Posted on 04/29/2023 4:12:21 AM PDT by FarCenter
It was the ultimate chip war that never was: German officials denied that Berlin planned to stop exporting specialty chemicals for chip fabrication, Reuters reported on April 27 – a day after Bloomberg News claimed that the government of Olaf Scholz “was in talks” on the subject, presumably under prodding from Washington.
The stock prices of BASF and Solvay, the largest makers of the specialty products, plunged on Thursday after the Bloomberg report appeared but recovered sharply on Friday after the government’s denial.
More than a dozen chemicals including acids, bases and solvents are indispensable to etching microcircuits onto silicon wafers, and an interruption of supplies would cripple China’s fabrication capacity. Restricting these chemicals would escalate the chip war far beyond the scope of the Biden Administration’s October 7 controls on semiconductor equipment and design software for the most advanced chips, used in high-end smartphones, servers and artificial intelligence applications. The target would include all chips including so-called mature processes.
In related news, US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo announced on April 26 that the US will consider banning exports to Chinese cloud-computing companies, including Alibaba as well as Huawei. Raimondo responded to a letter from a group of Senators led by Bill Hagerty (R-TN) warning that Chinese cloud computing threatens US “national security and economic security.”
The Biden Administration is also expected to ban US investments in yet-to-be-announced high-tech industries in China.
Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee meanwhile are wrapping up a three-month investigation of the Commerce Department’s enforcement of chip controls and have offered legislation that would give the Defense Department responsibility for enforcing the ban. Gregory Allen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies argued in congressional testimony April 13 that “China’s export control evasion activities are significant and growing. My primary recommendation is that Congress focus on concrete strategies to tighten this enforcement and shore up remaining gaps that risk allowing China to close the AI gap.”
Washington is scrambling to restore credibility to its effort to contain China after a streak of Chinese diplomatic victories, including the Beijing-mediated restoration of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Beijing in a show of independence from Washington and the visits of Brazilian President Lula and Malaysian President Anwar Ibrahim.
Ukraine President Zelensky’s telephone call with Xi Jinping and the dispatch of a special Chinese envoy to Ukraine, moreover, raise the prospect that China will pick up the pieces in Ukraine, after a drumbeat of damaging Pentagon leaks revealed how badly America stumbled.
Yet the only tool that works in never discussed, tariffs.
It's early in the game.
Not mentioned is one of China’s big exports to the US lately.
Chinese males of military age poring over the border.
How much longer are the western Europeans going to put up with the economy-killing demands of Brain-Damaged Biden and his incompetent administration?
France may be seeing the light.
Germany seems to be deeply afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome.
Are they really going to follow Biden to war with both Russia and China?
I have a great idea to stop China! Let’s convert our military to LGBTQI and ALL ELECTRIC vehicles! That’ll learn the Chinese!!
I saw this comment today on another site which clearing indicates the EU is loosening their ties with the White House:
“.. Germany’s, and probably the world’s, biggest chemical factory is BASF Ludwigshafen. Primary feedstock - Russian gas. 39,000 employees on-site.
BASF has announced it is downsizing permanently in Europe, and is building new plants in China.
BASF Ludwidgshafen was founded in 1865. These companies have been the bedrock of the German industrial landscape since the Kaiser...”
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