trsttteThere's a big difference here which is Taiwan isn't recognized as a real country by most other countries including the UN (only 14 countries recognized it out of 193, none "big power houses"). Taiwan is a disputed terroritory and as long as it doesn't make too much waves about it nothing will happen (most polls in the country point towards the wish to maintain the status quo, nether join China nor have independence).

Some analists also predict that after seeing the united western response to Russia's unprovocked attack on Ukraine they'd be a bit more cautious in any attempt at reunification (which will happen eventually and there are some grounds for as long as it follows proper channels and diplomatic processes)

@TheLostSwede if China invades you can come stay with me in America mate, I live near the five great lakes, bring some TSMC folk with ya, we will do pop up 3d printed housing for all of ya on some cheap midwest land, then we will build 2nm factory together, unlimited fresh water for the lads to live out their hearts desires in silicon making. and when we make our first 2nm chip together, we will make video like Mel Gibson in Braveheart pull down our trousers and show our right asses as we bend over and tell China to kiss it with their 12nm nodes still, LOL

DristunThe delusional take that refuses to die in the west. Worked out so well in Iran and some other places, right?

I am both saddened and amused at how accurate this is.

Let me offer perspective on this from the west though. The largest bastion of Communism was the Soviet Union. During the cold war the US represented the western ideals of democracy and capitalism, while the eastern ideal of communism united the Soviet Union. Between the two, which of these things is still around today? You'll note that reasonably the US won...and that's largely how the discussion was framed for the longest time.

Let me next suggest that the track record of very large governments trying to foment capitalism has subsequently had an interesting history. There is no one outcome, and it's led to things like North/South Korea, South America, and the Taiwanese and Mainland China situations. Heck, it's almost like the politics is so complicated that literally hundreds of books can and have been written about why each situation turned out the way it did...if those situations aren't still evolving.


Now, let me suggest why there's optimism in the west for people overthrowing what they believe as unfair governance. The US did it to Britain for taxation without representation. Taiwan did it after their founding, and are now a democracy. Europe did it years ago, when they switched from monarchies to democracy. These are powerful and fundamental examples, but all are so deeply engrained in the west that they form the core of our belief systems. Good>>Bad. The difficult part is defining what is bad...
On the other hand, the Russian identity is less about believing in an amorphous good, and more about observing reality. The common statement here is that it's depressing, but I'd further that it's realistic ahead of any sugar coating. In very simplistic terms, the west is optimistic leaning toward realistic while the east is realistic leaning towards pessimistic. It's very difficult to wrap your brain around that base identity, but once you do it's very difficult to not see why people are motivated as they are.



Now, getting back on track. The discussion is about sanctions. The west generally believes you cut off the supply of goods, people get angry, and the force of their anger makes political change happen. One of the Russians I knew back in Germany put it differently. He stated that sanctions only work when they make life miserable for the ruling class, because anything less is rapidly adopted as standard life if there's no way to change it. In many governmental structures, the people have little individual agency to change anything.
The hope would be that sanctions on luxury goods, like chips, does make it difficult for the rich. That said, these statements are not about that...they're about signaling that Intel and AMD aren't a part of the problem...which is fundamentally wrong-headed. That said, sometimes statements aren't about being right, so much as stating that you are doing the "right thing" for those who support you the most. Politics aside, losing 0.1% of the semiconductor sales in the world is nothing compared to being black balled from business in the west. Framed as such, these statements are abundantly clear in intent.

Hi,
Yep love these symbolic jesters
Overpriced chips/ vodka/.... keep them coming.

They bombed a nuclear plant so now power is being turned off voluntarily so the bombing was effective.

lilhasselhofferI am both saddened and amused at how accurate this is.

Let me offer perspective on this from the west though. The largest bastion of Communism was the Soviet Union. During the cold war the US represented the western ideals of democracy and capitalism, while the eastern ideal of communism united the Soviet Union. Between the two, which of these things is still around today? You'll note that reasonably the US won...and that's largely how the discussion was framed for the longest time.

Let me next suggest that the track record of very large governments trying to foment capitalism has subsequently had an interesting history. There is no one outcome, and it's led to things like North/South Korea, South America, and the Taiwanese and Mainland China situations. Heck, it's almost like the politics is so complicated that literally hundreds of books can and have been written about why each situation turned out the way it did...if those situations aren't still evolving.


Now, let me suggest why there's optimism in the west for people overthrowing what they believe as unfair governance. The US did it to Britain for taxation without representation. Taiwan did it after their founding, and are now a democracy. Europe did it years ago, when they switched from monarchies to democracy. These are powerful and fundamental examples, but all are so deeply engrained in the west that they form the core of our belief systems. Good>>Bad. The difficult part is defining what is bad...
On the other hand, the Russian identity is less about believing in an amorphous good, and more about observing reality. The common statement here is that it's depressing, but I'd further that it's realistic ahead of any sugar coating. In very simplistic terms, the west is optimistic leaning toward realistic while the east is realistic leaning towards pessimistic. It's very difficult to wrap your brain around that base identity, but once you do it's very difficult to not see why people are motivated as they are.



Now, getting back on track. The discussion is about sanctions. The west generally believes you cut off the supply of goods, people get angry, and the force of their anger makes political change happen. One of the Russians I knew back in Germany put it differently. He stated that sanctions only work when they make life miserable for the ruling class, because anything less is rapidly adopted as standard life if there's no way to change it. In many governmental structures, the people have little individual agency to change anything.
The hope would be that sanctions on luxury goods, like chips, does make it difficult for the rich. That said, these statements are not about that...they're about signaling that Intel and AMD aren't a part of the problem...which is fundamentally wrong-headed. That said, sometimes statements aren't about being right, so much as stating that you are doing the "right thing" for those who support you the most. Politics aside, losing 0.1% of the semiconductor sales in the world is nothing compared to being black balled from business in the west. Framed as such, these statements are abundantly clear in intent.

Russian oligarchs are safe in Maldives at the moment living the good life on their yachts, until America grows some balls and says fuck it and just seizes those yachts anyway, the oligarchs won't change their ways. I mean what's the Maldives gonna do, whats point of having greatest navy in world if we dont use it when we need it? Maldives might ban us from vacationing there? good riddance, plenty of other nice places to go anyway. UN might slap us on the wrist, but I doubt it, lol

America plays by the rules to often, and no other country does, and they only get slapped on the wrist when they dont. even when the dust settles from all of this, Russia will "negotiate" and things will go back to normal since he controls the energy for a lot of the west.

Russia cannot openly buy them from 3rd parties - Intel and AMD will threaten and cut off local distributors. Even China is going to listen, Western money is worth much more.
Obviously there will be under the table deals and smuggling, but the issue is that Russia is big and has big needs - hidden deals and black market cannot possibly cower all of them, not to mention prices are going to have a big markup. Plus they also lost Taiwan as such - bye bye Elbrus and Baikals - because those too were made at TSMC.

Hi,
Not sure if Russia openly sells arms to middle east/............. but I'm sure third parties will be willing to do it for them for a mild fee.

ZeppMan217To all those saying that Russia will simply buy from 3rd parties, like China or India: Russians will have to convert their continuously crashing Ruble into USD or Euro, then pay a premium for the services of the 3rd party, and then pay for the hardware itself. This chain makes procurement of PC components for small companies nigh impossible, let alone for ordinary Russians who will simply not be able to afford anything.

We (India) have a Ruble-Rupee trade-agreement that cuts out the USD (and IIRC China has something similar), but mostly agree.

btarunrWe (India) have a Ruble-Rupee trade-agreement that cuts out the USD (and IIRC China has something similar), but mostly agree.

I'm aware but...


...Not sure how that's gonna help.

More graphics cards for the rest of us?

Don't have time for quoting everyone, so let me be very-very clear. I am writing this post while russian tanks are being actively destroyed just outside my hometown(within walking distance from my house, to be more specific). Artillery is blasting since early morning. It's hard for me to make my post "apolitical". Saying "it's not fair to regular russian people" is a fucking hypocrisy. Ukrainian people did not ask to get bombed or invaded either, so tighten your belts and brace for even worse to come.

In regards to the topic: it's more than that. TSMC won't supply Russia either, which means their glorified strategy of "import-replacement" is doomed because Elbrus was manufactured in Taiwan, and МЦСТ was on the brink of bankruptcy since 2020 (more so after govt demanded to return a big part of their subsidies). Even Minpromtorg called the entire ordeal "a failure".
Baikal is also doomed. They've just switched to ARM architecture (which they no longer can license), and they are/were also manufactured at TSMC (which obviously is no longer the case).
I'll try to keep my head cold and give my quick prognosis: in the "best case scenario"(or the most unrealistically-optimistic) is that China will eventually be able to start mass-manufacturing 1st gen ZEN clones and sell limited qty to Russia, along with existing ARM and RISC-V based products from companies like Allwinner & Rockchip. Worst case - back to old 90nm domestic designs, and even that is under question, since they bought barely enough equipment from STM to manufacture prototypes and engineering samples. Domestic mass-manufacturing is still impossible.

ppnrus are building xeon systems from ali-ex so.... and who cares about the overpriced money grabbing soon to be obsolete last gens stop gap filler.

There's a limited supply of those, and believe it or not, China also has scalpers. As soon as demand outgrows supply - prices will adjust accordingly (assuming China keeps its "neutral" status).
Another big deal is reputation. Even with all the beef with US and EU they still have the majority of their export in the west. Russia accounts only for a tiny fraction of the entire Chinese market. Siding with NATO on this occasion may even benefit them, since they will likely become a middlemen in natural resource trade and can perform a little sneeky-breeky magic around export sanctions to have a de-facto monopoly on electronics and automotive markets, and dictate their terms to the dictator (pun absolutely intended). All they need is to formally, but openly support the rest of the world.

they will get processor from china anyway

R-T-BYou need money to buy things. At the rate the Ruble is crashing, that may prove limiting.

Ruble devaluation is the only thing these sanctions could achieve and it's quite a short lived achievement . Exchange rates will be reajusted and ultimately this will push alot of countries around the world to seek for dollar independence. Not to mention all the levers in Kremlins disposal to retaliate with much more impactfull and long lived measures on European and ultimately transatlantic economy . Those sanctions are a snake that will bite it's rear :

TheLostSwedeActually, India is trying to work out a system where Russia can use rupees to do trade. The PRC doesn't seem particularly interested at this point.

Greatly disagree , PRC has never been closer to Russia and both share the same ambition , end US/dollar hegemony , this is a chance China can't afford to miss . It is clear that both parties have huge interest in combining SPFS and CIPS .

While a fair bit of it is a publicity stunt, there is still the fact that not doing so would require AMD and Intel jump through extra hoops to prove they're not actively selling hardware that could potentially end up in Russian military or military-adjunct hardware, on top of also having to either cripple or limit their product stack to comply with restrictions on certain high-performance computing elements. Basically, it's just cheaper to not sell than to jump through the hoops for a bit more cash.

From a slightly morbid point of view though, this would slightly increase availability to other regions. Even if China could serve as the middleman to Russia, the Ruble is borderline worthless at the moment, and I doubt the Russian government would even attempt to buy any, much less the more financially strapped Russian citizens. On Russia's end, they'll probably be looking in trying to improve their Elbrus CPUs in order to at least have an in-house "competitor" and continuing with their attempts to fork a custom Linux OS to replace Windows (last I recall, Russia didn't have much success replacing Windows on certain critical systems). The problem with that though is that they don't have the money anymore to continue R&D, much less pay the workers (unless they restart Soviet Sweatshops with food as pay).

awesomesaucethey will get processor from china anyway

big things sure, but processors, this is just for show, it wouldn't even be very difficult to buy whatever they wanted when they wanted it

RH92Ruble devaluation is the only thing these sanctions could achieve and it's quite a short lived achievement . Exchange rates will be reajusted and ultimately this will push alot of countries around the world to seek for dollar independence. Not to mention all the levers in Kremlins disposal to retaliate with much more impactfull and long lived measures on European and ultimately transatlantic economy . Those sanctions are a snake that will bite it's rear :

You are massively underestimating the damage this is going to do longterm to Russia. They can close off from the world and turn to China yes, but make no mistake, that will be of limited use. China is not a substitute for a global economy.

R-T-BYou are massively underestimating the damage this is going to do longterm to Russia.

like Puting gives a *****, it will mostly hurt the Russian people

Bomby569like Puting gives a *****, it will mostly hurt the Russian people

He most certainly does. He cares about this not being "as easy as he'd hoped." He had to shutoff all non-state run media as of late. This sorts of things send signals that something is up in Russia (many of the stations closed with the classic "Swan Lake" ballad, which any russian knows means trouble, google itif you don't know the signifigance).

He cares, because this makes him look weak. And that makes him more angry, which is precisely why this whole situtation is precarious, to say the least. Putin is a man who doesn't know how to deescalate.

VeseleiloWhat an embarrassingly ignorant parallel. Indeed, but from you. Comparing any Russian leader with a Nazi founder is so pathetic, ignorant and outrageous at the same time. Well over 20 million Russians died in WWII fighting Nazis. I could go on...

So, Putin, the guy following Hitler's playbook, can't be a Nazi, because Russians were fighting Nazis 80 years ago? Can you post an even dumber take?

R-T-BHe most certainly does. He cares about this not being "as easy as he'd hoped." He had to shutoff all non-state run media as of late. This sorts of things send signals that something is up in Russia (many of the stations closed with the classic "Swan Lake" ballad, which any russian knows means trouble, google it if you don't know the signifigance).

He cares, because this makes him look weak. And that makes him more angry, which is precisely why this whole situtation is precarious, to say the least. Putin is a man who doesn't know how to deescalate.

what would made him look weak was backtracking, that's what we will never do. Sanctions won't change that, or anything in Russia.

We had to do it, but they accomplish nothing.

PumperSo, Putin, the guy following Hitler's playbook, can't be a Nazi, because Russians were fighting Nazis 80 years ago? Can you post an even dumber take?

Hey, this whole war started with trying to "Denazify" the Ukrainian Goverment, whose Presisdent is Jewish. Go figure.

PumperSo, Putin, the guy following Hitler's playbook, can't be a Nazi, because Russians were fighting Nazis 80 years ago? Can you post an even dumber take?

Nazis were Nazis, Putin is Putin, the compare everything to Nazis is always dumb, and it's dumb here.

Bomby569We had to do it, but they accomplish nothing.

They blunt Russias ability to wage this war and future wars. I don't see how that's nothing.

R-T-BHe most certainly does. He cares about this not being "as easy as he'd hoped." He had to shutoff all non-state run media as of late. This sorts of things send signals that something is up in Russia (many of the stations closed with the classic "Swan Lake" ballad, which any russian knows means trouble).

He cares, because this makes him look weak. And that makes him more angry, which is precisely why this whole situtation is precarious, to say the least. Putin is a man who doesn't know how to deescalate.

And for as much as he banned BBC for example, they don't have the kind of control over the local internet like China has, give it enough time and enough people will revolt and take him down (if one of his cronies doesn't do it first).

We're not in the 70' or 80' where access to information was scarse. Everyone has a cellphone, there's several millions of Russians that fled in the past that can and are calling their families, there's no way this ends well for Putin

Bomby569the compare everything to Nazis is always dumb, and it's dumb here.

It's not dumb when they literally are acting like nazis.

Godwins law doesn't apply to actual nazi like behavior. Godwin himself clarified that.

trsttteAnd for as much as he banned BBC for example, they don't have the kind of countrol over the local internet like China has, give it enough time and enough people will revolt and take him down (if one of his cronies doesn't do it first).

We're not in the 70' or 80' where access to information was scarse. Everyone has a cellphone, there's several millions of Russians that fled in the past that can and are calling their families, there's no way this ends well for Putin

That would be the best case, but I have doubts it will be easy.

R-T-BIt's not dumb when they literally are acting like nazis.

Godwins law doesn't apply to actual nazi like behavior. Godwin himself clarified that.

That gives all sorts of arguments like the ones being made here. Why can't he just be Putin, or Stalin (just as bad as Hitler)?