[briandh]

>>Assembling high tech iPhone components

>My Xiaomi is pretty much every bit as good as an iPhone and 1/4 the cost.

Without taking Simonh's "side" here, you are missing his point, which is that the high-quality screens and advanced ICs are overwhelmingly designed and manufactured outside of China, especially in the countries he listed.

Even a low-end Xiaomi model uses a MediaTek (Taiwanese) SoC fabbed by TSMC (Taiwanese).

China may be moving toward more domestic production of such components, e.g., with modems and SoCs by Spreadtrum; SoCs by AllWinner, RockChip, AmLogic, etc.; or fabbing by SMIC. (On the other hand, I'm not aware of a major Chinese manufacturer of DRAM, NAND, or smartphone displays, for instance. I'd be interested in hearing about them if anybody knows of some.)

In other words, to counter him, it's not sufficient simply to show a Xiaomi phone; you must also show a BOM for one with primarily Chinese parts. As far as I know, one does not exist.

[agersant]

Well, Taiwan is arguably China.

[seanmcdirmid]

Taiwan de facto is its own government and has laws against fabbing in china, as do most countries in that region.

[crdoconnor]

It is getting much closer to falling under the Chinese sphere of influence as American military dominance in the Pacific wanes and China's increases. I expect it to be gradually swallowed up Hong Kong style in the next couple of decades.

America's 'promise' to protect it will likely be quietly withdrawn.

Either that or we will go to war.

[seanmcdirmid]

China's bullying of their neighbors has been the best thing for American dominance in the region since winning the Spanish American war. Even Vietnam likes them now. .

[crdoconnor]

Vietnam has liked America more for decades. However, being liked more by Vietnam does not translate to military dominance over the Pacific.

Chinese fleet is increasing in size and the US pacific fleet is shrinking.

Also: what did the US have to say about China claiming most of the South China sea as its own? Virtually nothing. That wouldn't have been the case even a decade ago.

[seanmcdirmid]

China still doesn't have much of a navy, they definitely don't have a blue seas navy yet anywhere compared to the USA or even the Japanese sdf. Ya, the us is going from 100 to 90 while china is going from 1 to 2.

And that's not even the point: they don't want to go against china directly, there is too much integration. But they definitely want to sell some boats to Vietnam. So the next time china wants to go at it with Vietnam, they will be on a more equal footing.