China Intensifies Push To 'Delete America' From Its Technology (wsj.com) 160
A directive known as Document 79 ramps up Beijing's effort to replace U.S. tech with homegrown alternatives. From a report: For American tech companies in China, the writing is on the wall. It's also on paper, in Document 79. The 2022 Chinese government directive expands a drive that is muscling U.S. technology out of the country -- an effort some refer to as "Delete A," for Delete America. Document 79 was so sensitive that high-ranking officials and executives were only shown the order and weren't allowed to make copies, people familiar with the matter said. It requires state-owned companies in finance, energy and other sectors to replace foreign software in their IT systems by 2027.
American tech giants had long thrived in China as they hot-wired the country's meteoric industrial rise with computers, operating systems and software. Chinese leaders want to sever that relationship, driven by a push for self-sufficiency and concerns over the country's long-term security. The first targets were hardware makers. Dell, International Business Machines and Cisco Systems have gradually seen much of their equipment replaced by products from Chinese competitors.
Document 79, named for the numbering on the paper, targets companies that provide the software -- enabling daily business operations from basic office tools to supply-chain management. The likes of Microsoft and Oracle are losing ground in the field, one of the last bastions of foreign tech profitability in the country. The effort is just one salvo in a yearslong push by Chinese leader Xi Jinping for self-sufficiency in everything from critical technology such as semiconductors and fighter jets to the production of grain and oilseeds. The broader strategy is to make China less dependent on the West for food, raw materials and energy, and instead focus on domestic supply chains.
American tech giants had long thrived in China as they hot-wired the country's meteoric industrial rise with computers, operating systems and software. Chinese leaders want to sever that relationship, driven by a push for self-sufficiency and concerns over the country's long-term security. The first targets were hardware makers. Dell, International Business Machines and Cisco Systems have gradually seen much of their equipment replaced by products from Chinese competitors.
Document 79, named for the numbering on the paper, targets companies that provide the software -- enabling daily business operations from basic office tools to supply-chain management. The likes of Microsoft and Oracle are losing ground in the field, one of the last bastions of foreign tech profitability in the country. The effort is just one salvo in a yearslong push by Chinese leader Xi Jinping for self-sufficiency in everything from critical technology such as semiconductors and fighter jets to the production of grain and oilseeds. The broader strategy is to make China less dependent on the West for food, raw materials and energy, and instead focus on domestic supply chains.
Thank you, China (Score:5, Informative)
Don't care which side precipitates the divorce. Just as long as it happens.
Re:Thank you, China (Score:5, Funny)
Don't care which side precipitates the divorce. Just as long as it happens.
Then, in a few years maybe we can steal advanced Chinese technology instead of it being the other way around.
Re:Thank you, China (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chinese did not steal American technology. The US handed the tech over on a silver platter, because the Chinese demanded technology transfer be part of the outsourcing deal. The US business elites didn't give a shit, called for it to be done, because they were going to, and indeed did get insanely rich off the deal. US politicians, if they even understood at all what they did, didn't give a shit either, delivered the deal, got their kickbacks and retired as respected statesmen. Now that the results are in, all they can do is blame China, and it's not like China is going to be able to defend itself in US media either.
But even if China had stolen the tech, you could not call it anything but karma, because guess what, how do you think the US manufacturing got started? By stealing British tech. It's the circle of life. The way I see it, upstarts do what they can do to get on their feet, and established ones do what they can to keep everyone else down. If you think the US gaining a tech lead was a good thing, you can not deny anyone else from following the same path. Have your cake, or eat it.
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Many did, yes. China also stole a lot. When folks from my company travel to China, they are given burner computers, can only access via VPN, etc. Why do you suppose that is?
You seem to acknowledge the existence of theft when you go on to say...
Ah yes, the "two wrongs make a right" theory of legality!
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They were not supposed to have it, and it was not supposed to be given - that's theft.
The word you're looking for is "treason".
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It's not treason to assist an adversary, only an actual enemy.
If we were at war with China, then it would have been treason.
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Are you aware of what theft is? If you gain access to something illicitly and take it, without rightful ownership, it's theft.
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Even if you get access to something legally, but not authorised to move / take it, it's also theft.
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Depends what you bought that was a stolen good. If someone steals a car and you buy it from them, if the authorities actually find out, you don't get to keep the stolen goods you bought. In fact, you may even go to jail for being in possession of stolen goods if they believe you "knew" it was in fact stolen.
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And the wheel turns. It would have been hard for there to be an America without the compass, and it definitely wouldn't be the same without guns or porcelain to make thrones out of.
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China needs an even bigger push to ramp up its own science and tech. Stop sending its best students overseas and keep them at home, and then maybe in a generation they'll be ready. Remember, America was kind of lagging for awhile until a big push in the cold-war to improve science in the schools to "catch up" to feared rivals, so China likely will do something similar at the same time that America is back sliding.
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> Except the US also steals as much technology as China tries.
I'm not sure where you get this from, other than your own wishful thinking. Most of the world partners with the US to trade arms for their technological gains, which are often staffed by US agents. Because of problematic political issues in the US, this is expedient and common. Stealing technology per se, is a rarity, for the US. "As much"? Hardly.
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All I know is that it's finally the year of Linux on the state-owned companies in finance, energy and other sectors ...and the desktop!
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Dems force companies with national security secrets to hire illegals, visas, and newly naturalized citizens. GOP are pushing a traitorous , criminal idiot for president.
Wow! I never expected to find Malory Archer posting on /.
Are they also riding around shooting all the jobs? Enquiring minds want to know!
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You mean excess money printing? Yes that sucks.
Re:Thank you, China (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean excess money printing? Yes that sucks.
So does jacking up prices [marketwatch.com] to increase profits [marketwatch.com] which are at a 70 year high. That's the real culprit [theguardian.com] of our current inflation.
The so-called "slowing" of inflation the Fed thinks it sees has little to nothing to do with raising interest rates (which aren't high enough to do anything anyway). It's that companies can no longer keep raising prices because people can't afford their products. Contrary to what the Fed sees in its numbers, wages have not kept up with the rise in prices.
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https://news.northeastern.edu/... [northeastern.edu] says that "greedflation" is an ignorant political hack explanation.
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But one could ask why companies recently have so much pricing power, and if more active anti-trust regulation is needed.
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Companies generally don't have more pricing power now. The ones that do typically have it because government has screwed up the market and put them in that position. https://nymag.com/intelligence... [nymag.com] argues further that "greedflation" theorists mostly (the "crude" version) have causality backwards.
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The lynchpin of those arguments against "greedflation" is the assertion that there's no formal economic explanation for the mechanism of companies needing an excuse to jack up prices, and therefore it didn't happen. This seems like the economic equivalent of arguing that if we don't entirely understand how gravity works then it isn't real. If we can come up with an explanation for it, or just assume that it happened because we just saw it happen and it wasn't the first time, then we have a full chain of cau
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It's obvious if you stop and think about it.
We had some supply chain issues with COVID and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Prices were forced up, and when the supply chain issues were resolved they didn't go back down to prior levels again. Companies just left them as they were, or offered only a small discount and kept the rest as profit.
Then we had high levels of inflation. A box of cereal didn't go up by 23 cents precisely in line with inflationary costs, they rounded up to 50 cents. Consumers rarely bring
Re:Thank you, China (Score:4, Insightful)
The guy's wrong on just about every area.
1) We know for a fact greed is driving prices, and inflation, higher. Many companies have outright stated during conference calls they're seeing benefits to raising prices and will continue to do so.
2) Shipping containers are no longer hard to come by. Prices for container rates have plummeted [businessinsider.com] over the past two years.
3) This is the only area he is right. Oil prices fluctuate based on, or perceived, supply and demand. It's why gas stations will claim they have to raise rates when oil rises so they can afford to buy the more expensive gasoline, but then keep prices high when oil prices go down claiming they paid for the higher cost of gas.
4) As stated in my links, and elsewhere, CEOs are literally, in the truest sense of the word, saying they will keep raising prices as long as they can, irrespective of anything else. Price growth [businessinsider.com], driven by companies raising prices because they can, is what is driving inflation, not the other way round.
5) The only way to mitigate rising prices is to not buy. Don't buy that $5 bag of 7 oz chips. Don't buy that $3+ gallon iced tea. Don't buy that nearly $5 box of 10 oz cereal. Don't buy that $18 bottle of 1.7 oz moisturizer. Let everything sit on the shelves. Let things rot if necessary. The moment people stop buying things prices will come down. It will be the only way for companies to move their product.
6) I have no idea what supply shortages he's talking about. The man's stil talking as if covid is hampering anything. The only reason inflation will slow is because companies stop raising prices so violently to make extra profit.
Also, he keeps talking about price gouging. He's not even using the right term. This isn't about gouging prices on limited product supply. This is greedflation, inflation rising due to company greed. They are two related, but distinct, concepts. Someone in his position should know this.
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I mean hell it even makes sense when you think of massive layoffs company's do. They rather cut off their own arm and hope they grow another one latter than work on any longer term st
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4) As stated in my links, and elsewhere, CEOs are literally, in the truest sense of the word, saying they will keep raising prices as long as they can, irrespective of anything else. Price growth [businessinsider.com], driven by companies raising prices because they can, is what is driving inflation, not the other way round.
What you are describing is literally impossible in a Free Market; therefore, the conclusion is that there is not a Free Market.
That raises the question, what kind of Market is it? It is beginning to feel like the old Soviet command economy, where everything was decided in meetings that did not consider market forces very thoroughly. They didn't have to consider market forces to make their decisions.
How did that work out for them? Why do we think it will work out well for us?
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What you are describing is literally impossible in a Free Market; therefore, the conclusion is that there is not a Free Market.
There never has been, although it has been freer in the past than it is now. There has always been manipulation and collusion going selectively unpunished, but now we also have massive consolidation accompanied by extensive protectionism so there is no real competition.
That raises the question, what kind of Market is it? It is beginning to feel like the old Soviet command economy, where everything was decided in meetings that did not consider market forces very thoroughly. They didn't have to consider market forces to make their decisions.
That's not precisely what's going on here, though. In this case they are basing their decisions on the desire to eliminate market forces. They buy competitors even when it seems irrational because the goal of those actions is to eliminate com
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But to the point, blocking imports from low-cost producers will definitely spur inflation.
Other things people like that cause inflation include green energy, laws requiring higher pay and more benefits like family leave, and high government services without raising taxes.
I'm not saying these things are bad. But people certainly want to have their cake and eat it too, and are quick to blame all the inflation on whatever the
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We'll still use them for cheap labor (Score:2)
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This will be a spill-over to European compnaies as well, so much tech is interrelated that you can't just delete America by itself.
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With any luck.
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"National divorce" is a silly right-wing fantasy just a ridiculous as the stupid MRA nonsense at the beginning of your post.
Just imagine what would happen to, for example, Alaska if the secessionists had their way. It would make Brexit look like a rousing success!
Maybe that's what needs to happen? Let a few deep red states try to survive on their own without federal money. I expect that the reality of right-wing social and economic policy will set in very quickly.
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Hmm, I realize Luckyo said "national divorce" but he's actually talking about America and China divorcing. Not about a US state leaving the union.
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You might want to take a look at how the US economy responded to the crisis of WW II, including how much war material and munitions it supplied to the Soviet Union with its command economy. Even Khrushchev freely admitted that the soviets would never have s
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The US economy did it with massive government spending and control over critical industries. I.e. socialism.
Yes, the fact that the US can switch to socialism that quickly and undo it later is a noteworthy capability, but it's not a success of capitalism.
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Document 79 (Score:2)
Steal and copy. Upgraded from document 78: Steal and copy.
Hope they can afford it (Score:3)
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Ours is tanking, too.
Re:Hope they can afford it (Score:4, Informative)
Birthrates are below sustainability (Score:2)
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I wouldn't say the rest of the world is "sending" those young people. More like, those countries are failing to provide opportunities for those young people and they are coming to America for a better life.
People will continue to come to the USA as long as the perception that a better life can be had here remains. Considering that there are many countries we would call "3rd world" in Central and South America, I think we'll continue to see people migrating here for some time.
Well unless Trump gets reelected
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Trump completely halted the processing of marriage visas. So don't tell me he wouldn't totally close the border.
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So if nothing changes, by 2150 we'll have more people than China.
It's good that 125 years passes by so quickly. There's no way they'll catch up to us before their population collapses (to our level). /s
Re: Hope they can afford it (Score:2)
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That chart makes me feel good, but I doubt it'll turn out to be accurate. Our birth rate has collapsed.
Re: Hope they can afford it (Score:2)
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The previous decades. It's already well below replacement. Certainly not as bad as China (or god forbid, Japan and South Korea), but we better transfer into AI neural nets soon, or we'll go the way of the Spartans soon. I wonder if they, too, called slow societal suicide "family planning."
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Cutting in half is a collapse, particularly if it'll never recover, is guaranteed to continue to fall, and the rate is now so low we must rely on temporary, massive immigration to mask the population collapse.
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"People concerned with completely open borders don't give one rat's ass about their skin color, never have.
There is a sign in an Irish bar in Long Prairie Minnesota "Stop the Invasion". It's a few doors down from a Mexican grocery, across the street from a Mexican bakery and a block down from a very large Catholic Church built by Irish immigrants that offers a weekly mass in spanish. There are plenty of people whose concern is that the people coming here "aren't like them."
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I don't care about "plenty of people," I care whether race is a main reason people don't want 2 million people pouring in. It IS an invasion, of people.
I wonder if you asked the owner of that bar if he'd feel differently if they were white? Because you people just assume the very worst of everyone who disagrees with you, and that becomes a circular reasoning.
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We can always take more educated immigrants,
Because Americans will go out in the fields and pick crops, right? They'll work in the slaughter houses, the golf courses, the hotels, and all the other places where those who whine about illegals hire those same illegals.
if we don't let the inmates run the asylum and destroy every freedom.
A bit late for that, don't ya think? After all, we have half the population losing the right over control over their own bodies, books are being banned [cnn.com], and entire groups of p
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I actually think if companies were paying fair wages, Americans would indeed do those jobs you listed. No, we won't do them for minimum wage because let's be honest, those are not minimum wage jobs. Illegals do them for less money because they are a vulnerable group that businesses can take advantage of.
Everyone of those jobs you list could be filled by Americans but the amount the businesses would have to charge of course would go up to cover wages good enough to lure Americans to those jobs.
I think the pe
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We have a law that makes it illegal to hire people who don't have a work visa (aka green card). No one has ever been prosecuted for violating it. In fact, whole industries feel free to openly complain to congress about the economic damage done if their source of cheap workers was interrupted.
The people coming to the United States for the same reason people have always come here - this is the land of opportunity. The problem is that it increasingly not a land of opportunity for many people who already live
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We can take the uneducated ones, too, in fact we must now that people are too selfish to have children anymore.
What we can't do is absorb a million illegal immigrants a year without vetting or any processing of any kind, without risking societal collapse.
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Blah blah blah.
Re: Hope they can afford it (Score:2)
As cogent and relevant as ever, I see.
Let us know when you have something to say.
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...before their population tanks.
Don't believe the Media hype. China's population is not shrinking.
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Which media hype? Not many in the American media even mention China's demographics.
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It's called a demographic implosion. You haven't noticed it yet, the workforce hasn't noticed it yet - but it's going to happen soon. These aren't the kinds of things felt immediately or measured in years, but decades.
Their 50-60 demographic - those who are at or nearing retirement, or dying - is the largest demographic in China. Most of them are still working. It's significantly larger than every other age cohort and a full 1/3 larger than the 20-30 demographic. Their 0-4 demographic is HALF the size of th
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Yep, this is what happens when you base a huge portion your economic social system on growth. It is happening in the USA as well. The endless spending and borrowing is "OK" as long as you can "grow" the economy with more and more people. But that isn't sustainable. As the population become more educated and affluent and safe they have fewer and fewer children and the house of cards starts to collapse. And it isn't something that just throwing open the border fixes, either. That comes with severe probl
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Most 1st world countries are having this problem in fact. Go read up about South Korea. They are REALLY starting to feel it because their young women really don't want to deal with being a mother in their society any longer. Here's a BBC article on it. https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
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>"because their young women really don't want to deal with being a mother in their society any longer"
Because they have been brainwashed into thinking it isn't a good thing. When, in fact, the overwhelming majority of those who DO have children report that it ends up being the most important and fulfilling thing in their lives. And many would come to this realization when it is too late.
Plus we are treating adults like children that never grow up. And we are demasculizing men, which women find very un
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Yeah, that one thing in the Constitution in that list that the Federal government is SUPPOSED to do. Like also securing the border...
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India, Mexico, Vietnam... (Score:4, Insightful)
Good. And we will gladly shift our business and our manufacturing away. :)
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You are assuming that those other countries will take your side and not China's. I wouldn't bank on that. They aren't so ideologically motivated, and China is offering them a good deal. Maybe a better deal, given that the US has demonstrated its willingness to put up trade barriers the moment competition hots up.
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What "good deal," CCP shill? The world is already well on its way to moving away from Chinese manufacturing. The U.S. in particular is investing heavily in Mexico, for example.
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Maybe a better deal, given that the US has demonstrated its willingness to put up trade barriers the moment competition hots up.
It would take a special kind of stupid to think China wouldn't do the same.
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Look at how incredibly restrained China has been when it comes to trade barriers with the US. It's limited to tit-for-tat. They don't initiate.
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Look at how incredibly restrained China has been when it comes to trade barriers with the US. It's limited to tit-for-tat. They don't initiate.
You mean except for not permitting foreign corporations to own property or do business in China without partnering with a Chinese entity in violation of WTO regulations despite being a WTO member, right?
Right?
And you wonder why people say you're a Chinese shill.
Sounds fair (Score:2)
I wouldn't want to be dependent on us either.
Or is it? (Score:2)
Is it really something with the goal of "Self sufficiency", or have we stumbled on the date they're going to unleash the most massive cyber-attack ever and this is how they keep their stuff (at least their critical infrastructure) immune/resistant from spread?
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Simpler hypothesis, it might be related to the sanctions the US has imposed on them, specifically designed to cripple several critical industries.
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They have a plan to be the next global hegemon, and one of the key points is to defang the fading incumbent.
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What I said is very evenhanded and it's also true. The Chinese are not stupid. They know nature abhors a vacuum and they will fill the space, and have been doing so for quite a while now. Domination of the 'Global South' as we call the third world now, is their goal.
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I seriously think they are amining for cutting off outside internet access full stop. I also think they h
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Absolutely. But that's orthogonal to the question of whether China's trying to dominate it. The Belt and Road Initiative potentially gives China ownership of the modern infrastructure that it's helping to build and that the partner nations will depend on. It's at least plausible that the strategic thinking behind the initiative isn't purely about facilitating trade but also about setting up a good grip on the other nations'
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America doesn't want to be dependent on China, and China doesn't want to be dependent on America. We took a swat at them for steel price fixing, they hit back with rare earth metals, we came back and cut off their semiconductor supplies, and now they are hitting back.
They are betting on hard times in America. They've offloaded a bunch of our bond exposure and are actively insourcing technologies. Simultaneously, we're spending like drunken sailors and actively trying to find the "next China" somewhere el
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Look around you and pick 10% of jobs you don't want done.
Jokes about middle management aside, a shrinking labor pool is extremely problematic for the people that need that labor to stay alive, e.g. You and I in our elderly years.
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"Vietnamese chips" (Score:2)
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The vietnamese have been on "Team america" for a while now. If given a choice they'll go with the US every time, because China has been acting militarily aggressive to them, and apparently the Vietnamese are not one for grudges over that ridiculous war in the 60s and 70s.
In fact we might end up in a very bizare situation of having to defend vietnam if the chinese keep threatening them over the straits. I'm certain thats a possibility that'll give certain old-timers an aneurism.
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Prepping for war? (Score:2)
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Its a reaction to the US removing Chinese equipment. Tit-for-tat.
https://www.reuters.com/techno... [reuters.com]
ROFLMAO. (Score:2)
Facilitating a major enemy's rise was sheer folly (Score:2)
China has never been able to do anything on their own without espionage and stealing technology. And now we have the rise of the nutjobs in this country chasing away the brilliant scient
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Rookie mistake (Score:2)
You can't delete something that's already been freed. They're going to have all kinds of problems.
Muscling U.S. technology out of the country (Score:2)
They replacing the internet? (Score:2)
Well, internet was basically a DARPA (American) creation (am aware of CERN's creation of the WWW, but without the network in place, WWW would not have been created on it), so, they going to shut down the internet in China?
That would be a great move for the rest of the world - less scammers, spammers, hackers, malware, etc.
Hope it happens soon.
That's not the good path forward (Score:2)
curiosity (Score:2)
I don't know much about the IT landscape in China so my question is genuine: what do we expect those companies will run on their desktops, some flavor of Linux plus WPS Office? As browsers a fork from Chromium?
Preparation for a Taiwan invasion? (Score:3)
I do not believe that this is some economic tit-for-tat. I do feel there is something far more sinister at play.
China has learnt a lot from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in particular how Russia was over-reliant on Western technology and how the international technology sanctions have impacted Russia's combat capability in a big way.
Xi knows that there will be a similar global backlash if they try to invade Taiwan.
I may be overly pessimistic, but I do wonder if this 'Delete America' policy is some sort of preparation for a time when China will become a global pariah (e.g. from invading Taiwan, and/or massively escalating the situation in the South China Sea).
Right now Taiwan is a key chip supplier for the rest of the world. If China invades, that chip production will stop. If China is successful, it is more than likely Western interests/Taiwanese military will destroy the Fabs to stop them falling into Chinese control. If China is unsuccessful, it is likely that the Fabs will be offline for months to years, and China would also be heavily sanctioned. Either way, strengthening domestic technology capabilities now makes perfect sense. To take it a step further, if China's domestic production were sufficiently advanced, they may make the Fabs the first target for destruction instead of attempting to capture them intact.
Unfortunately, I don't think it is a case of IF it will happen, but WHEN.