mind as soon as I read the title of the summary.

  What you've said is sensible, and it seems both obvious and non-inflammatory. I'm still trying to figure out why you were down-modded.

  • Re:

    I don't hate China enough for some people's tastes, so they mod me down all the time. Obviously I don't like the CCP, but there's also a lot of crap said about China, and worst of all we are setting ourselves up to fail by whining instead of competing.

• Re:

  Yes, both sides are doing the same thing, but that doesn't *necessarily* make them equivalent. The accusation against Huawei was that it puts backdoors in its products for the Chinese government. Whether or not that's actually true matters. Either side, both, or *neither* could be lying here -- e.g. the US *might* sincerely believe Huawei is doing this, and China *might* know it's not but be in a prove-a-negative situation. Or -- the US might be completely justified in targeting Huawei, although we shouldn

  • Re:

    At the time of writing we have absolute proof that the NSA and GCHQ have backdoors into US products.

    As far as I'm aware, there is no evidence of secret backdoors in Huawei products. The closest anyone has come was the discovery of an admin account in some routers for the Italian market, but that appears to be a one off mistake rather than a systematic undermining of security. Not even as bad as hard coded Cisco accounts and the like.

    I'm not taking sides here, I'm just pointing out the evidence we have and h

    • Re:

      Oh, the US definitely does it, but it has no legal authority to compel a company to put a back door in a product. It can trick them by sneaking a back door into a proposed crypto standard, or it can persuade the company to put one in. The US government is a definitely a threat to US citizen privacy; China would be more of a threat, EU countries probably less.

      While I agree there is no public evidence for the Huawei backdoor, its existence has been treated as credible by multiple parties who woudl have seen

• Re:

  Given what all comes from China these days and how utterly incapable the rest of the world is to replace that at acceptable cost, I would say starting a trade-war with China is pretty stupid.

  • Re:

    That's exactly what's happening right now. Factories have begun to move to Vietnam and India.

    What magical thing does China have that India and Vietnam don't?

    Nothing. It's just a matter of time to get out since the west spent so much effort and time getting in but it will happen.

    • Re:

      China has the only thing that matters: They are ahead.

• Re:

  Hopefully with an end to human rights abuses by China and the US.

• • Re:

    your empires on the slide - after another 30 years of this trade war you will have nothing they want let alone need,

    • Re:

      It's international pump and dump. The US pumped up China, now it's dumping them. Combined with a population crunch (and millions of single males), China is in for a world of hurt. The only question is will China retaliate with a hot war.

      • Re:

        China has no way to conduct a hot war vs the US.

        Their odds of taking Taiwan are slim. Going to the US mainland is an absolute impossibility.

  • Re:

    There's another difference: the USA needs China far more than China needs the USA. Which country has been importing more and more from the other one, because its own impoverished citizens can't afford anything but the cheapest? Which country has been exporting more and more of its critical industries to the other, because labour is cheaper there?

    • Re:

      Indeed. And while China is behind in high-tech, they are not behind in other areas and they can only be delayed in catching up in the high-tech sector by so much. At this time, the only one that can effectively sabotage China is China itself. Voting themselves an emperor will hopefully do that, but that may take a while to become effective.

    • Re:

      Uh... no.

      American companies are already moving factories to other countries such as Vietnam and India. China has no special features that can't be had elsewhere. Once the bulk of manufacturing has moved, China is fucked.

      It's just a matter of time until we start seeing ads asking for donations to feed the poor starving Chinese children. For just the price of a cup of coffee each day you can keep little Caihong fed and educated and she'll send you thank you letters twice a year for you generous help. Thin

      • Re:

        Do you know which other countries are moving their factories to other countries like Vietnam and India? China.

  • Re:

    Against China? Good luck with that.

  • Re:

    'Murica, fuck yeah! Here we come to save the motherfuckin' day yeaaaahhhhh

    Should be the national anthem.

  • Re:

    Someone didn't understand the sarcasm and downvoted this troll.

• Re:

  All true, but stupid and petty got us into this mess. The stupid was outsourcing manufacturing to other countries and the pettiness was the corporate greed that caused the stupid outsourcing of everything.
  
  -'for a few dollars more...'

  • Re:

    People were free to vote with their money. There was a time when TV sets were still manufactured in the US. Others started to be manufactured in China. Guess what, people only bought the ones from China, because they were cheaper, and it gave them the short-term benefit of increased way of life. Except for the people manufacturing the TV sets in the US of course, but that was just a tiny fraction of them.

    Reminds me of this poem [hmd.org.uk].

• Re:

  It should be noted that the US banned Chinese equipment without giving any evidence as to backdoors and the like. One would assume the NSA, for example, would have such evidence if it was actually there. Now China bans US products without providing any evidence and suddenly that is wrong?

  Sounds to me like "Mommy! They are fighting back! Waaaaaaaa!"

  • Re:

    Exactly! "Mommy! They are fighting back! Waaaaaaaa!"
    
    Regardless if anyone has evidence of backdoors, the defacto standard should be: "The backdoor exists, we haven't found it yet!", unless it can be absolutely shown it doesn't.
    
    When ever I work on embedded systems, I always build backdoors into products, because people always lock themselves out, or brick the system through stupidity. I use the same system to engineer the backdoor, that I wrote ~10 years ago, with updates for modern practices. It invol

    • Re:

      Well, I hope your employer is not active in any regulated industry, because doing that can get your company banned as supplier and fined rather heavily.

      Incidentally, unless they get camouflaged as vulnerabilities (and hence _anybody_ can find and use them), backdoors are not that hard to find.

  • Re:

    No evidence is necessary. And if there is evidence they have no reason at all to shoe it to you and many reasons not to.

    Is there evidence? I don't know and you don't either but at least I understand evidence is not necessary. This isn't a high school debate. This is a raw expression of geopolitical power.

    Both countries do what they feel is in their best interest. This whole thing about proof and evidence is naive and childish.

    • Re:

      Just ist just bullshit and marks you as an "useful idiot". If there was evidence, somebody else would have found it by now and would have published it. There is far too much "hacker street-cred" to be gained for that not to have happened.

• It's basic reciprocality

  They did not. Years before this, ever heard of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, Discord, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Dropbox, Medium, Wikipedia, Pinterest....etc?

  China banned them all way before Trump became president.

  We can talk if some of them can get unbanned from the Great Firewall. The world is still *too generous* when it comes to banning Chinese products. A lot more can be done. Huawei, ZTE, TikTok should only be the beginning.

  • Re:

    You're right, I should have scoped my point about the US starting the argument.

• Re:

  Why do you believe either country needs a reason?

  They do it because they feel it is in their best interest. No one needs to prove anything to anyone or convince anyone of anything. This is global power politics not a HS debate club.

  • Re:

    I agree, no one needs a reason, it's just funny the US thinks China needs some great reason.

• Re:

  Because intel and Micron are the only American companies doing advanced design AND manufacturing (in their respective areas) 100% in ye'ole USoA.

  AMD and Nvidia do Advanced Design there, but manufacture abroad.

  Samsung and TSMC do advanced manufacturing in the USoA, but are from abroad.

  The only "National Champions" In semiconductor Design AND Manufacturing (in their respective areas) are Intel and Micron.

  PS: The USoA Govt' did not only sanction Huawei, but also (among many others) YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technol

• Re:

  I am going to guess Micron makes chips that goes into military use and if micron's getting banned, their revenue are dropping like a stone and if they fold.. well who's gonna supply the military with US made chips?

  • Re:

    Zero worries if micron is critical to US military supply chain. Companies like that are simply not allowed to go out of business. They will be offered some big long term contract to keep them going.

    You see the same thing at a larger scale for big ticket items like jet fighters. With only 3 major makers, the contract usually goes to one of the bidders that lost last time if their jet is viable.

• Re:

  true, but US also mandates many classified actions to software and hardware builders, that is why you find NSA keys in windows and why Stuxnet was loaded in the printer firmware that was sent to Iran and why drug cartel leaders use dumb phones.

  why can't that happen also in memory chips or cpu, they also have complex firmware

  China and USA both do the exact same thing, yet both complain about the other one actions.

  For the US gov, i just say:
  For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind

• Re:

  Indeed. Only a blithering idiot would start a trade-war and expect the other side not to retaliate. Also, "tolerate"? This is the law in China, there is nothing to "tolerate". The US fired the first shot, China retaliates. This is how these things go.

  • Re:

    No, we did NOT fire the first shot. China has been stealing manufacturing and Military IP, subsidizing various manufacturing, and then dumping on the west to kill off our companies. They pulled it with REMs, Electronics, LEDs, PV, Wind turbines and are trying again with batteries and EVs, with Aeronautics sitting in the background.
    The problem is that our government has been ran by IDIOTS that have allowed CHina to run rough-shod on the west, but esp. America. Very stupid on our part.

    • Re:

      The US was founded on stealing manufacturing and military IP. Your point?

• Re:

  Hopefully the US will continue moving factories out of China and leave their manufacturing sector in the dust.

  How's that sound?

  We shouldn't be trading with such grotesquely evil people anyway.

• Re:

  Too late, US already lost most of it industrial production
  China already got assets in all over the US, including external debt. They can tank the dollar if they want, they will also lose huge amount of money, but the dollar would take a major hit and cause major problems (that in turn will block china from selling to USA, so also taking a hit)

  It is the same as Russia selling gas to Europe, trying to play with those cards, both take a huge hit back

  • Re:

    They can't tank the dollar. Their economy would crumble to dust long before ours and they're find themselves with a violent uprising of 1.4 billion starving people. The CCP are evil not stupid.

    There's nothing of note China can really do but wait for the inevitable sinking of their economy through their own ineptitude and corruption while we keep moving manufacturing out.

• Re:

  I do. I'm super happy about this. I hope China blocks and kicks out all US companies. That's a huge long term win for the US and China's economy will collapse.