LettersUS tech war on China an example of superpower shamelessness

Readers discuss what the battle for semiconductor supremacy says about superpower behaviour, and the British prime minister’s focus on maths education

US-China relations

Letters

Published: 2:30pm, 26 Apr, 2023

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The battle over gaining an edge in the semiconductor industry has revealed just how shameless superpowers are. When it comes to protecting national security and furthering the professed agenda of democratising the so-called undemocratic countries, the United States seems to make little effort to dress up the fact that it is becoming a traitor to the “rules-based” order that it is asking China to adhere to.

Clearly, what the US has been doing is simply trying to maintain its status as the world’s dominant power, at all costs, while trying to keep China safely underdeveloped so it doesn’t threaten that status.

Yes, the US may want democracy in China, it may want the Chinese people to have a better say in public affairs, but it certainly does not want the Chinese to become stronger collectively or have a better living standard overall, not if this threatens US dominance.

China now plans to subsidise its semiconductor manufacturers and could focus on more mature chip technology, dominating in that area and siphoning off the revenue of competitors abroad focused on cutting-edge semiconductor technology.

China’s rise from being a backward nation vulnerable to invasion to the superpower it is today over the course of less than a century is understandably alarming for the US. Were China and the US to switch places, China would probably do the exact same things to the US.

It is, however, perhaps better to be a shameless superpower than to be the weak to whom the strong will show no mercy in a world governed by the law of the jungle. The Chinese people have come to know this better than anybody, after multiple invasions by Western superpowers and mass killings by the Japanese.

Being weak was China’s only mistake back then. Could or should China refrain from becoming a shameless superpower itself, one may ask?

Andy Jou, North Point

Sunak should rethink maths on Brexit and CPTPP

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has informed us that it’s not OK to be bad at maths. Let’s remember that Brexit is likely to have reduced the United Kingdom’s economic output by 4 per cent while Sunak’s much heralded joining of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership will add 0.08 per cent. How does that add up?

Mark Peaker, The Peak