TSMC told US of chip in Huawei product after TechInsights finding, source says
reuters.com
reuters.com
Have a part made in Japan, integrated into a product in the states but sold by someone in the UK to in France? you'll have to comply with Japan, US and UK laws.
Neat fact, the UK considers the Cisco C9200 switch to be a munition, because it has ipsec.
> Encryption items specifically designed, developed, configured, adapted or modified for military applications (including command, control and intelligence applications) are controlled by the Department of State on the United States Munitions List.
It was part of the whole crypto wars, and the lawsuit brought by Bernstein vs the United States.
See more:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...
The key phrase here is "specifically designed". We're talking about a commercial off the shelf router, not a piece of equipment designed for military applications. It falls squarely within Category 5 Part 2 of the EAR (which covers IT equipment generally), and so is explicitly excluded from the USML.
Consider the OP's example:
> Have a part made in Japan, integrated into a product in the states but sold by someone in the UK to in France? you'll have to comply with Japan, US and UK laws.
The reason all countries tediously ensure their laws are being followed is because, if they weren't, there'd be an obvious legal loophole: you could simply proxy export items to a country with different export restrictions -- and then all export restrictions would be worthless.
Having strict, slightly differing restrictions doesn’t seem to add anything extra of value? It’s pure downsides.
In New York, the Mob likes to control trucking and rail transport, because it allows them to get their fingers into anyone’s business.
Very easy to have a truck make a 20-minute detour into a hidden depot, where the contents are “inspected.” I know folks that used to work for those types of outfits, and the stories I’ve heard, tell me that the wiseguys are very smart. They know how to get around pretty much any tracking and verification system.
The more people have their hands on the product, the more likely it is to “fall off the truck.”
I was just hearing one of those stories, yesterday, about how someone figured out how to grab bespoke suits.
The prescription drug industry is a good (bad?) example.
Drug production is heavily regulated, as is final distribution (pharmacists), but intermediate distribution (bulk freight), is not. That’s where a lot of prescription medicine falls off trucks.
> It is unclear how the chip made its way to Huawei. In 2019, the company released its Ascend 910 chip series. At the time, prior to export controls, the chips were produced by TSMC, two sources told Reuters earlier this year.
The question of why the US has the right or power to tell TSMC, a Taiwanese company, who it is allowed to do business often comes up in these discussions. I've often seen the response that this is US technology, and that any country would apply similar controls to its own technologies. What I don't think people realize is that these sorts of "secondary" controls are very unusual, internationally.
The US imposes controls on goods manufactured abroad using US-made tools or intellectual property. This is a bit like the way that the GPL "infects" other projects, and forces them to abide by its terms, and to my knowledge, the US is the only country that does this (in any case, it's the only country doing this on such a large scale). If you think of how integrated the world economy is, these sorts of "infectious" controls are extremely disruptive.
It's actually China, where sales account for 29% of global semiconductor sales, compared to 26% for the Americas (NA & SA).
https://www.semiconductors.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/SI... (PDF)
These are not as frequent or detailed as the SIA reports, but they are another source for comparison.
You can also check import/export/re-export statistics by industry and country using the International Trade Centre's Trade Map tool: https://www.trademap.org/Index.aspx
This does not include goods that are produced and used domestically.
The world economy is tightly interconnected, so almost any economic activity anywhere on Earth has at least some incidental, indirect connection to the US (and to China, and to the EU). Imposing such a wide-ranging secondary sanctions regime is extremely disruptive, and it's viewed by other countries as an attack on their sovereignty. When Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, he effectively forced the EU to also renege on the deal, because US sanctions banned virtually every EU company from doing business with Iran. The EU could no longer determine its own trade and foreign policy with Iran.
The answer to this is probably for other countries that want to retain their sovereignty to impose retaliatory sanctions on the US when it targets their companies. The EU is not sufficiently politically unified to do this, though, and most other countries/blocs (except for China) don't have the heft to go one-on-one against the US.
I wouldn't hold your breath.
The US doesn't have to justify what it asks for, it does that as a convenience for Taiwanese politicians. Why it has the power is a historical question irrelevant to whether it has the power. Why it has the right? Rights are implemented with power.
Proving that the US is wrong according to some moral or rational standard is just an intellectual exercise.
I don't think history is necessary. With Apple alone being around 25% of their income [1], them losing a fraction of the money from the US would almost certainly be worse than losing whomever the US doesn't like at the moment.
But of course ultimately the US has guns and TSMC doesn't, and the US wouldn't accept this type of outcome.
As a simple example, how long would TSMC survive without new machines and support from ASML?
At which point TSMC would lose most of their customer base overnight.
US is a superpower not just because of guns but because it is a large economy with lots of innovative and globally significant companies.
For TSMC though, I think it's much more likely that if they didn't comply, the US navy would land marines in Taiwan to force them to comply
|In June 2023, the Netherlands' Institute for Human Rights ruled that despite the country's constitution prohibiting discrimination based on nationality, ASML was allowed to reject job applications from residents of countries subject to sanctions under the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (such as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria) in order to remain compliant with U.S. law.[46][47][48]
|In January 2024, the Dutch government placed further restrictions on the shipment of some advanced chip-making equipment to China.[49]On 6 September 2024, the Dutch government tightened export controls on certain ASML chipmaking equipment, aligning its policy with U.S. restrictions to limit China’s access to advanced technology amid safety and geopolitical concerns.[50]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding
The U.S. is definitely controlling where this tech goes.
Are you familiar with what the Taiwanese government is, how it came to be, and the current stance of the PRC towards that government?
These are legal mechanisms that dictate the behaviour of companies and are routinely imposed even when the company has no presence in the country. It is extremely common in the financial sectors e.g. AML/KYC.
Right now the EU for example has sanctions against Russia and Chinese entities.
Other countries impose sanctions, but "secondary" sanctions are very unusual. I don't know of any other country that imposes secondary sanctions on anywhere near the scale that the United States does. It is extremely unusual for countries other than the US to try to impose their own sanctions regimes on foreign companies operating outside their territory, based only on extremely incidental connections (like use of software written in the country imposing sanctions).
And a lot of other Konfuzius'que wisdoms I have to look up again...
And China has used secondary sanctions to prevent support for Taiwan.
Either way majority of US secondary sanctions has been for enforcing AML/KYC which other countries simply leverage instead of imposing their own system.
On the other hand, I'm unaware of any Chinese secondary sanctions. Maybe there's some example, but the fact that it's difficult to even find any examples illustrates my point: the US' extensive use of secondary sanctions is far beyond what any other country does.
The reason is because the US provides the brunt of security for Taiwan against China. The rule applies if you want continued access to our domestic market.
Taiwan is certainly an independent government welcome to pass its own laws and govern itself. But for military defense, the US has been in charge since the end of the civil war. The same is true of several other Pacific island nations.
The international relations of Taiwan is a non-issue because outside of Haiti I don't think anyone bothers to recognize them.
US Dollar hegemony. If a company is banned doing business in USD, no large banks will want to touch them.
It will be fine until it isn't anymore. China definitely is pushing hard to get the renminbi viewed as a global currency.
You are confusing current China with China a decade ago.
But in all seriousness, even though China's population is slowly shrinking, the population of highly educated people is growing.
GPL doesn't infect anything any more than any other licenses terms, because you don't have to use any software whose terms you don't like, whether those terms are cash per seat or give-as-was-given-to-you. I hear more 15 year old boy.
Due to the way lithography works, it isn't easy to make each die different. The usual way to put serial numbers into chips is with efuses, but not all chips have any efuses at all, and it would require collaboration with the customer to design a way that they be programmed and read (probably on a JTAG chain).
Either one time fuses and some software, or via directed beam energy fusible or breakable links.
Edit, yeah like the other comment suggested.