Comments - The West's Technological Edge in Geopolitical Competition - PakAlumni Worldwide: The Global Social Network 2024-03-28T13:13:49Zhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profiles/comment/feed?attachedTo=1119293%3ABlogPost%3A407279&xn_auth=noArnaud Bertrand@RnaudBertrand…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-12-03:1119293:Comment:4281832023-12-03T18:29:06.090ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p>Arnaud Bertrand<br></br>@RnaudBertrand<br></br>Incredible, Gina Raimondo implores US industry to respect her sanctions because: "America leads the world in AI… America leads the world in advanced semiconductor design. That’s because of our private sector. No way are we going to let [China] catch up."…<br></br></p>
<p>Arnaud Bertrand<br/>@RnaudBertrand<br/>Incredible, Gina Raimondo implores US industry to respect her sanctions because: "America leads the world in AI… America leads the world in advanced semiconductor design. That’s because of our private sector. No way are we going to let [China] catch up."<br/><a href="https://scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3243657/us-commerce-chief-warns-against-china-threat" target="_blank">https://scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3243657/us-commerce-chief-warns-against-china-threat</a><br/><br/>This is an incredible admission because the Biden administration's messaging - or shall I say propaganda - on their semiconductors sanctions has so far always been that it isn't to gain or maintain a competitive advantage over China, but solely to prevent China's military from accessing to certain technologies. See for instance what Janet Yellen said on exactly this: "[the sanctions are] tailored toward the specific national security objective of preventing the advancement of highly sensitive technologies that are critical to the next generation of military innovation and [are] not designed for us to gain a competitive economic advantage over any other country." (Src: <a href="https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/06/china-relationship-good-american-economy/" target="_blank">https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/06/china-relationship-good-american-economy/</a> )<br/><br/>Our Anthony Blinken: "One of the important things for me to do on this trip [to China] was to disabuse our Chinese hosts of the notion that we are seeking to economically contain them... However, what is clearly in our interest is making sure that certain specific technologies that China may be using to, for example: advance its very opaque nuclear weapons program, to build hypersonic missiles, to use technology that may have repressive purposes – it’s not in our interest to provide that technology to China. And I also made that very clear. So, the actions that we’re taking, that we’ve already taken, and as necessary that we’ll continue to take are narrowly focused, carefully tailored to advance and protect our national security. And I think that’s a very important distinction." (src: <a href="https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/secretary-of-state-antony-j-blinkens-press-availability/" target="_blank">https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/secretary-of-state-antony-j-blinkens-press-availability/</a> )<br/><br/>Pretty much everyone knew this was 100% bullshit and all done for the purpose of America maintaining a competitive advantage in the technologies of the future, like AI. But now we have the Secretary of Commerce, who implemented these sanctions, say exactly that.<br/><br/><a href="https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1731126664661459367?s=20" target="_blank">https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1731126664661459367?s=20</a></p>
<p class="comment-timestamp"></p> A new Huawei phone has defeat…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-09-05:1119293:Comment:4267562023-09-05T23:43:36.865ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p><span>A new Huawei phone has defeated US chip sanctions against China</span><br></br><br></br><br></br><span><a href="https://qz.com/a-new-huawei-phone-has-defeated-us-chip-sanctions-again-1850803360" target="_blank">https://qz.com/a-new-huawei-phone-has-defeated-us-chip-sanctions-again-1850803360</a></span><br></br><br></br><span>The new Kirin 9000s chip in Huawei’s latest phone uses an advanced 7-nanometer processor fabricated in China by the country’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International…</span></p>
<p><span>A new Huawei phone has defeated US chip sanctions against China</span><br/><br/><br/><span><a href="https://qz.com/a-new-huawei-phone-has-defeated-us-chip-sanctions-again-1850803360" target="_blank">https://qz.com/a-new-huawei-phone-has-defeated-us-chip-sanctions-again-1850803360</a></span><br/><br/><span>The new Kirin 9000s chip in Huawei’s latest phone uses an advanced 7-nanometer processor fabricated in China by the country’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), according to a teardown of the phone that TechInsights conducted for Bloomberg.</span><br/><br/><span>Huawei’s latest smartphone, the Mate 60 Pro, offers proof that China’s homegrown semiconductor industry is advancing despite the US ban on chips and chipmaking technology.</span><br/><br/><br/><span>The new Kirin 9000s chip in Huawei’s latest phone uses an advanced 7-nanometer processor fabricated in China by the country’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), according to a teardown of the phone that TechInsightsconducted for Bloomberg</span><br/><br/><span>A brief recent timeline of US chip sanctions against China</span><br/><span>August 2022: The US Congress passes the CHIPS and Science Act, a law that approves subsidies and tax breaks to help jumpstart the production of advanced semiconductors on American soil.</span><br/><br/><br/><br/><span>September 2022: The Biden administration bans federally funded US tech firms from building advanced facilities in China for a decade.</span><br/><br/><span>October 2022: The US commerce department bars companies from supplying advanced chips and chipmaking equipment to China, calling it an effort to curb China’s ability to produce cutting-edge chips for weapons and other defense technology, rather than a bid to cripple the country’s consumer electronics industry.</span><br/><br/><br/><br/><span>November 2022: The US bans the approval of communications equipment from Chinese companies like Huawei Technologies and ZTE, claiming that they pose “an unacceptable risk” to the country’s national security.</span><br/><br/><span>May 2023: Beijing bans its “operators of critical information infrastructure” from doing business with Micron Tech, an Idaho-based chipmaker.</span><br/><br/><br/><br/><span>“In the AI garden, the seeds are the AI software frameworks—which China already has access to. The plants in the garden are the AI models in use, which again are already available to Chinese AI companies. Nvidia provides the best shovels and pruning shears to tend the garden, but not the only means to tend it. So it doesn’t make sense to try to build a high wall around it...[T]o over-regulate these chips creates the risk that the US could fumble away its technology leadership. Would you rather have Chinese AI customers continue to fuel Nvidia’s growth and success? Or would you rather they spend their yuan to fuel the growth and success of Chinese suppliers?”</span><br/><br/><span>—Patrick Moorhead, a tech analyst, writing in Forbes in July 2023</span><br/><br/><span>One big number: China’s hoard of Nvidia chips</span><br/><span>$5 billion: The value of orders that China’s tech giants have placed with Nvidia for its A800 and A100 chips, to be delivered this year, according to an August report by the Financial Times. The biggest internet giants—Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent, and Alibaba—have placed orders totalling $1 billion to buy around 100,000 A800 processors. Given that the US is mulling new export controls, Chinese companies are rushing to hoard the best chips on the market to train their AI models and run their data centers.</span></p> The future of war: A special…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-07-09:1119293:Comment:4253132023-07-09T14:30:18.215ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p>The future of war: A special report<br></br><br></br><br></br><a href="https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2023-07-08" target="_blank">https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2023-07-08</a><br></br><br></br><br></br>The third lesson—one that also applied for much of the 20th century—is that the boundary of a big war is wide and indistinct. The West’s conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq were fought by small professional armies and imposed a light burden on civilians at home (but often lots of misery on local…</p>
<p>The future of war: A special report<br/><br/><br/><a href="https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2023-07-08" target="_blank">https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2023-07-08</a><br/><br/><br/>The third lesson—one that also applied for much of the 20th century—is that the boundary of a big war is wide and indistinct. The West’s conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq were fought by small professional armies and imposed a light burden on civilians at home (but often lots of misery on local people). In Ukraine civilians have been sucked into the war as victims—over 9,000 have died—but also participants: a provincial grandmother can help guide artillery fire through a smartphone app. And beyond the old defence-industrial complex, a new cohort of private firms has proved crucial. Ukraine’s battlefield software is hosted on big tech’s cloud servers abroad; Finnish firms provide targeting data and American ones satellite comms. A network of allies, with different levels of commitment, has helped supply Ukraine and enforce sanctions and an embargo on Russian trade.<br/><br/>New boundaries create fresh problems. The growing participation of civilians raises legal and ethical questions. Private companies located outside the physical conflict zone may be subject to virtual or armed attack. As new firms become involved, governments need to ensure that no company is a single point of failure.<br/><br/>No two wars are the same. A fight between India and China may take place on the rooftop of the world. A Sino-American clash over Taiwan would feature more air and naval power, long-range missiles and disruptions to trade. The mutual threat of nuclear use has probably acted to limit escalation in Ukraine: nato has not directly engaged a nuclear-armed enemy and Russia’s threats have been bluster so far. But in a fight over Taiwan, America and China would be tempted to attack each other in space, which could lead to nuclear escalation, especially if early-warning and command-and-control satellites were disabled.<br/><br/>Silicon Valley and the Somme<br/>For liberal societies the temptation is to step back from the horrors of Ukraine, and from the vast cost and effort of modernising their armed forces. Yet they cannot assume that such a conflict, between large industrialised economies, will be a one-off event. An autocratic and unstable Russia may pose a threat to the West for decades to come. China’s rising military clout is a destabilising factor in Asia, and a global resurgence of autocracy could make conflicts more likely. Armies that do not learn the lessons of the new kind of industrial war on display in Ukraine risk losing to those that do. ■<br/><br/></p>
<p class="comment-timestamp"></p> The future of war: A special…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-07-09:1119293:Comment:4253122023-07-09T14:29:18.147ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p><span>The future of war: A special report</span><br></br><br></br><br></br><span><a href="https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2023-07-08" target="_blank">https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2023-07-08</a></span><br></br><br></br><span>Big wars are tragedies for the people and countries that fight them. They also transform how the world prepares for conflict, with momentous consequences for global security. Britain, France and Germany sent observers to the American civil war to study battles like…</span></p>
<p><span>The future of war: A special report</span><br/><br/><br/><span><a href="https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2023-07-08" target="_blank">https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2023-07-08</a></span><br/><br/><span>Big wars are tragedies for the people and countries that fight them. They also transform how the world prepares for conflict, with momentous consequences for global security. Britain, France and Germany sent observers to the American civil war to study battles like Gettysburg. The tank duels of the Yom Kippur war in 1973 accelerated the shift of America’s army from the force that lost in Vietnam to the one that thumped Iraq in 1991. That campaign, in turn, led China’s leaders to rebuild the People’s Liberation Army into the formidable force it is today.</span><br/><br/><span>The war in Ukraine is the largest in Europe since 1945. It will shape the understanding of combat for decades to come. It has shattered any illusions that modern conflict might be limited to counterinsurgency campaigns or evolve towards low-casualty struggles in cyberspace. Instead it points to a new kind of high-intensity war that combines cutting-edge tech with industrial-scale killing and munitions consumption, even as it draws in civilians, allies and private firms. You can be sure that autocratic regimes are studying how to get an edge in any coming conflict. Rather than recoiling from the death and destruction, liberal societies must recognise that wars between industrialised economies are an all-too-real prospect—and start to prepare.</span><br/><br/><br/><br/><span>As our special report explains, Ukraine’s killing fields hold three big lessons. The first is that the battlefield is becoming transparent. Forget binoculars or maps; think of all-seeing sensors on satellites and fleets of drones. Cheap and ubiquitous, they yield data for processing by ever-improving algorithms that can pick out needles from haystacks: the mobile signal of a Russian general, say, or the outline of a camouflaged tank. This information can then be relayed by satellites to the lowliest soldier at the front, or used to aim artillery and rockets with unprecedented precision and range.</span><br/><br/><span>This quality of hyper-transparency means that future wars will hinge on reconnaissance. The priorities will be to detect the enemy first, before they spot you; to blind their sensors, whether drones or satellites; and to disrupt their means of sending data across the battlefield, whether through cyber-attacks, electronic warfare or old-fashioned explosives. Troops will have to develop new ways of fighting, relying on mobility, dispersal, concealment and deception. Big armies that fail to invest in new technologies or to develop new doctrines will be overwhelmed by smaller ones that do.</span><br/><br/><span>Even in the age of artificial intelligence, the second lesson is that war may still involve an immense physical mass of hundreds of thousands of humans, and millions of machines and munitions. Casualties in Ukraine have been severe: the ability to see targets and hit them precisely sends the body-count soaring. To adapt, troops have shifted mountains of mud to dig trenches worthy of Verdun or Passchendaele. The consumption of munitions and equipment is staggering: Russia has fired 10m shells in a year. Ukraine loses 10,000 drones per month. It is asking its allies for old-school cluster munitions to help its counter-offensive.</span><br/><br/><br/><br/><span>Eventually, technology may change how this requirement for physical “mass” is met and maintained. On June 30th General Mark Milley, America’s most senior soldier, predicted that a third of advanced armed forces would be robotic in 10-15 years’ time: think of pilotless air forces and crewless tanks. Yet armies need to be able to fight in this decade as well as the next one. That means replenishing stockpiles to prepare for high attrition rates, creating the industrial capacity to manufacture hardware at far greater scale and ensuring that armies have reserves of manpower. A nato summit on July 11th and 12th will be a test of whether Western countries can continue to reinvigorate their alliance to these ends.</span></p> India can aim lower in its ch…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-07-06:1119293:Comment:4250922023-07-06T23:50:43.821ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p>India can aim lower in its chip dreams<br></br><br></br><a href="https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/india-can-aim-lower-its-chip-dreams-2023-07-05/" target="_blank">https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/india-can-aim-lower-its-chip-dreams-2023-07-05/</a><br></br><br></br><br></br>BENGALURU, July 5 (Reuters Breakingviews) - India’s semiconductor dreams are facing a harsh reality. After struggling to woo cutting-edge chipmakers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (2330.TW) to set up operations in the…</p>
<p>India can aim lower in its chip dreams<br/><br/><a href="https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/india-can-aim-lower-its-chip-dreams-2023-07-05/" target="_blank">https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/india-can-aim-lower-its-chip-dreams-2023-07-05/</a><br/><br/><br/>BENGALURU, July 5 (Reuters Breakingviews) - India’s semiconductor dreams are facing a harsh reality. After struggling to woo cutting-edge chipmakers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (2330.TW) to set up operations in the country, the government may now have to settle for producing less-advanced chips instead. Yet that’s no mere consolation prize: the opportunity to grab share from China in this commoditised but vital part of the tech supply chain could pay off.<br/><br/>Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to “usher in a new era of electronics manufacturing” by turning India into a chipmaking powerhouse. So far, the government has dangled $10 billion in subsidies but with little to show for it. Mining conglomerate Vedanta’s $19.5 billion joint venture with iPhone supplier Foxconn (2317.TW) has stalled; plans for a separate $3 billion manufacturing facility appear to be in limbo, Reuters reported in May. In a small win for the government, U.S.-based Micron Technology (MU.O) last week announced it will invest $825 million to build its first factory in India in Modi’s home state of Gujarat, though the facility will be used to test and package chips, rather than to manufacture them.<br/><br/>Even so, the Micron investment could pave the way for the country to move into the assembly, packaging and testing market for semiconductors, currently dominated by firms like Taiwan’s ASE Technology (3711.TW) and China's JCET (600584.SS). It’s not as lucrative as making or designing them but global sales are forecast to hit $50.9 billion by 2028, according to Zion Market Research.<br/><br/>An even bigger opportunity awaits in manufacturing what are known as trailing-edge semiconductors. Recently, New Delhi expanded fiscal incentives for companies to make these lower-end products in the country. It’s a far more commoditised part of the market but there’s much to play for. Analog chips, for example, are vital for electric cars and smartphones. Last year, sales grew by a fifth to $89 billion, per estimates from the Semiconductor Industry Association, outpacing growth for memory, logic and other types of chips.<br/><br/>The majority of the world’s trailing-edge semiconductors are currently made in Taiwan and China. So rising geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing, as well as worries of military conflict in Taiwan, will make India an attractive alternative for companies like U.S.-based GlobalFoundries (GFS.O) that specialise in this segment. Booming domestic demand is another factor: the Indian market is forecast to hit $64 billion by 2026, from just $23 billion in 2019.<br/><br/>Aiming lower could be just what India’s chip ambitions need.<br/><br/>Follow @PranavKiranBV on Twitter<br/><br/>(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. Refiles to add link.)<br/><br/>U.S. memory chip firm Micron Technology on June 28 signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indian government to build a semiconductor assembly and testing plant, its first factory in the country.<br/><br/>Construction for the $2.75 billion project, which includes government support, will start in August, according to Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s minister of electronics and information technology in an interview with the Financial Times published on July 5, with production expected by the end of 2024.</p>
<p class="comment-timestamp"></p> India poised to deny funding…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-05-31:1119293:Comment:4244462023-05-31T03:25:47.889ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p>India poised to deny funding for Vedanta-Foxconn chip venture - Bloomberg News | Reuters<br></br><br></br><br></br><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-poised-deny-funding-vedanta-foxconn-chip-venture-bloomberg-news-2023-05-31/" target="_blank">https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-poised-deny-funding-vedanta-foxconn-chip-venture-bloomberg-news-2023-05-31/</a><br></br><br></br>May 31 (Reuters) - The Indian government is poised to deny crucial funding for Anil Agarwal's chip venture, Bloomberg…</p>
<p>India poised to deny funding for Vedanta-Foxconn chip venture - Bloomberg News | Reuters<br/><br/><br/><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-poised-deny-funding-vedanta-foxconn-chip-venture-bloomberg-news-2023-05-31/" target="_blank">https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-poised-deny-funding-vedanta-foxconn-chip-venture-bloomberg-news-2023-05-31/</a><br/><br/>May 31 (Reuters) - The Indian government is poised to deny crucial funding for Anil Agarwal's chip venture, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, a setback to the billionaire's ambition to build India's 'own Silicon Valley.'<br/><br/>The authorities are likely to inform the venture between Vedanta (VDAN.NS) and Taiwan's Foxconn (2317.TW) that it won't get incentives to make 28-nanometer chips, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.<br/><br/>The venture's application seeking billions in government assistance hasn't met the criteria set by the government, the report said. The project is still in search of a technology partner and a manufacturing-grade technology license for the construction of 28nm chips, it added.<br/><br/>Foxconn declined to comment on the report, while India's technology ministry and Vedanta did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.<br/><br/>The setback comes at a time when Agarwal's metals and mining conglomerate is already grappling with reducing its significant debt load.<br/><br/><br/><br/>Last year in September, Vedanta and Foxconn – formally called Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd – announced they would invest $19.5 billion to set up semiconductor and display production plants in the state of Gujarat, creating more than 100,000 jobs.<br/><br/>"India's own Silicon Valley is a step closer now," Agarwal had said last year after the announcement.</p>
<p class="comment-timestamp"></p> Richard D. Wolff - Why the Tr…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-05-31:1119293:Comment:4243642023-05-31T03:18:19.790ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p><span>Richard D. Wolff - Why the Troubled U.S. Empire Could Quickly Fall Apart - Brave New Europe</span><br></br><br></br><br></br><span><a href="https://braveneweurope.com/richard-d-wolff-why-the-troubled-u-s-empire-could-quickly-fall-apart" target="_blank">https://braveneweurope.com/richard-d-wolff-why-the-troubled-u-s-empire-could-quickly-fall-apart</a></span><br></br><br></br><span>For the first time in over a century, the United States has a real, serious, ascending global competitor. The British, German,…</span></p>
<p><span>Richard D. Wolff - Why the Troubled U.S. Empire Could Quickly Fall Apart - Brave New Europe</span><br/><br/><br/><span><a href="https://braveneweurope.com/richard-d-wolff-why-the-troubled-u-s-empire-could-quickly-fall-apart" target="_blank">https://braveneweurope.com/richard-d-wolff-why-the-troubled-u-s-empire-could-quickly-fall-apart</a></span><br/><br/><span>For the first time in over a century, the United States has a real, serious, ascending global competitor. The British, German, Russian, and Japanese systems never reached that status. The People’s Republic of China now has. No settled U.S. policy vis-à-vis China has proven feasible because of internal U.S. divisions and China’s spectacular growth. Political leaders and “defence” contractors find China-bashing attractive. Denouncing China serves as popular scapegoating for many politicians in both parties and as support for an ever-increasing defense spending by the military. However, major segments of large corporate business have invested hundreds of billions in China and in global supply chains linked to China. They do not want to risk them. In addition, for decades, China has offered one of the world’s lowest-cost, better educated and trained, and most disciplined labour forces coupled with the world’s fastest-growing market for both capital and consumer goods. Competitive U.S. firms believe that global success requires their firms to be well established in that nation with the world’s largest population, among the world’s least-costly workers, and with the world’s fastest-growing market. Everything taught and learned in business schools supports that view. Thus the U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposed former President Donald Trump’s trade/tariff wars and now opposes President Joe Biden’s hyped-up programme of China-bashing.</span><br/><br/><span>There is no way for the United States to change China’s basic economic and political policies since those are precisely what brought China to its now globally envied position of being a competitor to a superpower like the U.S. Meanwhile, China is expected to catch up to the United States with equality of economic size before the end of this decade. The problem for the U.S. empire grows, and the United States remains stuck in divisions that preclude any significant change except perhaps armed conflict and an unthinkable nuclear war.</span><br/><br/><span>When empires decline, they can slip into self-reinforcing downward spirals. This downward spiral occurs when the rich and powerful respond by using their social positions to offload the costs of decline onto the mass of the population. That only worsens the inequalities and divisions that provoked the decline in the first place.</span><br/><br/><span>The recently released Pandora Papers offer a useful glimpse into the elaborate world of vast wealth hidden from tax-collecting governments and from public knowledge. Such hiding is partly driven by the effort to insulate the wealth of the rich from that decline. That partly explains why the 2016 exposure of the Panama Papers did nothing to stop the hiding. If the public knew about the hidden resources—their size, origins, and purposes—the public demand for access to hidden assets would become overwhelming. The hidden resources would be seen as the best possible targets for use in slowing or reversing the decline.</span><br/><br/><span>Decline provokes more hiding, and that in turn worsens decline. The downward spiral is engaged. Moreover, attempts to distract an increasingly anxious public—demonizing immigrants, scapegoating China, and engaging in culture wars—show diminishing returns. Empire decline proceeds but remains widely denied or ignored as if it did not matter. The old rituals of conventional politics, economics, and culture proceed. Only their tones have become those of deep social divisions, bitter recriminations, and overt internal hostilities proliferating across the landscape. These mystify as well as upset the many Americans who still need to deny that crises have beset U.S. capitalism and that its empire is in decline.</span></p> The facts cannot be disputed.…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-05-29:1119293:Comment:4245522023-05-29T23:49:52.336ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p>The facts cannot be disputed. The United States has recovered from the coronavirus pandemic faster than any major economy in the world. As Bloomberg’s Matthew A. Winkler recently pointed out, unemployment is stunningly low. Gross domestic product growth has grown at three times the average pace as under President Donald Trump, real incomes are rising, manufacturing is booming, and inflation has eased for 10 straight months. Even the budget deficit, which was at 15.6 percent of GDP at the end…</p>
<p>The facts cannot be disputed. The United States has recovered from the coronavirus pandemic faster than any major economy in the world. As Bloomberg’s Matthew A. Winkler recently pointed out, unemployment is stunningly low. Gross domestic product growth has grown at three times the average pace as under President Donald Trump, real incomes are rising, manufacturing is booming, and inflation has eased for 10 straight months. Even the budget deficit, which was at 15.6 percent of GDP at the end of the Trump presidency, has dropped to 5.5 percent of GDP at the end of last year.<br/><br/><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/26/america-supremacy-irresponsible-politics/" target="_blank">https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/26/america-supremacy-irresponsible-politics/</a><br/><br/><br/>-------------<br/><br/>A somewhat under-noticed development in recent years has been the United States’ rise as an energy powerhouse. Because of fracking and natural gas, the United States is now the world’s largest producer of liquid hydrocarbons. And as Columbia University’s Jason Bordoff has noted, America’s ability to ship liquefied natural gas has made it an energy superpower, able to provide or cut off energy to countries around the world. Add to these traditional energy sources the dramatic ramp-up of green energy, thanks to the vast tax credits and incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, and you have a picture of truly astonishing, comprehensive energy capacity.<br/><br/><br/>The U.S. military remains in a league of its own, far superior to those of its rivals in Russia or China. China is catching up to the United States, but the lead remains vast across many dimensions of warfare. And in Ukraine, as the Republican foreign policy adviser Kori Schake has noted, the United States, at minimal cost and with no American troops, is inflicting ruinous damage on Russia’s army. Washington is also transforming the Ukrainian army into the most powerful fighting force in Europe — giving it another potent ally. The great force multiplier of U.S. power remains its alliances. The United States has more than 50 treaty allies; China has one (North Korea). And it has about 750 military bases of some kind around the world; China has one (in Djibouti).</p>
<p class="comment-timestamp"></p> The facts cannot be disputed.…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-05-29:1119293:Comment:4246492023-05-29T23:48:50.642ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p><span>The facts cannot be disputed. The United States has recovered from the coronavirus pandemic faster than any major economy in the world. As Bloomberg’s Matthew A. Winkler recently pointed out, unemployment is stunningly low. Gross domestic product growth has grown at three times the average pace as under President Donald Trump, real incomes are rising, manufacturing is booming, and inflation has eased for 10 straight months. Even the budget deficit, which was at 15.6 percent of GDP at…</span></p>
<p><span>The facts cannot be disputed. The United States has recovered from the coronavirus pandemic faster than any major economy in the world. As Bloomberg’s Matthew A. Winkler recently pointed out, unemployment is stunningly low. Gross domestic product growth has grown at three times the average pace as under President Donald Trump, real incomes are rising, manufacturing is booming, and inflation has eased for 10 straight months. Even the budget deficit, which was at 15.6 percent of GDP at the end of the Trump presidency, has dropped to 5.5 percent of GDP at the end of last year.</span><br/><br/><span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/26/america-supremacy-irresponsible-politics/" target="_blank">https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/26/america-supremacy-irresponsible-politics/</a></span><br/><br/><span>The picture is even better when viewed more broadly. The United States remains the world’s leader in business, especially in cutting-edge technology. Scholars Sean Starrs and Stephen G. Brooks found that, looking at the globe’s top 2,000 companies, Chinese firms come first in shares of global profits in only 11 percent of sectors, but U.S. firms are ranked first in 74 percent of sectors.</span><br/><br/><br/><span>Or look at artificial intelligence, which most agree is the bold new frontier of technology, likely to shape every industry. U.S. companies such as OpenAI, Microsoft and Google produce the best applications on the market, and a host of other new start-ups are surging forward. As Paul Scharre points out in a Foreign Affairs essay, “Of the top 15 institutions publishing deep learning research, 13 are American universities or corporate labs. Only one, Tsinghua University, is Chinese.” He notes that while China publishes much more AI research than the United States, American papers are cited 70 percent more often. These U.S. advantages are likely to grow dramatically now that China has been blocked from the advanced chips that are absolutely essential to developing and using AI.</span><br/><br/><br/><span>Follow Fareed Zakaria's opinions</span><br/><span>Follow</span><br/><span>Or consider finance. Despite the recent banking crisis, the biggest U.S. banks are now more dominant than they have ever been worldwide. They have passed rigorous stress tests and built up their capital reserves, and as a result they are now better positioned than their European and Japanese counterparts. China’s state-owned banks are saddled with huge government debt and cannot operate in the open global financial system because that would almost certainly trigger massive outflows of funds, as the Chinese people seek to move their money to safer locales. And despite many challenges and efforts to unseat it, the dollar remains the global reserve currency (as the International Monetary Fund’s managing director said recently), which gives the United States a financial superpower. (It is one that I worry we are misusing, which will trigger even more efforts to replace it. But there is no denying that the dollar, for now, reigns supreme.)</span><br/><br/></p> Kissinger: Beijing “expects…t…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-05-27:1119293:Comment:4245482023-05-27T23:21:19.699ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p><span>Kissinger: Beijing “expects…to be the dominant power in Asia…The ideal solution…is a China so visibly strong that that will occur through the logic of events.”…</span><br></br><br></br></p>
<p><span>Kissinger: Beijing “expects…to be the dominant power in Asia…The ideal solution…is a China so visibly strong that that will occur through the logic of events.”</span><br/><br/><span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-great-strategist-henry-kissinger-turns-100-china-ukraine-realpolitik-81b6f3bb?st=8fjy2pvd3a8izr5&reflink=article_copyURL_share" target="_blank">https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-great-strategist-henry-kissinger-turns-100-china-ukraine-realpolitik-81b6f3bb?st=8fjy2pvd3a8izr5&reflink=article_copyURL_share</a></span><br/><br/><span>What Mr. Kissinger sees when he looks at the world today is “disorder.” Almost all “major countries,” he says, “are asking themselves about their basic orientation. Most of them have no internal orientation, and are in the process of changing or adapting to the new circumstances”—by which he means a world riven by competition between the U.S. and China. Big countries such as India, and also a lot of “subordinate” ones, “do not have a dominant view of what they want to achieve in the world.” They wonder if they should “modify” the actions of the superpowers (a word Mr. Kissinger says he hates), or strive for “a degree of autonomy.”</span><br/><br/><span>Some major nations have wrestled with these choices ever since the “debacle of the Suez intervention” in 1956. While Britain chose close cooperation with the U.S. thereafter, France opted for strategic autonomy, but of a kind “that was closely linked to the U.S. on matters that affected the global equilibrium.”</span><br/><br/><span>The French desire to determine its own global policy gave rise to awkwardness with President Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to Beijing. While critics say he pandered to the Chinese, Mr. Kissinger sees an example of French strategic autonomy at work: “In principle, if you have to conduct Western policy, you would like allies that only ask you about what contribution they can make to your direction. But that is not how nations have been formed, and so I’m sympathetic to the Macron approach.”</span><br/><br/><span>It doesn’t bother him that Mr. Macron, on his return from Beijing, called on his fellow Europeans to be more than “just America’s followers.” Mr. Kissinger doesn’t “take it literally.” Besides, “I’m not here as a defender of French policy,” and he appears to attribute Mr. Macron’s words to cultural factors. “The French approach to discussion is to convince their adversary or their opposite number of his stupidity.” The British “try to draw you into their intellectual framework and to persuade you. The French try to convince you of the inadequacy of your thinking.”</span><br/><br/><span>And what is the American way? “The American view of itself is righteousness,” says the man famed for his realpolitik. “We believe we are unselfish, that we have no purely national objectives, and also that our national objectives are achieved in foreign policy with such difficulty that when we expose them to modification through discussion, we get resentful of opponents.” And so “we expect that our views will carry the day, not because we think we are intellectually superior, but because we think the views in themselves should be dominant. It’s an expression of strong moral feelings coupled with great power. But it’s usually not put forward as a power position.”</span><br/><br/><span>Asked whether this American assertion of inherent unselfishness strikes a chord with other countries, Mr. Kissinger is quick to say: “No, of course not.” Does Xi Jinping buy it? “No, absolutely not. That is the inherent difference between us.” Mr. Xi is stronger globally than any previous Chinese leader, and he has “confronted, in the last two U.S. presidents,” men who “want to exact concessions from China and announce them as concessions.” This is quite the wrong approach, in Mr. Kissinger’s view: “I think the art is to present relations with China as a mutual concern in which agreements are made because both parties think it is best for themselves. That’s the technique of diplomacy that I favor.”</span><br/><br/><span>In his reckoning, Joe Biden’s China policy is no better than Donald Trump’s: “It’s been very much the same. The policy is to declare China as an adversary, and then to exact from the adversary concessions that we think will prevent it from carrying out its domineering desires.”</span></p>