SG Talk

Ban on Chinese products backfires
By HENG WEILI in New York | China Daily | Updated: 2021-07-22 10:13

The logo of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies is pictured next to a statue on top of a building in Copenhagen, Denmark, June 23, 2021. [Photo/Agencies]
Whether it's consumers or Pentagon, US tech actions spell higher costs

From smartphones and 5G technology to drones and surveillance cameras, political suspicions have led to bans on certain Chinese products and companies by the United States－even when they sting the government and consumers with higher costs.
Camera drones developed by the Pentagon cost more but are inferior to those made in China that they were supposed to replace, according to an internal US government memo, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

The memo from officials in the Interior Department states that US-developed "Blue drones" are not good enough to carry out conservation work. The US Department of Defense has spent more than $13 million developing drones that government agencies could use instead of ones made or assembled in China.

The memo said that with an average price of $2,100, the drones cost up to 14 times more than the aircraft the Interior Department had purchased before, the newspaper reported.

The concerns over their effectiveness highlight how the US has had a tough time trying to avoid Chinese technology.

In 2019, the administration of then-US president Donald Trump grounded the department's 810 drones because they contained Chinese parts.

The drone case serves as a backdrop to US efforts to limit exposure to certain technology, in particular equipment made by Chinese telecommunications giants Huawei Technologies, a leader in 5G wireless technology, and ZTE.

A desire to remove Chinese gear from US telecommunications networks also has proved costly.

The US Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, voted unanimously on July 13 to finalize a $1.9 billion program to reimburse mostly rural US carriers for removing equipment from telecommunications networks provided by Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE.

The FCC in December adopted rules requiring carriers with equipment from Huawei or ZTE to "rip and replace" that equipment. Rural carriers now face higher costs.

In September, the FCC estimated it would cost $1.84 billion to remove and replace the equipment from networks.

In March, the commission designated five Chinese companies as a threat to national security under a 2019 law aimed at protecting communications networks.

The companies include the previously designated Huawei and ZTE, as well as Hytera Communications, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology and Zhejiang Dahua Technology.

In August, the US government barred federal agencies from buying goods or services from any of the five Chinese companies.

Hangzhou Hikvision and Zhejiang Dahua make surveillance cameras that are used in US schools and local government facilities. They were targeted for banning along with the three other companies in an order the FCC adopted on June 17.

Huawei said in a statement that the proposed FCC steps were "misguided and unnecessarily punitive".

Hikvision said its designation as a threat isn't substantiated, and it "strongly opposes" the FCC measure, Bloomberg reported.

Dahua said it "does not and never has represented any type of threat to US national security".

Hytera said its products "don't impose any threats to any country's national security".

Other products that face restrictions in the US are Chinese smartphone brands, which are hard to come by in the US even though they are far less expensive than the Apple iPhone, the majority of which are assembled at a plant in Shenzhen.

In an article published in April on ZDnet.com titled "Dear President Biden: Let Chinese phones compete fairly in the US", Jason Perlow wrote: "These products cannot function in the US, aren't marketed in the US due to hostile policymaking, or are outright banned out of unsubstantiated fear. It is a tragedy to US consumers, as it is artificially increasing consumer electronics costs."

But the Chinese phones are welcomed elsewhere.

Beijing-based Xiaomi shipped more smartphones worldwide than Apple did during the second quarter of 2021, outselling Apple for the first time, according to a report by market analyst Canalys.

Overall, China's exports climbed to $281 billion in June, up 32 percent from a year ago, according to Chinese customs data released on July 13.

Reuters contributed to this story.

Is Singapore's 5G ready?

Very quiet leh!

(22-07-2021, 11:41 AM)cityhantam Wrote: [ -> ]Is Singapore's 5G ready?

Very quiet leh!

They're supposed to have 50% coverage by end of 2022 and island-wide coverage by 2025.

Anyway, now 5G not really aimed at consumers but on very niche sectors like ports etc.

(22-07-2021, 11:39 AM)Fleetdestroyer Wrote: [ -> ]The memo from officials in the Interior Department states that US-developed "Blue drones" are not good enough to carry out conservation work. The US Department of Defense has spent more than $13 million developing drones that government agencies could use instead of ones made or assembled in China.

The memo said that with an average price of $2,100, the drones cost up to 14 times more than the aircraft the Interior Department had purchased before, the newspaper reported.

Don't think the US cannot make good drones Drones are considered low tech actually. Main issue is how to make manufacturing cheap and efficient. No country can match China in this respect.

Ya they can make very body can make including me but very expensive leh

(18-07-2021, 11:19 AM)Fleetdestroyer Wrote: [ -> ]

I would buy this just for the zoom lens camera so that can bio milf shower...

Huawei is cheap and good

(22-07-2021, 11:46 AM)Blasterlord2 Wrote: [ -> ]

(22-07-2021, 11:39 AM)Fleetdestroyer Wrote: [ -> ]The memo from officials in the Interior Department states that US-developed "Blue drones" are not good enough to carry out conservation work. The US Department of Defense has spent more than $13 million developing drones that government agencies could use instead of ones made or assembled in China.

The memo said that with an average price of $2,100, the drones cost up to 14 times more than the aircraft the Interior Department had purchased before, the newspaper reported.

Don't think the US cannot make good drones Drones are considered low tech actually. Main issue is how to make manufacturing cheap and efficient. No country can match China in this respect.

Drones used to be very expensive until Chinese companies dominate the market.

This one is fantastic :

[font='Microsoft YaHei', 微软雅黑]灾区通信中断怎么办 翼龙无人机移动公网基站来帮[/font]

[font='Microsoft YaHei', 微软雅黑][font='Microsoft YaHei', 微软雅黑]“翼龙”-2H系统由无人机、地面控制站、保障系统组成。搭载了光电吊舱、合成孔径雷达、航拍CCD相机、应急通信保障吊舱、应急投送舱等设备。“通过采取公网、专网、卫星通信方式互为补充，针对灾区 ‘三断’（断路断电断网）情况，融合空中组网、高点中继等技术，实现图像、语音、数据上下贯通，横向互联、可视指挥，帮助全面构建‘空天地’一体化应急通信保障体系。”李屹东说。[/font][/font]

http://finance.people.com.cn/n1/2021/072...67062.html

Huawei’s electronic products seems to have improved by leaps and bounds.

https://www.ft.com/content/2f5fc6c9-ca2b...7bf060769d


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https://www.ft.com/content/2f5fc6c9-ca2b...7bf060769d

Any US government official looking at Huawei’s recent financial performance must feel vindicated.

Washington’s efforts to destroy the Chinese technology group appear to be working: Huawei’s revenues are in free fall, the premium smartphones it launched in late July do not work for 5G, and it is forced to sell off parts of its business. For the next five years, according to chair Eric Xu, the company’s sole goal is survival.

But policy experts caution that the US is in no position to declare victory in its “technology war” with China. In fact, among hundreds of Chinese technology companies which the US Department of Commerce has targeted with sanctions, Huawei is the only one fighting for its life.


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https://www.ft.com/content/2f5fc6c9-ca2b...7bf060769d

“As it stands today, the restrictions that are in place are rather limited,” said Douglas Fuller, an associate professor at City University Hong Kong who closely follows the Chinese technology industry and Beijing’s and Washington’s policies towards it. “Obviously, they heavily impact Huawei. But all those other companies, not so much.”

That is because Washington has used its most potent weapon — barring access to semiconductors via the US-made machinery and software tools needed to manufacture them — against Huawei only.

Washington faces a dilemma in its attempt to rejig export controls: For American chip equipment makers and producers of the software tools used to design chips, China has become the biggest and fastest-growing market.

John Verwey, a trade and investment analyst with a focus on microelectronics, argues that it is China-powered growth that finances the US industry’s ability to innovate and thus stay ahead in its race with China.

Under the 2018 Export Control Reform Act, the US administration must identify technologies on which additional export controls should apply beyond the existing register of military-use or dual-use technologies.

But work on those lists keeps dragging on as the government seeks to balance national security risks posed by China’s acquisition of key chip technology with the risk for the US of losing a vital market.

Instead, Washington is going after China with a cruder instrument: the so-called Entity List, a register of legal persons seen as engaging in activity running counter to US national security or foreign policy interests. US companies need to apply for an export licence to sell to targeted companies, but they are not under a blanket ban.

“Controls on a specific technology or end use more effectively address a broader national security risk,” Emma Rafaelof, a policy analyst at the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a Congress-mandated body, wrote in a recent paper. She added that the long process of identifying which technologies should fall under extra export controls “has allowed for unfettered US exports of these technologies in the meantime”.

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Commerce has put more than 250 Chinese companies on the list, most of them over the past two years. But the department continues to issue export licences for selling to some of them and others have found loopholes.

“For many of these Chinese companies there are no consequences at all — you could say that this part of US export controls is toothless,” said an industry insider.

Hikvision, the Chinese surveillance technology company listed in 2019 for enabling repression and surveillance in Xinjiang, reported a 40 per cent jump in operating income for the first six months of this year.

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Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), China’s largest chipmaker, saw its revenues increase by 43 per cent in the second quarter. Although the company is barred from obtaining foreign equipment for expanding capacity with newer technology, the performance “shows SMIC has been able to slowly access US equipment, although only for mature nodes”, Jefferies analysts wrote this month.

The possibility that Washington could slap Huawei-style sanctions on more Chinese companies hangs over the industry, as some officials in the Biden administration have discussed broader controls on technology exports to China.

But concerns over doing more harm to the US’s technology leadership in the long term might continue to stand in the way of that. Fuller said: “What we are going to get from the Biden administration will be a case-by-case approach rather than very broad bans.”

long time no update from flg.

Flg all lost in time lah

(22-07-2021, 11:46 AM)Blasterlord2 Wrote: [ -> ]Don't think the US cannot make good drones Drones are considered low tech actually. Main issue is how to make manufacturing cheap and efficient. No country can match China in this respect.

(19-08-2021, 07:21 PM)WhatDoYouThink? Wrote: [ -> ]long time no update from flg.

Century the dog favorite subject

(19-08-2021, 07:53 PM)Fleetdestroyer Wrote: [ -> ]Century the dog favorite subject

strange thing is they all disappeared together, like an organised group. 难道是听从党的指挥?

Stupidity of the Americans! They now force Huawei into designing their own OS - hence competing with both Android and Apple iOS!

(19-08-2021, 08:00 PM)WhatDoYouThink? Wrote: [ -> ]strange thing is they all disappeared together, like an organised group. 难道是听从党的指挥?

Looks like clones from two people