Where silk and gunpowder went one way, semiconductors may be going the other.
丝绸和火药是一个方向，而半导体可能是另一个方向。

Fair trade for gunpowder?Photographer: James Park/Bloomberg 火药的公平交易？

By Bobby Ghosh 鲍比-戈什 2023年9月6日

China Knows All About IP Theft

中国对知识产权盗窃了如指掌

Marco Polo, industrial spy.Source: MPI via Getty Images工业间谍马可-波罗

Through much of history, the Western world took — by stealth or strength — Chinese knowhow. The secrets of making paper, silk, porcelain and other staples of modern life leaked out of the Middle Kingdom, despite rigorous attempts by emperors and mandarins to preserve the intellectual property rights. Why then, asks Howard Chua-Eoan, should we now be surprised if the process is reversed?
在历史上的大部分时间里，西方世界或隐蔽或强势地攫取了中国的专有技术。造纸、丝绸、瓷器和其他现代生活必需品的秘密从中原流出，尽管皇帝和吏员们竭力维护知识产权。Howard Chua-Eoan 问道，那么为什么我们现在要对这一过程的逆转感到惊讶呢？

In a sign that Beijing is making progress in circumventing US efforts to contain semiconductor technology, Huawei Technologies Co. and China’s top chipmaker have built an advanced 7-nanometer processor for the Mate 60 Pro smartphone. The Kirin 9000s chip was fabricated in China by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., according to a teardown of the handset that TechInsights conducted for Bloomberg News. And this may only be the thin end of the wedge: With the Chinese government raising $40 billion to support homegrown manufacturing, better (and thinner) chips are inevitable.
华为技术有限公司和中国顶级芯片制造商为 Mate 60 Pro 智能手机制造了一款先进的 7 纳米处理器，这表明中国政府在规避美国遏制半导体技术的努力方面正在取得进展。根据 TechInsights 为彭博新闻社进行的手机拆解，麒麟 9000s 芯片由中芯国际集成电路制造有限公司在中国制造。这可能只是楔子的一端：随着中国政府筹集 400 亿美元支持本土制造业，更好（更薄）的芯片将不可避免。

This will raise eyebrows at Apple, which would like to maintain its substantial technological edge over Huawei. But it also poses a challenge to the Joe Biden administration, which has made a priority of keeping cutting-edge technology from getting into Chinese hands, driven in large part by fears it could be used to boost Beijing’s military capabilities.
这将引起苹果公司的关注，因为苹果公司希望保持其相对于华为的巨大技术优势。但这也对乔-拜登（Joe Biden）政府提出了挑战，拜登政府一直优先考虑防止尖端技术落入中国手中，这在很大程度上是因为担心这些技术可能会被用于提高中国的军事能力。

History suggests this is a fool’s errand. The US “can always tighten its sanctions regimes and strengthen the safeguards to slow the proliferation,” says Chua-Eoan. “But commerce will almost always force out technological secrets.”
历史表明，这是痴人说梦。Chua-Eoan说，美国 "总是可以收紧制裁制度，加强保障措施，以减缓扩散"。"但商业几乎总是会泄露技术秘密"。