Suit to Ban Police Bodycams with Chinese Chips from the DNC and Political Events
politico.com
politico.com
The DIU is also beginning to push companies to start using cleared vendors for subcomponents from the US and allied countries [0] due to similar concerns.
Commodity modems have publicly been a vector of attack on the radar of NATO+ for at least a decade now [1] (but unofficially since the mid-2000s after Bloomberg's initial expose [2]), and sparked the initial impetus around "Supply Chain Security" and "Secure Enclaves".
[0] - https://www.diu.mil/blue-uas
[1] - https://ccdcoe.org/uploads/2018/10/Art-16-Attacking-the-Base...
[2] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-10-01/dangerous...
I saw this not out of any sympathy for China, but rather out of frustration that too many US-founded companies are now a shell with entirely foreign development and foreign manufacturing. They rest on a mighty reputation built over decades by American workers that are all now long laid off and/or dead.
There are numerous examples ranging from fortune 50 companies all the way down… For example, take “Oregon Scientific” — I’d bet they haven’t employed a US engineer in 25 years! They can’t even claim their headquarters to be in the US!
It’s not even about acquisitions. Look at job postings of any US tech company. Pick a WiFi router company — are there development jobs in the US or elsewhere? Or pick something more critical like Virtualization software — same story.
That decoupling has begun happening for around a decade now in regulated industries - especially anything Defense or Defense Adjacent.
That said, there are different value chains with differing levels of urgency, and there is a need to differentiate between them.
For consumer and commodity products, continued R&D with China is fine nor is there an active need to rapidly decouple aside from as a negotiating tactic over anticompetitive behavior by Chinese players supported by a mix of federal and local governments. That said, there is an organic decoupling happening for around a decade now due to the 2015 recession, the SK-China Trade War (2017), the Japan-China Trade War (2014), the Taiwan-China Trade War (2013), the harshness of Zero COVID (a factory could get shut down for a month if even a single employee was found to be COVID positive! and higher operating costs that lead manufacturers and capital those countries to return to India, Indonesia, and Phillipines, and enter Vietnam (a major reason for their decade of 7% GDP growth).
For the defense and regulated supply chain, there is an active need to decouple, and this already started under Obama 1 and continues under Trump and Biden. Also, the supply chain for this industry remained in the wider NATO+ due to higher margins being able to support manufacturing, development, and compliance.
This is starting to remind me of WW1 when they banned music because it was written by German composers.
Absolutely laughable.
Ban everything made in China or with Chinese parts and civilisation collapses. Actually, ..... that wouldn't be a bad thing at all.