I can't help but feel that not supplying processors to the "National University of Defense Technology" is basically a textbook use of export regs?
I don't really understand why people are complaining about this one?
I don't really understand why people are complaining about this one?
Furthermore, by denying Intel chips in such a high profile manner, this will likely cause all sorts of antagonization, and reduce the ability to pressure/guide Chinese growth and development in directions that are more beneficial for American/Western interests.
It also won't be a scenario that China hasn't planned for. The reason that China's been building up its chipmakers over the last few years is for precisely this scenario; reducing the reliance on American tech. They've been doing this quite successfully; Cisco now aren't able to do business with the Chinese government, iirc.
Lastly, Tianhe-2 was a $400 million computer. The decision to block American collaboration on a project valued at a considerable fraction of $1 billion isn't made by some office clerk; it will have been considered at the highest levels of at least the military, but most likely the government in general.
It's a diplomatic maneuvre specifically designed to hurt China. Intel's just been caught in the crossfire. They could easily be pacified (for example, by giving them a supercomputer contract in the US).
In terms of the Chinese reaction, antagonization is probably the point.
> By the time I became NSA director in the late 1990s, however, the calculation was no longer that simple. We still wanted an MTOPS advantage, of course, but we were fast realizing that our preferred limits were undermining the global competitiveness of the U.S. computer industry — the very industry on which we relied for our success. It was becoming clear that the overall health of that industry was more important than any MTOPS advantage against a specific target country. We still insisted on limits with regard to places such as Cuba and North Korea, but we became far more forgiving elsewhere.
This, of course, had a powerful, positive commercial impact, but the NSA didn’t flip its position for commercial reasons. We did it for security reasons. On balance, this change made us stronger, not weaker, over the long haul, since retarding exports would inevitably retard the technological progress that was both our economic and our security lifeblood.
That early lesson has caused me to continue to challenge arguments that technological protectionism furthers national security. It might, but then again, it could have the opposite effect if it freezes development, alienates allies, feeds distrust or invites the creation of similar barriers abroad. I would recommend these broader considerations to those in the U.S. security enterprise with responsibility for evaluating these trade-offs today.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-let-america-be-b...
Which tells me that either the doctrine has changed in the last 10 years, or that this deal doesn't fit into his model, or that this is a diplomatic maneuvre. My guess is one of the latter two, although I could be wrong.
The world we live in is far from free market, for everything from solar panels to textiles [0].
A really obvious place in which one might actually want the opposite of a free market is in military tech.
Exporting the tech behind a computer that'll presumably be used for mostly military purposes is something that could be expected to be frowned upon in certain circumstances.
[0] - http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-launches-new-trade-challenge...
But still be the main sponsor of various terrorist organizations.
However, that's a different story. The thing that is upsetting here though it is that this is about a country with a legit, well-respected government, that is not known for violent anti-Americanism, etc. Oh and the population-wise biggest country in the world, often considered the only competitor to the US.
I think that's a big deal.