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Comment by Havoc | Hacker News Reader

I really just hope consumers will have access to both sides.

I know people freak out about hardware backdoors but some of the cheap tech coming out of China sure is cool

The cheap tech (the cool stuff at least) is massively subsidized by the CCP which is attempting to enter the market. Normal strategy but it will not and can not last.

That won't be that cheap for long though (and I don't see that as a bad thing either)

Looking at Huawei or Xiaomi goods, the quality is there and the prices are also getting noticeably higher accordingly.

Agreed though the availability of both would keep prices low by virtue of competition

They won't, for the same reason the USSR didn't. The people making these chinese goods are part of the government. They're also part of a government that will literally kill them if they're not the best at everything, and of course they will fuck up some bits. So they will outlaw access to foreign technology, to hide how they're "embarassing the Chinese state".

Because totalitarian ideologies ... they can't fix reality, but they can certainly fix the appearance of reality and make the people judging THEM only observe a fixed reality.

Plus this is something that "infects" everything. If there is ONE western thing the CCP wants to hide from Chinese, they'll have to cut access to a LOT of western products just to hide a few small things they really don't want to get out (better ballpoint pens in the west perhaps?). It's funny how this starts too. Like in the USSR, in China when it started it was more-or-less positive. They outlawed better products and celebrated chinese industry catching up. Needless to say, they're a government. The focus has shifted to just outlawing better products, and now they're really more often destroying people who help chinese industry catch up, because ... that does the absolute #1 forbidden thing: it gives the wrong politicians a leg up over others. It gives, to be exact, random politicians a leg up over others ... which of course quickly gets a wrong one.

Hopefully it'll only mean Chinese people never see western products, unless specific products the party wants them to use. Hopefully we'll retain access to Chinese goods.

Though of course, it'll rapidly become INCREDIBLY rewarding for anyone with a great idea to run to the west. In the west, you'll get a great job at the very least. Idea great enough? You get to be rich. You stay in China with a great idea? You get killed ...

That is what the West tells itself and God I wish that was true.

I don't quite share your pessimism.

Two choice seem preferable over 1 choice even if the one is subject to state interference. (and lets be real here US side interferes a lot too - see sanctions & restrictions).

>hide how they're "embarassing the Chinese state".

You assume there will be something to be embarassed about. Given current trajectory I'm more concerned about the opposite. Western side getting left in the dust in say a decade.

It seems strange to label Intel + AMD + Qualcomm + ARM + TI + NVIDIA + Samsung + Fujitsu + etc as "1 choice".

Even on the Chinese side I assume it's more than just SMIC (or whatever the big one is over there).

I meant in the context of ecosystems. A bit like Android vs iPhone even if there are lots of different android devices.

In the long run I expect the two will diverge - whether its by standards, architecture or compatibility.

Spoken like someone with no clue about China apart from social media. Talk to any Chinese entrepreneur and you'll know the competition is much more strong and ruthless than in West. Even for capital intensive high tech industries like EV and mobile you'll find more companies than rest of world put together.

Well, I've talked to two important Chinese officials (important enough to be in the "Hall of the People", but nobody you would know), and both were of this opinion. The CCP tolerates ZERO mistakes from it's officials. Merely not making any mistakes is not enough, it's just table stakes. Like passing the exam.

One can certainly hope that!

People “freak out” for good reason.

People need to understand just how insidious the communist party’s methods are.

Do you have any idea about the US's methods? You may want to pick up a history book to see how insidious the American methods are.

This doesn't make the CCP's methods any less insidious.

Sure, if you compare a pickpocket with a rapist, the pickpocket is still bad.

Yeah, lets make sure the cheap gadgets made under a socio-political system we consider abusive keep coming.

At this point there is no alternative. We need their production capacity so the wheels back home can keep on spinning.

I know you are speaking the truth, at present, but that doesn't mean it is healthy, or that we must accept it as the inevitable future.

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