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Comment by SilverBirch | Hacker News Reader

It sounds to me like he doesn't actually say that. In the article:

>The UK has “no chance in hell” of becoming technologically sovereign

Well which is it, having our own Tech champs or being technologically sovereign?

Because they're totally different things. To be honest I'm not sure any country apart from China stands any chance of becoming technologically sovereign. Like what does that mean? Do we need to mine our own Lithium, do we need to build our own foundries, are we planning on building a competitor to ASML to source machines to build our foundries? And look at Oil prices, the UK isn't massively dependent on Oil and we have our own resources but we still got absolutely slammed by the war in Russia because we operate in a global market. So do we need our own Lithium mines and export controls to stop them being bid up on the international market when there's some exogenous event?

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This is not how the article approached technologically sovereign at all, as is this is just a strawman argument. No one proposed that sovereignty is about producing everything from scratch yourself. Here's the actual excerpt:

> One question countries have to ask themselves if whether they have all the critical technologies needed to run a country and its economy.

> “The answer for Britain” is “absolutely no, there is no chance in hell that Britain could ever become technologically sovereign,” he said.

Do you mind explaining more clearly the difference between your understanding of what the article means, and what the GP wrote? They seem pretty similar?

I'm in the same boat as you.

I'm not sure exactly what, "whether they have all the critical technologies needed to run a country and its economy", means.

When I think "critical technologies" I think of a lot of what SilverBirch was bringing up.

When I think of, critical technologies [...] to run a country and its economy, I think of things like: EMS, traffic lights, the stock market, electricity, etc.

Similarly, saying something like "economy" could either mean, "businesses specific to Britain", or, "the 'economic climate' of Britain, which is influenced by a global market".

Example:

Can a technology firm start up in Britain? Absolutely. They might even do well, depending on how they're run.

Can a technology firm start up in Britain and immediately sustain the current economy that British Citizens are currently accustomed to? That's a bit of a taller order.

It's hard to get a feel for exactly what is meant by how the statement was worded. Any country can compete, but without the global resources provided by businesses that exist across the world, any local-only upstart is going to struggle to be competitive in any part of any market.

Yeah, even something “simple” like a replacement of Visa or Mastercard is quite complicated.

That's not how these two credit card networks work.

You have card issuers and acquirers, both of these can be local, so it's not a big issue if you're cut off from the world.

It's more like a web of trust peer-to-peer protocol, so if a foreign entity removes you from the web of trust, you'll still be able to have transactions with anyone that still considers you trustworthy.

That's probably the only reason why visa/Mastercard is so broadly accepted.

Amex is run differently, and it's rarely accepted outside of the USA for example

It isn't simple because Mastercard literally runs the interbank payment network for the UK.

Which is why simple is in quotes.

“Simple”, as in everyone takes it for granted

I think you're reasoning about it from the wrong end.

The implied precursor I took from the article was that another nation suddenly decides to remove access to a critical technology, via coercing or ordering the company supplying that technology.

"Technological sovereignty," in the context of the article and quotes, would mean a country has the means to continue without that access.

This doesn't mean creating a commercially-viable, world-leading industry (there can only be so many of those!), but does mean having a plan and emergency suppliers who can make functional substitutes.

As an example, the US's strategic petroleum reserve made it sovereign in the matter of energy (effectively, and pre-recent production increases). Which is also a good example because it didn't mean 1:1 replacement of 100% of supply volume, but rather replacing enough so that alternate suppliers can be switched to and restricting access lost its power.

But that was my read. Ymmv.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for that!

I was coming at it from a, "Let's isolate ourselves!" type thing.

Why would anyone expect that from a small country? If it was part of the EU - yeah you should expect the EU to be technically sovereign. But not a small island who decided to leave (so they could make bankers richer and the poor poorer).

I hit a paywall. http://archive.today/U6BUV

> [...] whether they have all the critical technologies needed to run a country and its economy.

That's what he seems to mean by "technologically sovereign": apparently, it comes down to being able to build computers from sand and copper ore. Well, if you define "sovereign" that way, then of course the UK can never be sovereign. Napoleon called us a nation of shopkeepers; we've been dependent on trade for 400 years.

Maybe he's just having a go at the new Tory leadership, which has some odd notions about being completely independent of any one else on principle. But if that's it, it doesn't come across in the article.

I get your point, but the word “sovereign” carries very particular implications that make it a poor choice by the interviewee in this context. I think it’s uncharitable to characterise GP’s argument as a strawman.

No nation, anywhere on the planet, is by itself technologically sovereign. The ability to get by in the world is a cooperative venture for everyone, even the US. What makes first tier technological nations different is the alliances of which they are active contributing members. Those alliances make trade flow smoothly and securely. That is what creates prosperity in an interconnected world.

That is especially important in evaluating China's ability to achieve technological first tier status. China has one formal alliance. It is with North Korea. This is remarkable. China cannot rely on Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, nor even any country with a land border with China as an ally. China's neighbors are threatened by China, are hostile to China, or are just extremely wary of China. China's navy cannot project power beyond the island nations off China's coast.

China's position and prospects are less advantageous than it seems to many people.

> China has one formal alliance.

This is a geopolitical trope about 20 years out of date. Don’t be surprised when dozens of African and Asian countries choose China over Western interests if push comes to shove.

> Don’t be surprised when dozens of African and Asian countries choose China over Western interests if push comes to shove.

And don't be surprised if they don't. Even if China has a lot of frenemies on its border in Asia, every country in Asia has some fear over China, and this often pushes them to improve their relationship with the USA (e.g. Vietnam). Even Russia and North Korea have some antagonism with China. None of their relationships are particularly strong.

> This is a geopolitical trope about 20 years out of date.

I don't think. China hasn't done much to court soft power in the last 20 years beyond a some loans for infrastructure made by Chinese companies. They still are inwardly focused.

1. China has been building out their railroad net for years now, both internally and reaching outwards

2. Those synergize with the loans. They are not "some" loans

3. Cultural exports have been going on for a while, though it has not been as successful as South Korea or Japan

4. China has been seriously wooing back Western-educated citizens to head R&D in a variety areas, for the past ten years or so. Quality-of-life, career advancements, respect and social status exceeds that of staying in the West. That's more the sufficient to successfully bring expertise back.

5. China has been adding more people into the international computing and network standards community. They are starting to influence that.

6. China has been developing its naval power. While it has yet to field a fully operational carrier group, its drone carrier program is probably further along than the US Navy

7. China needs to secure a supply of crude oil, since they are a net importer. The SE Asian shipping corridor, of which the Taiwanese strait anchors one end of it, is going to be hotly contested.

8. Along with some other countries, China has been involved in creation of an alternate world reserve currency. That is not yet successful as far as I know.

I think the general nationalist sentiment among Chinese citizens is along the lines of, "we were once a superpower, why shouldn't we be again?". And, the culture tends to be more amendable to thinking generationally; that is, the benefits may not be realized in this generation, but that's ok.

Among other things, right now I don't think Quality-of-life is particularly high if you run the risk of suddenly being locked down in place or thrown in a covid hospital (friend of mine went through both, sounded very unpleasant indeed)

Ya, China's Zero COVID policy has reversed this trend for sure. It isn't just getting lockdown that people are worried about, but the inability to freely travel without a long quarantine at the end of the trip.

TBF China hasn't got a lot of choice. They do not have a highly effective vaccine. Millions of people in China would die if COVID were allowed to spread. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I'm not advocating that millions of people die in a vacuum, but millions of people risking death so that the other billion people in China could live a normal life is at least worth considering the trade-off.

The median age of a Covid death in the US, with its obese and unhealthy population, is around the average life expectancy with some room for error. I can't imagine that China fares worse in that regard.

The Chinese government would likely consider letting COVID rip through the population if they could survive the consequences of an overwhelmed health system and the numbers of dead.

So that's what is surprising to me, because I figured the CCP had a fairly tight grip on power and is in no danger of being overthrown. My naive guess as an outsider was that it's face-saving for those at the very top - to make an about-turn now would be embarrassing and an admission of defeat. And that only a few specific heads that would roll, but the government itself would remain largely intact

> TBF China hasn't got a lot of choice.

I wouldn't doubt that this is true. But individuals can make choices, especially mobile techies.

> 7. China needs to secure a supply of crude oil

Wonder how that's coming along. I'm sure those African countries will stand up for China even when they can't get any oil.

Would Russia not be a more natural source of this? I know they're not exactly best pals but China is maybe one of the closer countries to Russia outside of Belarus and Syria rn.

I wonder how they would pay for it. The world market operates in US dollars so presumably they'd have to set up some kind of bilateral arrangement and I doubt Russians would accept Yuan.

Yes they would. Russia was one of countries working with China to create an alternate reserve currency. (https://coercioncode.com/2022/07/25/russia-and-china-announc... ) Sanctions on Russia over Ukraine is accelerating this.

This isn’t the first attempt. Yuan is already increasingly held by central banks (https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/dollar-v...) but I was thinking of a composite currency that included the Yuan. I don’t remember the article talking about this

Also keep in mind that Russia is not a part of OPEC, though they had historically worked with OPEC until the sanctions over invading Ukraine.

Oil and other trade between Russia and China has increased since sanctions against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Despite the unfavorable terms for the loan, I hear that the Chinese are regarded well in those countries.

> beyond a some loans for infrastructure made by Chinese companies.

You say that like it's not a big deal, but it is. The Belt and Road initiative precipitated major shifts in geopolitics.

I don't think the Chinese have bought as much goodwill as they think they have, and right now many of those loans are going south fast, so it will be a real cost.

I see China's soft power quite a bit differently. China has an increasingly large presence throughout all of Asia. There are obviously the government initiatives but in many ways the non-governmental stuff is far more visible. 1.4 billion people + rapidly growing middle class = Chinese are absolutely everywhere. Chinese tourists are playing an increasingly large role in the economies of nations throughout Asia, even including Japan with whom China has poor relations. There are also large numbers of students from China that are living/studying abroad (Gaokao), and so on.

This is all creating an increasing intermingling of cultures and economies that's improving relations in a meaningful way. It's easy to discount this sort of stuff, but I think it is what really changes the world in the longterm. When people themselves are able to change their own views gradually over time, without effort at "directing" them, those resultant views tend to be quite difficult to ever change. It's in this domain that we were once unrivaled.

Asian countries do not dislike Chinese people and culture: they have had large communities of Chinese immigrants for a long time, they don't mind the tourism and like the students as well. But that says nothing about whether they like the Chinese government or not: be it the Communists, Nationalists, or Qing dynasty, that's where the friction begins.

It's not even exclusive to developing nations. For example, Portugal tends to side with China.

China sends a pile of money to Africa. But there is a growing disillusionment with their investments.

For example, they would promise to develop infrastructure in exchange for mineral rights. So they move in a large number of Chinese, creating zero local jobs. Then they mine out the resources as fast as possible and move out.

And right after that, the infrastructure invariably falls apart.

They can only screw so many countries before everybody catches on.

Zimbabwean here: our elite will take money from whoever will give it and make nice noises and when the time comes to pay it back in some way that involves and actual cost to themselves..........will find the next donor.

The Chinese (and any other country) will only get out of Africa that which they can demand today quid-pro-quo. There won't be any loyalty.

100% the pattern I saw in other countries too; Mozambique, South Africa. No reason to expect a different trend further north

Here, the carrot is more money of course.

And the stick is sanctions, and then regime change/military action/etc if other countries don’t protest too much.

This has worked pretty well for the US for the last 70ish years. The same playbook can work for China, they are betting.

Zimbabwe has faced sanctions regularly - it's of little interest because it doesn't really disempower the elite.

Pakistan's airforce works closely with Chengdu Aerospace Corporation - the JF-17 Thunder [0] being their flagship product. That said, even Chinese flagship aerospace manufacturers also depend on IP transfers from Russian firms like Klimov and UEC Saturn. Also, most companies require some amount of IP transfer and collaboration because of how complex Engine design, Body design, etc are, as well as the fact that collaboration incentivizes collaborating countries to purchase these weapon systems. Aerospace, cybersecurity, enterprise partnerships, weapons systems - it's all the same business model.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAC/PAC_JF-17_Thunder

China also has a security agreement with the Solomon Islands. While a tiny nation in and of itself, the use of the islands by the Chinese navy allow for quite a bit of force projection into the pacific. It would be very hard, for instance, for the U.S. to use their navy to defend Australia or Taiwan.

Australia is kind of a fortress, just by being so physically far away from most places. All the important population centers are far to the south, so the north becomes a continent sized staging area for battle

The international airport in Honiara is called “Henderson Field” and not whatever name the Japanese gave their airfield. Based on historical precedents, it might be premature to say that a naval base in the Solomons means game over for Australia.

No one knows how a military conflict between China and Australia would end. I can’t imagine it helps Australia to have a major naval military installation between Australia and one of its major allies however.

I don't imagine it would either, which is I assume why someone said something pointed to the government of the Solomons. Maybe someday, but for now China isn't really in a position to try to rebase outside the First Island Chain without permission.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/14/solomon-island...

US was near tier1 technologic autarky post war until 90s, it had unrivalled STEM talent pool (by virtue of others having relatively very little) as well as FP tools to constrain foreign high tech competition while feeling her own via favourable immigration / brain drain policies. US crushed JP semi in 80s, but chose not to continue crushing other east asian tech ambitions / indy policy in 90s-10s because it was deemed acceptable cost of feeding alliances in era of US primacy. Now US is desperately trying to reshore semi and other strategic supply chains now that she realized sensibly that interconnected world is increasingly not secure, especially in potential future frontlines of allied soil. Ultimately what likely will prevent US from recreating tech soveriengty according to analysis is lack of talent - domestic doesn't produce enough, nor can current immigration policy close gap.

> especially important in evaluating China

Not particularly. PRC doesn't need alliances to leech off, because she has the demographics headroom to generate massive talent and governance power to systematically build academic / R&D / S&T institutions to harness said talent to be directly competitive with US + co. Mostly indigenously with big bux programs to recruit critical foreign talent and espionage to fill gaps. There's a reason PRC is rapidly catching up to tier1 tech levels on almost every sector within the last 10 years now that it's producing comparable STEM talent than ALL OECD countries combined, with lagging indicator of # of PhDs undergoing similar explosion that will ultimately drive PRC to tier1 levels. PRC has the most prospects and extremely strong advantages going forward simply because it will have the most skilled workers working off a relatively comprehensive industrial/tech chain and can souly focus on achieveing technologic sovereingy without stepping on toes. Unlike US whose has to balance providing advanced allies both security and prosperity. It's increasingly unable to do the former in PRC's back yard and now the latter is being harvested/reshored to US soil

As for PRC's neighbourhood... was US at height of primacy threatened by Cuba / South America? There was some fucking around and finding out. Folks in the neighbour hood can see which way the winds are shifting. PRC's growing power has already pushed most of region into neutrality and hedging, while actual US alliances are giving nothing but platitudes - very little concrete actions that actually boostered US defense position within 1st island chain. Also PRC has massive blue water navy with expanding replenishment fleet, it just doesn't choose to project outside of 1st island chain much, but it does regularly. Aleutian Islands this week.

Lithium, ironically, is one of the few resources that the UK has plenty of.

https://inis.iaea.org/search/searchsinglerecord.aspx?records... (1987)

https://cornishstuff.com/2021/02/02/high-grade-of-lithium-fo... (2021)

Other things, like nickel, would be more problematic.

I think it's a huge stretch to say the two concepts aren't related.

To take the example of the military; we have the "military industrial complex" which is the collection of private companies that form the vital part of the state's war functions.

To become technologically sovereign will require a similar basket of private companies based in your own State, unless you expect the government to be capable of all of these tasks effectively itself. Think universities, chip designers, fabs, factories. This is also not an all or nothing choice - the absence of Lithium in the UK is not a good argument against considering strategically what aspects of the tech industry should be sovereign.

Exactly. And I would add, it is not about producing everything, but being able, if need be, to produce it. To have enough know how inland.

Also, it may be soon economically viable to harvest lithium from the ocean :)

"Technologically sovereign" means that a country is able to get the technologies it needs to achieve it's goals either internally or through alliances that don't create a "one-sided structural dependency." [1]

Saying that the UK isn't technologically sovereign is essentially saying that the UK has an undersized technology sector and doesn't have enough power to import effectively. On the flip side, you could view it as meaning that the UK has outsized geopolitical and economic ambitions given its size and technological capabilities.

[1]: https://olc.worldbank.org/system/files/Webinar%201-4_Present...

Flip side is more compelling.

I don't think loss of empire is an easy pill and takes generations to process. Different cultures cope differently. Would be interesting to hear from Turks (Ottoman) on this. Russians clearly are still not over their loss of standing. I remember scenes from BBC's spy shows (Smiley stuff) where old IC hands (recruited from elite colleges) lament and make ironic comments. British Empire was a big deal. Can you imagine the shock of dropping from that height? And you know, the brits have one quality that has always impressed me: they are irrepressible. They just don't give up. Really admire that.

p.s.

this is the moment of realization. You can see it on his face, sitting on his '[shorter] chair'. location is Tehran, Iran, 1943: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Tehran_C...

> To be honest I'm not sure any country apart from China stands any chance of becoming technologically sovereign.

IMHO, the US probably could manage it too: it has a big population and lots of natural resources. The reason it isn't is more of issue of ideology and will: it was far more technologically sovereign in the past than it is now, but chose to give that up so some investors could get more profits in the short-term. It's unlikely to change, since the ideologies that drove those choices are still strong.

I wonder what percentage of the population it was that made the decision to "choose to give it up".

A smaller percentage made the many impactful choices, a larger percentage went along with it. For example, some people have always been intently "buy American", most haven't been. Few if any "buy American" people were ever involved in or supportive of moving the jobs to China, India, Phillipines, or Mexico. And it'll be iffy as to whether they have 401(k) gains from the financiers' decisions to do the movement.

I don’t know what you call short term, because this has been decades in the making. I’d at least call it medium term.

The flip side is now the US is more competitive globally as the products can be priced as such, in addition to consumer price decreases. You also have the issue that most Americans don’t want the ultra low paying jobs necessary to build all this stuff, nor want the environmental damage from the mining.

So it’s not so simple as just some greedy evil villains we can point to.

I would say even China isn’t technologically sovereign, depending on how broad the definition of technology is.

As a general example, even the Chinese attempt at building a commercial airliner still uses Western engines and other avionics.

It's easy to be technologically sovereign: just give up any technologies you can't produce domestically. Isolated tribes in Papua New Guinea manage to be completely self-sufficient, to give an example.

What's impossible is staying at the technological forefront while being technologically sovereign.

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