SuperRedShrimplet

SuperRedShrimplet t1_j6m2gsp wrote

At the risk of being branded a commie, this is what happens when countries progressively privatise higher education. The institutions stray more away from what's best for students and just chase the $$. My father was a university professor before he retired and he lamented that this even applied to research which were increasingly becoming less theoretical and more designed to achieve short term practical application, which is short sighted because it's the more theoretical research that churns out the bigger leaps in scientific understanding in the long term.

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SuperRedShrimplet t1_j6h2yos wrote

Nope. India's air force is more French than Russian nowadays anyway. They also have plans for their own 5th gen fighter.

Furthermore, India's desire to be (at least nominally) neutral would not really fit well into becoming dependent on the US for military, which they would be if they accepted F-35s and wanted to use the F-35s to their full potential.

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SuperRedShrimplet t1_j6h1ugw wrote

I edited my response to elaborate a bit more but I guess you responded before I finished that edit.

But basically it actually has very little to do with Taiwan. It's simply not in the US interest for China to be on a projection to rival them in space and supercomputing power. Nothing more nothing less. And as many of the world's semiconductor supply chains are not through China, the US has very little to lose itself by imposing these sanctions.

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SuperRedShrimplet t1_j6h0tuy wrote

>The sanctions are devastating to China's civilian tech industry, which is nothing to balk at since they're the world's largest manufacturer of civilian electronic goods.

Did you not read this part?

What's preventing China from invading Taiwan is not their lack of military capability, it's the fact that they're a massive import/export economy who would be absolutely crippled if even half the state and private entity sanctions levied on Russia are levied on them.

For all of Russia's issues, they're at least a net producer of food and energy. China is not. They import both to produce stuff for the world. They cannot afford half the sanctions that Russia currently has.

As for why? Geopolitical advantage. China's tech industry was projected to rival that of many western countries; this is not advantageous to the US.

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SuperRedShrimplet t1_j6gxkqv wrote

>The better chips you have the more advanced your munitions are.

In the future perhaps. But most modern missiles that are being produced to scale largely do not use the type of advanced chips that China is being sanctioned from buying. Not unless China is firing AI missiles or missiles the size of your mobile phone. Cruise missiles aren't packing 7nm semiconductor chips. Many people seem to assume that military tech is universally more advanced than civilian when for electronics the reverse is often true.

The sanctions are devastating to China's civilian tech industry, which is nothing to balk at since they're the world's largest manufacturer of civilian electronic goods.

The sanctions are hurting China a lot, but not in terms of their military directly (obviously anything impacting your general economy is also indirectly bad for your military). You're conflating two different things here.

So yes, the decision is sound, but not for the reasons you and most redditors seem to be assuming.

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SuperRedShrimplet t1_j6fvg4p wrote

It doesn't, at least not directly. These type of advanced chips are used for very small devices like smartphones. It puts economic pressure on Chinese telecom and civilian tech companies and limits their ability to progress their technology in these spheres, but these are not the chips used in things like cruise missiles, fighter jets etc.

This article explains it more if you're interested:

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/washingtons-semiconductor-sanctions-wont-slow-chinas-military-build-up/

>The export controls won’t cripple the Chinese military. According to a recent RAND Corporation report, China’s military systems rely on older, less sophisticated chips made in China on which US export controls will have no effect. If China needs more advanced chips for AI-driven weapons systems, it can likely produce them, albeit at a very high cost. Many semiconductor industry experts agree that China has the technical capability to produce cutting-edge chips yet lacks the commercial capability to scale up production. This means that the US ban will have less effect on weapons systems, instead delaying the rollout of civilian applications such as autonomous vehicles.

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