https://nitter.1d4.us/WSJ/status/1668200617918038016
I’ve been reading Super Imperialism recently. None of this is surprising, this has been the M.O. of the US for decades. I mean before I started the book I knew countries like South Korea or the UK acted like vassal states of the US, but I never really appreciated the extent to which the US keeps “allies” on a leash.
So they realised that China will catch up with their chip making capabilities regardless of sanctions?
Took them long enough
its a push. the worst damage has already been done and this is just a rearguard action by whats left of the US market in the chinese semiconductor industry to try and keep themselves relevant.
before the current rash of sanctions and aggression the PRC considered the 300B/ year sales to western semiconductor companies the cost of keeping whitey away. now that they are banning their own companies from selling to the PRC it lets them off the leash and gives them more strategic autonomy, not less.
Alternatively this reads as "You are not firing me, I quit!" / "You are not leaving me, I'm leaving you"
Same with Vietnam war, but before LOTS of crimes against humanity
They aren't "vassals". That's the wrong word.
Vassals pay their lord for protection. These don't pay the US, the US pays them. Heavily subsidizes their defense and lays open its markets while allowing them to protect their own markets from US competition. I don't know what you call this but "vassal" ain't it.
The payment is simply provided through more complex means than a direct fee. It's still a protection racket though, if you don't pay you lose that protection and they get what they want through violent force. Also the entire thing was installed with violent force to begin with.
Some refer to them as vassals, others "client states", others colonies. It's intended as "an extension of the US empire whose sovereignty and decision-making power fundamentally lies in US control if they don't do what they're told" at the end of the day.
There's no payment. The US pays them. Whatever it is, it's not vassalage.
There's no payment
You pay with your sovereignty, your economic prospects (look at Japan after the plaza accords), control over your trading partners, control over your relationships to the outside world, control of your culture, the pay and conditions of your workforce, predatory IMF loans, the presence of toxin-spewing US military bases, the prospect that you and everyone you know can be fed into the meat grinder at any moment for political gain like Ukraine...
Limiting one's idea of "payment" to "a sum of money" can easily make you miss other forms of exploitation.
Go tell people in the Phillipines, in Manila, the homelessness capital of the world, that the US is actually doing them a favor. Go on. Go tell the people of occupied Korea that they actually love having drunk marines assaulting them and running over their kids. Obvious they just don't understand our magnanimous intentions.
So, throwing Intel, Micron, Microchip, TI, etc under the bus to help TSMC and Samsung lol
