Video of the day -- high-tech façade
If you don't look too closely, China appears to be a technologically-advanced country -- it just isn't. As discussed here, the totalitarian regime is able to curate and fine-tune the country's image in ways a democracy would not, and could not. In the video above, SerpentZA explains how even in products stamped "made in China", the really sophisticated components were usually made elsewhere, in Japan or Germany or Taiwan or the US -- democracies. Given how the Biden administration's recent sanctions are likely to impact China's tech industry, the regime can probably kiss its high-tech façade goodbye.
[The period from 0:28 to 1:27 is an ad, if you prefer to skip it.]
posted by Infidel753 at 10:55 AM
8 Comments:
That's very interesting, that most of the high-tech components are actually not made in China. Like most people I guess, I assumed Made in China meant exactly that.
I was somewhat a fan of the Thinkpad. A great (if pricey) laptop when it was IBM. Then IBM sold out to Lenovo and sophistication and build quality took a dive. It is part of my job to advise people on computer buying. Lenovo (PRC) is not on my list. ASUS and Acer (both Taiwan) are. I'm typing this here now on my ASUS Zenbook-14 powered by an AMD Ryzen/Radeon combo (US, but I think the manufacturing is outsourced to Taiwan Semiconductor - the largest chip maker on the planet). There is a reason Beijing wants Taiwan and it isn't the scenery - though it does look beautiful - I mean Taipei is the C21st and the countryside is awesome - so best of both. I guess if they really tried they could but they'd kill the goose doing it wouldn't they?
By the way. I have discussed going to Taiwan with my wife. She is not OK. She knows I am an utter techno-fetishist and I'd just go mental and place us in penury till the End of Days. She is probs right. Bugger!
Nick: That's the impression the regime is trying to create. One has to know a fair bit about present-day China to realize why it's implausible.
Nick: Interesting -- I didn't know Lenovo was from China. I hope the Chinese regime realizes that if they invade Taiwan they'll get at least as much of a fight as the Russians are getting in Ukraine. And I wouldn't count on Taiwanese tech companies to keep up the same quality if they're working at gunpoint under a bunch of corrupt thugs.
So... you're a Taiwanese computer scientist/tech/engineer/whatever... You have globally valued skills and you've seen what Beijing did to Hong Kong. What you gonna do? You're gonna leave and when the skills go all you gets is a relatively small increase in land area for an already very large country. And that is ignoring the simple fact there would indeed be one Hell of a fight.
I would have thought they were too.
NickM: I'm sure everyone who could get out would do so. The Beijing regime has nothing to offer.
Mary K: It's easy to assume that -- I hope this video has clarified things for a few people.
I rememeber when everything was made in Japan.
Evidently a lot of stuff is still actually made in Japan -- they just ship it to China to do the last step of snapping the parts together and stamping "made in China" on it.
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