Now the USA is doing its business of conning and roping
in the Japanese and South Korean shipbuilders to build shipyards in the
USA to compete with China. After the horses have bolted, closing the
stable gates serves no purpose. The Japanese and South Koreans must be
dumb as lampposts to fall for such a gimmick. They are still licking
their wounded pride after having lost to the Chinese themselves.
Having
been beaten to play second fiddle by the Chinese, are the Japanese and
South Korean shipbuilders going to suffer a second clobbering by the
Chinese shipbuilders? They can try throwing money into a USA black hole,
like building semiconductor manufacturing plants in Arizona, knowing it
is an exercise in futility.
If they can revive their fortunes
in shipbuilding, why is there a need to go to the USA to do it, with
wages much higher in the USA and skilled shipbuilding manpower totally
absent. The USA does not even have a shipbuilding industry of its own,
having lost that to the Japanese and South Koreans, both of which
surrendered to the Chinese as well.
The USA is trying to flog a
dead horse, like in other sectors such as vehicles, renewable energy,
supply chains and even in innovations that they once reign supreme just a
decade or two ago. Trying to revive all these to overtake China once
again is just like revisiting the technique of how to make babies, LOL.
The
superiority in most sectors is already lost for the USA, with making
wars the only sector that the USA is still ahead. But that may not be
for long once the US$ hegemony ends.
Anonymous
The Japanese and South Koreans love jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The fact that they fell for the USA's trap of luring them to Arizona to invest billions in chip manufacturing, to be able to sell only in the USA, is already testament to their short-sighted thinking. They should know that being friends with the USA means having to follow their dictates, no escaping the iron chains around their necks.
ReplyDeleteMorris Chang, the TSMC founder clearly mentioned that investing in Arizona was a very big mistake for TSMC. Chip foundries main requirements are many, and among that are lots of perfectly clean water, which Arizona clearly lacks. The water in that region is shared by many competing states and allotted by agreements. Which is more important when residential use is on the line and competing with factories over scarce resources? Let us wait for the residents to decide among themselves when the shit hits the fan.
The second problem is such expansion of the chip manufacturing sector clearly lacks the skilled engineers in the USA to run the plants and engineers have to be imported from Taiwan, resulting in many other problems such as wages differential and working conditions. The projects are failing even before they are in full production.
Another problem is the Chinese market, that will be closed to them in terms of price competitiveness and China's plan to migrate to domestic chips. Such expansion of chip production in the USA needs a market like China. The stark reality is clearly not good for TSMC, Samsung and others, and even for domestic USA chip manufacturers. They killed the goose that laid the golden eggs themselves. Now it is only what the Chinese use to say 'chee tang' left or chicken eggs which means zero or nothing.
For Japanese and South Korean shipbuilders going to set up shipyards in USA just to cater to the USA's military requirements is a stretch too far. They cannot survive on that alone, and cannot compete on the global market against Chinese shipbuilders. Will they take the bait?
The USA does not need to rope in the Japanese and South Koreans. These two cronies already have iron chains round their necks. They will obey or else...
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