David Sanger, Ian Bremmer, Gzero World episode 11/10/22: Is America Safe?
Transcribing the video
https://www.kpbs.org/news/2022/11/07/gzero-world-with-ian-bremmer-is-america-safe
12:25
11:29
Ian Bremmer: I’m not going to ask you directly a Taiwan question, I want to ask you a semiconductor question, because over the last few weeks we’ve seen the United States changing the status quo of the relationship in a pretty significant way through comprehensive and strategic export controls that are meant to contain China’s ability to develop a core component of its advanced technology. How surprised were you, are you, that the Americans are engaging in that policy and what are the implications for the security balance between the two countries?
David Sanger: I was not surprised that they did it. I was actually surprised that it’s taken the United States so long to do this. One of the curious features of the competition with China has been that while the Chinese have made huge advances in many different arenas, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, the biosciences, and so forth, one area where they have been continually frustrated has been the ability to make the smallest diameter chips the kinds that we get from Taiwan Semiconductor and we’ll get back to that. And that the Chinese get from Taiwan semiconductor as well. We’re talking about chips that have dimensions that are narrower than 7 nanometers. And that has been a barrier that the Chinese have not been able to break. To get to those dimensions, we are highly dependent on some semiconductor equipment that is made by a company that’s in the Netherlands. And when you go into a big chip manufacturing company you frequently see these $100 million machines sitting right in the middle of a clean room. And it’s those machines that the US is going out of its way to make sure that the Chinese cannot get access to. And that’s going to be a big task, because there are older versions of them. They are out to steal the technology to replicate the technology, to develop the technology themselves. The US effort right now is sort of fingers in the dyke. In other words, it is an effort to try to make sure that the Chinese have years more delay, but sooner or later China is going to figure this out. And the question is along the way do we make them convinced that the US is so out to contain Chinese technological power that they begin to make moves in other areas, including military areas, and that’s critically related to Taiwan, because right now in my view, Ian, the greatest defense we have against Taiwan being invaded is Taiwan semiconductor.
Ian: So, but that also raises a question of American vulnerability. I mean, if TSMC is not just critical to Chinese semiconductors, but also American semiconductors, not like the US is making these things at home, how do the Americans relate to the fact that one of its most important national security assets happens to be sitting 100 miles away from mainland China?
David: You know, if there was ever a reason for sort of a commission on American vulnerabilities one of the first things I would put on their agenda, Ian, would be a study of how we allowed the manufacturing of key semiconductors. Not the commodity semiconductors that go into your car or your microwave or whatever but the real leading edge semiconductors which the US invented, dominated the technology, and then came to the conclusion in the era of globalization that the supply chain around the world was reliable enough that it didn’t make any difference where we manufactured them. This was a feature of the past two decades. The Europeans did it with oil and gas, being dependent on the Russians. We did it in the semiconductor arena where we were dependent on Taiwan, but many other places and the vulnerability of Taiwan was never really considered to be a high end concern until the past few years. And that’s remarkable to me. Here’s the challenge right now. You can buy yourself some time by trying to prevent the Chinese from buying these high-end manufacturing machines and the lithography all around it. But that only works if you then turn around and build enough capacity back in the United States. But the fact of the matter is that while Taiwan semiconductor is building in the southwest and Samsung is building in the southwest when those facilities are open, it will address under 5% of the problem.
Transcribing the video
https://www.kpbs.org/news/2022/11/07/gzero-world-with-ian-bremmer-is-america-safe
12:25
11:29
Ian Bremmer: I’m not going to ask you directly a Taiwan question, I want to ask you a semiconductor question, because over the last few weeks we’ve seen the United States changing the status quo of the relationship in a pretty significant way through comprehensive and strategic export controls that are meant to contain China’s ability to develop a core component of its advanced technology. How surprised were you, are you, that the Americans are engaging in that policy and what are the implications for the security balance between the two countries?
David Sanger: I was not surprised that they did it. I was actually surprised that it’s taken the United States so long to do this. One of the curious features of the competition with China has been that while the Chinese have made huge advances in many different arenas, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, the biosciences, and so forth, one area where they have been continually frustrated has been the ability to make the smallest diameter chips the kinds that we get from Taiwan Semiconductor and we’ll get back to that. And that the Chinese get from Taiwan semiconductor as well. We’re talking about chips that have dimensions that are narrower than 7 nanometers. And that has been a barrier that the Chinese have not been able to break. To get to those dimensions, we are highly dependent on some semiconductor equipment that is made by a company that’s in the Netherlands. And when you go into a big chip manufacturing company you frequently see these $100 million machines sitting right in the middle of a clean room. And it’s those machines that the US is going out of its way to make sure that the Chinese cannot get access to. And that’s going to be a big task, because there are older versions of them. They are out to steal the technology to replicate the technology, to develop the technology themselves. The US effort right now is sort of fingers in the dyke. In other words, it is an effort to try to make sure that the Chinese have years more delay, but sooner or later China is going to figure this out. And the question is along the way do we make them convinced that the US is so out to contain Chinese technological power that they begin to make moves in other areas, including military areas, and that’s critically related to Taiwan, because right now in my view, Ian, the greatest defense we have against Taiwan being invaded is Taiwan semiconductor.
Ian: So, but that also raises a question of American vulnerability. I mean, if TSMC is not just critical to Chinese semiconductors, but also American semiconductors, not like the US is making these things at home, how do the Americans relate to the fact that one of its most important national security assets happens to be sitting 100 miles away from mainland China?
David: You know, if there was ever a reason for sort of a commission on American vulnerabilities one of the first things I would put on their agenda, Ian, would be a study of how we allowed the manufacturing of key semiconductors. Not the commodity semiconductors that go into your car or your microwave or whatever but the real leading edge semiconductors which the US invented, dominated the technology, and then came to the conclusion in the era of globalization that the supply chain around the world was reliable enough that it didn’t make any difference where we manufactured them. This was a feature of the past two decades. The Europeans did it with oil and gas, being dependent on the Russians. We did it in the semiconductor arena where we were dependent on Taiwan, but many other places and the vulnerability of Taiwan was never really considered to be a high end concern until the past few years. And that’s remarkable to me. Here’s the challenge right now. You can buy yourself some time by trying to prevent the Chinese from buying these high-end manufacturing machines and the lithography all around it. But that only works if you then turn around and build enough capacity back in the United States. But the fact of the matter is that while Taiwan semiconductor is building in the southwest and Samsung is building in the southwest when those facilities are open, it will address under 5% of the problem.