China news roundup / Nachrichten 2024-02-12

3 months ago

Xi Jinping's never-ending hunt for corruption in the Communist Party

"because the anti-corruption drive has been used to remove anyone with even the slightest hint of a tendency to divert from his way of doing things, Mr Xi is sometimes characterised as an out-of-control Stalin-like figure purging left, right and centre without good cause.
But there are those who do not see it that way."

--- Well, there are always morons who believe that emperor Xi is genuinely interested in rooting out corruption. He is not, because otherwise he would have to start with his own family.

"Under Chairman Mao, the philosophy was that corruption could be controlled by fostering a love of the Party.
Then, during the Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin eras, the idea took hold that, if you gave people a better living, they'd have less motivation to act corruptly.
By the time Hu Jintao was in change, most Chinese people had a much better life but there were those who wanted more and were prepared to use unscrupulous means to get it, again boosting fraud on a widespread scale.
Now it feels like Chairman Xi has gone all the way back to Mao's way of doing things, putting a huge emphasis on Party loyalty to fix the problem."

--- Again this nonsense: as if the leaders were actually interested in fighting corruption. It's endemic, pretty much everyone in a position of power is corrupt. Everyone who rises to the top is corrupt. Corruption is part of the system.

"Alfred Wu from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy says corruption in the rocket force would have hit Mr Xi hard."

--- Bullshit. Emperor Xi himself is also part of the system. He grew up with corruption, his family got rich from corruption, he knows that corruption is everywhere in the CCP. The only thing that might have hit him hard was the realisation that some officers might go so far as to actually sabotage weapons in order to fill their pockets.

""Quite simply, if you spend a decade waging a 'life and death' battle with tigers and - 10 years into the hunt - you are bagging as many as you bagged when you started hunting, it strongly suggests you are not hunting them to extinction and might not have even significantly reduced their numbers.""

--- Yep.

China may be making more advanced chips despite U.S. sanctions — but it still faces big problems

"Last year, U.S.-sanctioned Chinese tech giant Huawei launched the Mate 60, a smartphone with 5G connectivity and a chip, manufactured by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Co., using a 7 nanometer process.
The 7 nanometer process is seen as highly advanced in the world of semiconductors, even though it isn’t the latest technology.
It was a big deal at the time. But last week, the Financial Times reported that SMIC is setting up new production lines to make 5 nanometer chips for Huawei. That would signal even further advancement for China’s biggest chipmaker."

--- Some media made it out to be a big deal, but it wasn't. They had produced 7nm chips before. But they are doing it with old machines & processes which make the production costly & unreliable:

"Using older equipment to make more advanced chips poses two major challenges.
The first is that it’s more expensive to produce the semiconductors than if more advanced tools and machinery were used. The second is an issue around yield — the number of usable chips that are produced and can be sold to customers. With older equipment, the yield is also lower."

--- The yield will be even lower when trying to produce 5nm chips. Not much to worry about.

China wants us to buy its electric cars. Should you hit the road in one?

"increased competition will lead to more people going electric on the roads. “And that has to be seen as a good thing"

--- The whole article ignores one major issue: data security. These EV's generate a lot of data which will probably be sent back to China. Just like with Chinese computers, smartphones or software: Don't buy it! Unless you don't care about where your data ends up.