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Comment by thewarrior | Hacker News Reader

This is essentially a Manhattan project like initiative. It doesn’t have to happen overnight. China now has some of the best universities doing research in optics.

If it happens in 5 years what will ASML do then ? The west’s monopoly on this sector would be finished.

At this point China has no choice but to develop the tech or be forced to not have processors. Time will tell.

Given that hard power is being used to punish China they will use every means at their disposal from massive investments and manpower to poaching talents and even espionage.

If North Korea can make nukes then this shouldn’t be impossible for a power like China.

I have a sneaking suspicion that they are much further ahead than they are revealing in public which explains their confidence and refusal to back down. Time will tell.

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>Given that hard power is being used to punish China they will use every means at their disposal from massive investments and manpower to poaching talents and even espionage.

Espionage is usually the first thing, not something of last resort. Pretty much all major players are doing it all the time. Doesn't even take much incentive.

The west isn't quite as free with giving the stolen information to the private sector (though the US really likes giving their domestic companies bidding advantages) - but since we're talking about China here, there's pretty much a guarantee of anything and everything finding a way to their private sector.

But can they afford to fund it alone?

The Soviet Union didn't collapse because a lack of capability. They collapsed because it was too expensive to forge their own way, when most of the world could pool capital via free trade.

China is big. But the rest of the world is bigger. And despotic regimes inclined to trade with an embargoed state aren't typically the most flush economic partners.

It depends on what they need to fund. I don’t see why an investment of say 200 billion dollars over 5-7 years can’t bring them to the forefront in chip making. They have forex reserves in the trillions.

SMIC which is their Intel raised 7 billion dollars last week from investors inside China. That’s on top of what the government is putting in. People underestimate the resources at chinas disposal.

China's economy looks very different if the world starts treating them differently. All while they're attempting to transition their economy from lowest-cost manufacturer to value-add.

It's benefited from 20 years of optimistic free market access.

No doubt they'll find trading partners, but it's not going to look anything like the open doors they've been used to. And they're going to start finding that their domestic and international choices now have trade consequences, rather than the look-the-other-way, laissez-faire approach the world has taken thus far.

Exports are 17 % of China’s GDP. High but not as high as say Germany. It doesn’t seem like a fall in exports would be unmanageable. Not to make a virtue out of a harsh reality but chinas export heavy model wasn’t sustainable anyway.

Don't think its a good idea to act like China is a isolated nation like the soviet union. Lets see a guaranteed market is China + Russia + Iran + ASEAN seems like a good block amounting to almost 2.3 billion people. China already has quiet a strong foothold in Africa with tech brands giving a potential 1 billion future customers.

If one thing the EU should worry about not turning into a Hotel Europe where people only go to visit instead of producing stuff.

The rest of the world is not united. And China has definitely learned from the Soviet lessons.

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