Comments by "shazmosushi" (@shazmosushi) on "Asianometry" channel.

  1. "In January 1979, Disney CEO Donn Tatum sent a paper email via post" 😂
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  2. "At the risk of being made an idiot later, I am saying that I don’t believe that any superconductor-based computer will become commercially competitive at any time in the future." We'll see if your quote ages better than Lord Kelvin's quote: "I think it cannot be done. No balloon and no aeroplane will ever be practically successful."
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  3. Ahh Cold War geopolitics: this is really some OG Asianometry content. Longest video the channel ever made too!?
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  4. 6:29 Reminds me of the rocket launch industry. Funny how in that industry, Boeing has become a slow incompetent incumbent being the prime contractor for the multibillion dollar pork program: the SLS (Space Launch System) super heavy lift rocket, and the Starliner capsule. Though many argue that Boeing is also the incompetent incumbent even when it comes to passenger jets. See the failures in development of the now-grounded 737 MAX. Most see the turning point as when engineering-driven Boeing buying the finance-driven McDonnell Douglas. What ended up happening is all the finance management replaced the Boeing management. Which was great for the share price, bad for engineering and quality.
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  5. An excellent introduction to the operation of the Great Firewall of China, a major component in China's broader internet censorship system called the "Golden Shield Project". Great work! I hope more people signup to your excellent early-access tier on Patreon. I think this channel is going places!
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  6. If viewers liked this video I recommend this channel's "TSMC - Essays" playlist.
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  7. From a human rights perspective, Xi forcibly imprisoned a mere 2 million Uyghers in his 8 years in office while the estimates are that Mao killed 40-80 million people during his leadership. To be fair, Mao's assumed power in 1949, so 8 years into his rule was still prior to the 1958 Great Leap Forward and the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. It will take at least another 20 more years to make a fair comparison on whether Mao or Xi has the larger impact on China's population and their human rights.
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  8. I am a supporter of the free market and the general principles of comparative advantage (eg, not every country needs to build their own cars), so its interesting when the government of a country like Taiwan kickstarts a semiconductor industry (see Asianometry's video "How Taiwan Created TSMC") and ends up succeeding so much it doesn't just no longer require state subsidies but dominates the industry globally.
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  9. Are you planning on covering Gigabyte Technologies? They make great computer motherboards, just like ASUS. And do manufacturing in Taiwan too!
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  10. I'm glad that even as your channel grows you're continuing to make random history videos that interest you, even though they tend to get fewer views compared to the other topics you cover
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  11. If anybody wants a 15 minute firehose of information about China's older Long March (Chang Zheng) series of rockets, I highly recommend checking out Scott Manley's video titled "Every Chinese Rocket Design Explained!"
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  12. 8:24 The bamboo ceiling concept is an interesting concept that I should probably read more about (starting with the Wikipedia article). By the way, it might be a good video idea too. It seems like most of the worlds best technology companies have leaders who are classified by the US government as "Asian": CEO of AMD Lisa Su (Taiwanese American), Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (Indian American), Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai of Google (Indian American) and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (Taiwanese American, though he was a co-founder so didn't get promoted into his position). Side note: there's actually a really long list of notable leaders on the (hilariously named) Wikipedia pages "List of Taiwanese Americans" and "List of Asian Americans". Lol, it does not appear to be an exhaustive list, but it's a start. Of course the fact that so many companies have leadership (and middle management) being Asian American does not preclude racism and discrimination of course. The Asian American immigrant leaders I've listed spent their childhood in the United States and "speak" American both culturally and linguistically. Perhaps some individuals may be brought up in a way that looks down upon eg, being a "mover and a shaker" and "rocking the boat", which perhaps may not be well suited for being promoted to leadership roles in technology (at least in the typical American business context). All that said, when it comes to measuring racism you need to look at proportions of populations and do statistical analysis: Asian Americans are underrepresented in leadership roles by education, but over represented by percentage of population.
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  13. For viewers with less background knowledge around semiconductor fabs, Global Foundries was spun out of chip designer AMD -- the underdog that has been the second source supplier for Intel chips since the 1980s. AMD briefly beat Intel chips in performance during the early-2000s with the AMD Athlon, and again in the late-2010s with Ryzen-chips based on the Zen architecture (a performance crown AMD holds to this day). Switching to the advanced TSMC manufacturing process obviously improved chip performance, but the Zen architecture helped greatly. AMD was bleeding money in the early 2010s, so spinning off Global Foundries provided a key cash injection. As did the short-sighted technology transfer to China as part of the THATIC and Hygon joint ventures (which fortunately for AMD appears to have been wasted on China's end). Meanwhile Intel is floundering with its semiconductor manufacturing, and unlike its competitors is not a pure-play foundry that manufactures billions of smartphones. In hindsight, Intel should have accepted Steve Jobs offer to build a custom low power chip for the original iPhone, and starved their competitors of revenue.
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  14. Keep the comments civil and constructive rather than flippant -- you don't want OP to start disabling comments like the old days
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  15. 10:19 I would be very skeptical of the 20x return in 4 years. Some private equity firms have a reputation of buying distressed companies then doing some financial engineering (but not actually increasing sales) then flipping the company at a much higher price (through an IPO) because it looks a lot better on paper.
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  16. Here are the links to other Asianometry videos that mentioned in the video, with timestamps: 1:48 The Waishengren, Briefly Explained https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRq9B_-svvU 4:47 Hongxin: China’s Billion Dollar Semiconductor Failure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZSvDYDfd78
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  17. Great insightful look at a random piece of Taiwanese internet culture that I had never heard of. I found it funny at 4:20 when you said "it uses a more modern network protocol called Telnet". LOL telnet is by no means a modern network protocol haha. The quality of the PTT's authentication and encryption will be extremely lacking compared to running a modern web service over HTTPS
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  18. Checkout this channel's "TSMC - Essays" for more great videos.
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  19. Another great company profile from one of YouTube's best channels. ASUS produces some really great products. For advanced home users, ASUS Wi-Fi routers in particular are some of the best around, especially because the community supported "Merlin" firmware is just so good, and helps unlock some very useful features for advanced users. It's hard to find routers that has such great community support but with a firmware project like Asuswrt-Merlin it makes recommending ASUS routers really easy. The fact ASUS is based in Taiwan and does a lot of manufacturing in Taiwan makes the choice really easy. Other router manufacturers like TP-Link are based in China, which is obviously problematic for network infrastructure.
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  20. You got to admire Evergrande's ambition though. If the tide didn't turn it could be a Hengchi, not a Volkswagon. I'm still in complete awe that a debt-fueled apartment builder can enter the electric car industry. China really is something else.
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  21. 11:25 The NVidia acquisition of ARM Holdings is not looking likely at this stage, with regulators from multiple countries raising objections. But I'm not sure if any final decisions have been made.
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  22. lol even just playing the song "Thunderstruck" over drone footage flying over that gigantic NT solar farm would be a great promo video! The proposed solar farm allotment shown at timestamp 2:03 is 12 MILES long and 6 MILES wide (or 20 kilometres by 10 kilometres). Bigger than Manhattan Island! I want to see the drone footage!
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  23. If you want to read the paper, search the internet for its title "Busting the 'Princelings': The Campaign Against Corruption in China's Primary Land Market". Knowing what the websites for research journals are like, any direct link I post will inevitably become invalid in a few months (possibly a few minutes), so Googling the title is the easiest approach.
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  24. Through and accessible mini-documentary on the water management policies of Singapore. Great job. Makes me want to play Sim City (or City Skylines).
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  25. Comic-Con is serious business
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  26. Such a great mini-documentary! Camphor, celluloid and bakelite are rarely spoken about these days, except maybe a sentence in a high school chemistry textbook's chapter on plastics. It really was the "rare earth" mineral of its era: the steampunk wonder material that powered Hollywood motion pictures.
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  27. Sounds like you're back to your proper microphone setup. The recording quality is much improved over your recent videos!
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  28. 11:37 The Wii U wasn't helped by its awful branding. The name is way too similar to the name "Wii". Consumers thought it was a tablet/gamepad addon for the Wii but in reality all the games weren't compatible with the original console
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  29. 2:52 "Atari put in an order for 2600 pieces of a plastic connector for their joystick cable". I think you may have got the order quantity and the product name mixed up: the name of Atari's 1977 console was the "Atari 2600", and it sold millions of units, so I doubt Atari's order quantity for Foxconn's big break happened to be a mere 2600 pieces. Unless it was an initial batch or something.
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  30.  @Halflifex  Fair point -- it's hard to tell sometimes (Poe's law)
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  31. When financial education is low (and regulations lax), the predatory lenders move in. It's a story as old as time.
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  32. 8:15 You say every country in the world except the US needs to worry about low wages and brain drain. The US isn't a monolith: rust belt states have very different economic outlooks to some of the wealthy coastal cities. This economic divide helps power Trump success
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  33. Flash memory prices have remained stubbornly high for a long time. The incumbent manufacturers have not been innovating. It's crazy to me that mechanical hard drives remain better on a dollar per terabyte basis. Consider that a tiny MicroSD card is available in 1 terabyte capacity. And of that MicroSD card only a small amount of its area is dedicated to the flash memory itself, the rest is dedicated to the physical connector pins, the controller and the casing. There's no reason why a 2.5" laptop hard drive couldn't contain hundreds (even thousands) of terabytes of flash memory. It's just a matter of being able to cheaply manufacture enough silicon. Heat dissipation is not a problem if the memory access patterns are slow enough (at the extreme, Amazon Glacier type workloads). I feel like there's a big market opportunity for a company to figure out a way to manufacture MUCH higher capacity hard drives. The entrance of Yangtze Memory may spur this on.
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  34. +1 that sounds interesting. Also related: why isn't Japan super successful in semi-conductors? They invented blue LEDs... Perhaps as you video alluded to they fell into the trap on spending too much on 'basic research' and not enough on 'applied research'? Or is it that they simply missed TSMC's contract business model and never had the scale to build businesses like Intel fab or Samsung fab?
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  35. This is one of the best channels on YT for in-depth historical explanations of relatively arcane but interesting topics. There's a lot of social mobility provided by cities having good public transport networks. Helps people without cars get to jobs across the city with a reasonable commute duration. In lower density cities, buses routes seem to make sense. In higher density cities, a partially underground metropolitan rail network is great. Supposedly Japan's rail networks own the real-estate of the stations themselves, which are bustling shopping complexes. This provides another revenue source for operating the expensive rail system.
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  36. If you enjoyed this story, its worth reading up on how Huawei grew into a powerhouse through corporate espionage of product lines and R&D from Canada's Nortel Networks and Cisco. In Nortel's case the Chinese government reportedly had complete access to its internal networks for more than 10 years, and was constantly siphoning information (including designs, pricing and product roadmaps). I also highly recommend the book "The Hundred-Year Marathon Book" by Michael Pillsbury. I found it very insightful and well-written. The growth of SMIC and Huawei are such an important lessons for management in the securing of trade secrets. It's safe to say that all large companies are unknowingly having their corporate secrets siphoned away through ongoing corporate espionage (see the recent SolarWinds hack).
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  37. It's kind of interesting how over the decades "Silicon Valley" has lost all its high-end silicon fabrication capacity to South Korea (Samsung) and Taiwan (TSMC), with some non-bleeding edge fabrication capacity still in the US (from Intel, GloFlo and others, mostly outside of California). Now the companies that dominate "Silicon Valley" are software companies (mostly advertising technology companies like Google and Facebook), with some fabless semiconductor firms (like Qualcomm) remaining in California. Some say it's America naturally moving up the value chain (software has much better economics than hardware), but it's clear there are worthwhile profit margins to being the leader in high-volume advanced manufacturing industries like semiconductor fabrication.
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  38. 10:26 Australia is the 51st state
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  39. I have never eaten dog. The issue is the Yunlin dog festival is that dogs are skinned alive then boiled alive, because the physiological effect of the stressed, tortured animal changes the taste of the meat. It's definitely horrible, inhumane stuff and we should call it out. But if even the cutest dog is raised then slaughtered in humane conditions, then it's not at all different to eating the less cute, similarly intelligent animals like pigs/pork.
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  40. In a way, he got his wish for immortality. Reminds me of that quote that's often misattributed to Banksy: "They say you die twice. Once when you stop breathing and again when your name is mentioned for the last time" Also it's interesting to see how experimenting with dubious/dangerous potions in traditional Chinese medicine goes back thousands of years.
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  41. 1:11 What is the heck is going on with that photo??? Was the miner photoshopped in!!? 😂
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  42. Very interesting 18 minute video looking at Malaysia's attempts to move up the value chain into semiconductor fabrication. Speaking of Malaysia, I was very surprised to learn how many large and relatively complex appliances (like fridges and air conditioners) are manufactured in South East Asia: Samsung fridges are made in Malaysia, and Mitsubishi Air Conditioners are made in Thailand. Thailand also manufactures mechanical hard drives (eg, Western Digital HDDs). I'm still not sure why the bigger South Korean and Japanese firms chose to outsource to South East Asia over China, but it's great that consumers have a cost competitive alternative from different regions when they decide what to purchase!
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  43. It's very sad that Malaysia's inequality issues have caused race to be a major factor in politics. One problem with race-based policies is there's so much difference within each racial group. In America, the black or Asian children of wealthy doctors might go to the best school districts are clearly in a very good position. While there are poor rural whites living around drug addicts in a trailer park in West Virginia, poor blacks in a violent inner-city school district, or the multi-generationally poor descendants of refugees who fled Cambodia in the 1970s. Using the limited tax payer money to improve the lives/education/opportunities of those with the most dire socioeconomic circumstances (regardless of race) is the best approach. In Malaysia of the 1970s (and probably 2020s), even policies blind to race would be helping the ethnic Malays more as a ratio of the population, but it would mean the poorest ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indians would also have more opportunities to escape poverty. It takes political leadership to convince a country to adopt policies blind to race. But I think even the ethnic Malays voting blocs could be convinced: much of their privileged positions would be preserved (because as far as I understand Malays continue to be poorer than other races in Malaysia), and it would definitely improve the country's international image and long-term racial harmony.
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  44. His research process was covered on episode 24 of the Compounding Curiosity podcast, by the way
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  45. You mentioned Taiwanese contract manufacturing firms Foxconn, Pegatron and Wistron, which are used by literally all the companies in the world, from Apple, to Nintendo, to HP etc. There's probably an interesting story as to why most of the world's best electronics assembly firms are based in Taiwan. (Well except for Samsung, which owns and operates all their overseas factories, whilst being competitive with TSMC in semiconductors fabrication and being highly competitive consumer electronics company that happens to be the world-leader in OLED displays and flash memory. Samsung really impresses me by the way)
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  46. New video from YouTube's most underrated channel? Time to stop what I'm doing and watch it :)
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  47. 5:57 Here are the most important Variable Interest Entities (VIE): 1. Zhejiang Taobao Network Co., Ltd. 2. Zhejiang Tmall Network Co., Ltd 3. Alibaba Cloud Computing Ltd. 4. Youku Information Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd I thought I'd write this out because most English speakers would struggle to transcribe the word "Zhejiang"! It might also help with search engine optimization.
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  48. After so many years, I'm so glad we finally got to meet each other! I'm very happy with how this channel has grown since the early days, and so much further to go! Also -- I hope I'll never lose my child-like wonder when seeing or riding in a Waymo. Reminds me of the quote, "the future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed". Also crazy how in just the last couple years the world now contains AI systems that pass the Turing Test and fully autonomous self driving taxis. What a time to be alive!
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  49. Japan's off-book compensation is way different though. Like for many companies even organize which apartment their employees live in. And for CEO's this can mean company private jets for personal travel etc.
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  50. I recall an article on iceberg towing was part of the standardized reading comprehension testing system in the Australian elementary school system. It's such a great science fiction concept!
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  51. Another well researched and informative video. Here's a comment for the YouTube algorithm.
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  52. Of course we should do everything we can to stop money laundering -- especially around drug trafficking and human trafficking -- but whatever fraction of China's mass capital flight that's legitimate should definitely considered foreign direct investment and carefully handled, because anybody with a large amount of money within China understandably wants to get their money out of China as soon as possible. Australia's relatively recent regulations are pretty smart: We have no restrictions on foreigners purchasing new buildings. If you buy a vacant plot of land you must build a dwelling within 4 years (you can't just buy it and hold it). You can only buy and demolish an existing dwelling if you build more buildings than were previously there. Finally, real-estate investment no longer contributes to gaining citizenship. All these things are good because they encourage increasing the housing supply which means housing is more affordable. I know that some places (I believe Vancouver and maybe London) tax empty houses and apartments which should encourage them to be placed on the rental market instead of the cultural preference of leaving the home unoccupied. (Side note: China itself has a massive problem with unproductive ghost cities, so other countries need to be smarter than the CCP in combating this with smart policy). Finally, I should note that after decades of giving permanent residency and citizenship to people with strong Chinese Communist Party viewpoints and associations, Australia has developed massive issues around Chinese Communist Party-linked political corruption, infiltration and bribery (eg, Huang Xiangmo and his family), but that's a separate issue.
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  53. LOL excellent choice of the "High Expectations Asian Father" meme thumbnail.
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  54. Another very well-researched and informative video. I think Taiwan and TSMC should be very happy that the United States has added China's SMIC to the Entity List (banning commercial transactions containing US technology unless an export license/exemption is first obtained). I think it's now very unlikely that China will be able to develop a world-class semiconductor fabrication facilities. Having Huawei on the Entity List directly hurts TSMC financially, but on balance I think it's well worth it. Side note: The strategy that economic engagement leads to democratization worked very well for South Korea and Taiwan (both were both brutal dictatorships until only 30 years ago). That strategy has of course failed spectacularly for China: as it got richer it's becoming more brutal. I really like the idea of democracies using their economic might to preventing brutal dictatorships from becoming proficient in high technology -- like the United States is doing with its Entity List.
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  55. Interesting that Taiwan moved up the value chain through technology transfer (legitimately purchased in a mutually agreed contract), hitting the jackpot by investing in the right technology at the right time (CMOS chips), and the return Western educated immigrants. It seems that China is trying to follow a similar strategy with The Thousand Talents Plan, China's returning "sea turtles", and controversial forced technology transfer. China has definitely hit the right technology at the right time in certain areas (eg, drones) but nothing recognized internationally as an innovative world leader like TSMC is. Though to be fair TSMC is a not really a household name.
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  56. For more on Vietnamese history, watch Asianometry's video titled "Looking Back at the Sino-Vietnamese War".
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  57. I have confirmed with Asianometry that this was a typo. It's 14km (8.7 miles), not 140km (87 miles). The description and transcript has been updated. The number comes from a book: "Over 1973-4, the new disk brake was tested in wind tunnels and in drops from helicopters and aircraft from altitudes as high as 14,000 m. The spacecraft model was also dropped onto simulated Venusian soil made from foam concrete." (from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects: by Brian Harvey).
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  58. It's worth re-iterating (as in previous Asionometry videos) that US sanctions against China's semi-conductor companies will make it an uphill battle to achieve Made In China 2025 goals for China to import substitute the semiconductors used in its exports. Brief overview of the sanctions I'm aware of: SMIC (China's TSMC competitor) are not able to buy ASML lithography machines from the Netherlands. According to South China Morning Post they are currently buying used machines from other companies in China (I guess that's a workaround). Huawei's HiSilicon (fabless design company) can't license ARM Holdings chip reference designs. Huawei can't use the Android operating system due to sanctions. China is even being banned from accessing EDA (chip design software) from America. China could succeed in building indigenous replacements of these technologies one at a time, but when the United States is sanctioning everything at once it's VERY difficult. Especially when eg, Huawei's revenue streams starts drying up and those companies face big budget crunch.
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  59. It's worth noting the China-based semiconductor foundries like SMIC and HSMC were trying to build cutting edge 7 nanometer semiconductor node leveraging extreme ultraviolet techniques. For those who don't follow the chip making industry at all, it's worth noting the former world leading chip maker from Silicon Valley called Intel has been struggling for the better part of a decade and is no longer on the cutting edge. Now, Intel has $25 billion US dollars in cash on hand. If getting to a cutting edge process node was as simple as poaching a few hundred TSMC engineers for 2.5 times the salary for 5 years then surely Intel could do it? They could pay 750 TSMC engineers each $250,000/year to move to the US for 5 years to try and leapfrog TSMC, and that would still be $1 billion in salary (4% of their cash on hand). Admittedly building a new fab would cost another $10 billion by itself, but it would still be a bargain if it got Intel back into the lead (which they held for most of their existence).
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  60. You've mentioned American fabless semiconductor firm Ambarella in recent videos. Given you're starting to profile fabless semiconductor firms like MediaTek (and maybe in the future HiSilicon, THATIC etc), it might be worth covering Ambarella. Unlike even MediaTek and Qualcomm, it's definitely not a household name that a consumer of Android devices would come across when they research the specifications of their next smartphone. Feel free to ignore this suggestion especially because the company not even based in Asia.
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  61. the collapse of the 3 Gorges Dam will cause millions of direct deaths, and millions more through disease. It would likely be the biggest single disaster in human history. Have some respect for those downstream people who may lose their lives. They don't get to choose their government like much of the rest of the world. They don't even have free access to information so in many cases can't know any better.
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  62. I find it fascinating that Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) was granted democracy by their British colonizers in 1931. Sri Lanka is Asia's oldest democracy. It's 2020 and Hong Kong is still fighting for democracy. Britain wanted to give Hong Kong democracy in the 1950s and 1960s, but the China's Communist government threatened to invade Hong Kong to prevent this.
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  63. I've recently been reading the very interesting book "Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm" which talks about how to extract the basic chemical that power our world (like nitric acid and potassium) from boiling trees in a pot and distilling the steam. I love the topic so much. It's so "steampunk" and takes high school chemistry to the next level!
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  64.  @fwefhwe4232  South Asia is a geographic term. There's other major religions in the area too. Such as Buddhism and Islam
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  65. 4:55 It's probably worth doing a video on KT Li. He seems like a key politician in Taiwan's economic success. I'll go have a read of his Wikipedia page.
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  66. Fortunately for TSMC and Samsung, the government of China's strategic investments are extremely wasteful. Unlimited money does not necessary lead to good outcomes (see SpaceX vs Blue Origin). The government of China has spent tens of billions over decades to build jet engines for passenger aeroplanes with little to show for it. They might eventually succeed, but due to US sanctions this is now unlikely. Consider that SMIC (China's TSMC competitor) can't even buy ASML machines due to being added to the Entity List. Huawei's HiSilicon can't license ARM Holdings chip reference designs. Huawei can't use Android due to sanctions. China is even being banned from accessing EDA (chip design software) from America. China could succeed in building indigenous replacements of these technologies one at a time, but when the United States is sanctioning everything at once it's VERY difficult. Especially when eg, Huawei's revenue streams starts drying up and those companies face big budget crunch. Xi Jinping overplayed his hand (around the usual issues: annexing the South China Sea, 1 million Uigher internment, crushing Hong Kong democracy, etc) and caused the US to react. Now if the US sanctions continue I think China will struggle to ever becoming competitive in the semi-conductor industry.
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  67. Another high quality video. Keep making more like these. In depth and fascinating stuff!
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  68. If you're interested in this video, checkout the video from this channel titled "Hongxin: China’s Billion Dollar Semiconductor Failure" and "Taiwan's Fabless Semiconductor Giant: MediaTek Explained"
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  69. 2:38 Video is titled "The Coypus (Nutria) of Prague". Here's a direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz3RlC4RxUc
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  70. It pretty remarkable how powerful China's protectionism strategy is: For businesses that heavily depend on "network effects" (like PayPal, and social media companies like Facebook, Reddit etc), the playbook is to completely block the foreign firm using regulation and the Great Firewall of China, then locally develop a product that fits the niche. For businesses with difficult-to-master technology, the playbook is to promise great riches but block foreign companies from setting up wholly-owned subsidiaries, instead offering market access only through a joint venture with a domestic Chinese firm. Then all valuable technology, expertise, trademarks and intellectual property are transferred to the local firm before the foreign firm is blocked from the market. We'll see if a Biden administration will push for World Trade Organization reform to ensure equal market access. Also it's still an open question whether domestic Chinese firms can compete in the global economy if faced with international competitive pressure. In Japan, Amazon's local subsidiary is pretty dominant alongside Japan's domestic e-commerce website Rakuten.
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  71. 2:53 7 great temples? Sounds likes The Legend of Zelda. I can't find any reference that Tofukuji is part of 7 temples other than the "Five Mountain" temple concept: 5 in Kyoto (Kyoto Gozan) and 5 in Kamakura, Kanagawa.
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  72. I have come across similar ethno-supremacist views on Reddit (r/Sino, r/AznIdentity and the related subreddits). I've seen comments on these subreddits strongly lean towards Han and Asian ethno-supremacy ideas, and funnel users to exclusive/private Discord chatroom if proof of racial identity is provided. Reddit bans subreddits which promote hate speech, but discussions on private Discord servers are of course much harder to police. It's hard to know if such corners of the internet are run by state-funded internet troll farms or just private citizens who hold extreme views. I should mention this is especially worry because disaffected or mentally ill people can radicalize themselves -- such as Elliot Rodger who committed the 2014 Isla Vista killings.
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  73. Just throwing this topic idea out: Taiwan and population demographics (which is related to fertility rate and immigration). Taiwan didn't have the One Child Policy, but they have birth rates similar to Japan/South Korea/Singapore. Will the country grow old like Japan? Taiwan is the most socially progressive nation is Asia (eg, legalized same-sex marriage). If there's any nation that might throw open their doors to Australia-level of educated migrants (other than maybe Singapore) I feel like it would be Taiwan. Is Taiwan going to sleep walk its way off demographic cliff like the rest of Asia?
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  74.  @Asianometry  No, in the geopolitical climate from 2015 through December 2020, they would absolutely 100% block it. Consider that in November 2019, the Australian government blocked Lion Dairy (then owned by Japanese beverage company Kirin) from being bought by the Chinese company Mengniu Dairy. The most interesting thing about this decision was that it was given the greenlight from Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board (the equivalent to CFIUS), our competition regulator (the ACCC: Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) and recommended by Treasury. But the deal was reportedly (and somewhat controversially) vetoed by the Treasurer for reasons that were never made public. The direct economic cost of this strategy is actually very low: only 5% of Australia's foreign investment is from China. Also politically, it's increasingly popular to block Chinese firms from buying Australia's assets. I highly recommend Pew Research's article "Unfavorable Views of China Reach Historic Highs in Many Countries". More recently, since Australia called for an independent inquiry into the origins of the pandemic, China has stopped meeting with Australian diplomats, issued a list of "14 demands" through its embassy, and started arbitrarily blocking Australia's lucrative exports of coal/wine/barley/lobster/etc under various pretenses such as illegal subsidies and supposed quality issues. This has culminated in Australia taking China to the World Trade Organization for arbitration. There's some speculation that Australia's new trade minister might change strategy to placate the Chinese Communist Party. But I highly doubt such a change would ever involve approving an Atlassian sale: the software is used for project management in major companies around the world. Confluence Wiki, JIRA task tracker and (especially) BitBucket naturally contain trade secrets, business strategy, source code / blueprints, and more. It's very important to issue patches for security vulnerabilities in software used at major companies WITHOUT representatives of the Chinese Communist Party being involved in the process. Also, Atlassian has major offices in the US and is traded on a US stock exchange, so CFIUS rules apply and will definitely block any sale for the previously mentioned reasons.
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  75. 4:49 For those interested video is titled "TSMC is more than just Taiwan", direct link below
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  76. If you are interested, ABC (American-Born Chinese) is a political term that has been amplified by China's state media. It indicates somebody is always Chinese first-and-foremost that happens to be American born -- even if they have lived their whole life in America. The more generic term uses heritage-nationality (eg, Chinese-American). This distinction is important given the CCP's United Front Work Department activities attempting to switch the allegiances of all ethnically Chinese people regardless of their nationality and how little connection they have to China. Though of course, you are free to use whatever term you like.
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  77. I have confirmed with Asianometry that this was a typo. It's 14km (8.7 miles), not 140km (87 miles). The description and transcript has been updated. The number comes from a book: "Over 1973-4, the new disk brake was tested in wind tunnels and in drops from helicopters and aircraft from altitudes as high as 14,000 m. The spacecraft model was also dropped onto simulated Venusian soil made from foam concrete." (from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects: by Brian Harvey).
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  78.  @gallasebiyo4427  But TSMC is not even a household name, because it's business-to-business. Much more well known are the Taiwanese consumer brands like ASUS, Acer and Giant Bicycles. I'd also argue that Foxconn (the manufacturer for Apple and many other companies), MediaTek (computer chips), Gigabyte and MSI (the computer motherboard maker) are also pretty well known. At least for anybody who follows technology.
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  79. This is such a great and underrated channel. If you are fascinated by Hanzi/Kanji etymology, you may be interested in A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters by Kenneth Henshall. It provides a huge degree of etymological depth for the average Japanese language learner. I have long since given up my Japanese studies, but it was/is fascinating!
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  80. I don't knock any Taiwanese engineer for moving to China to make 2 or 3 times higher salary: as long as they're not any stealing trade secrets from their prior employer I see it as completely fair game. As this video suggests, most of these semiconductors fabs in China aren't actually making any money (and have no prospect of making money) but are instead propped up by billions of dollars of investment capital. This is by itself not a bad thing: Silicon Valley is fueled by ample investment capital for high risk projects and moonshots. But in China's case the money is coming from Local Government Financing Vehicles rather than private VC money. The Chinese Communist Party is encouraging provincial governments to take out massive loans and put the money into these high risk ventures run by princelings (children of Chinese Communist Party elites, like Jiang Mianheng). Taiwanese engineers can and should go to China, do their jobs to the best of their ability, and earn billions of dollars of this "dumb money" (as they have already been doing for decades). The companies they work for in China will eventually go out of business (due to princeling management and American sanctions), at which point the Taiwanese engineers can move back to Taiwan and go work for better managed companies like TSMC. It's unfortunate the regular people of China will be left with the bill, but that's the responsibility of China's government and the management of the companies that are hiring. Not the random Taiwanese engineer who is hired and goes to China to do their job to the best of their abilities.
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  81. It's very interesting that more than 50% of bitcoin mining happens in China (I've seen some estimates that are closer to 75%), by enterprising private individuals but ultimately under the jurisdiction of the government like everything else in China. While mining obviously generates bitcoin, any transaction on bitcoin forfeits a transaction fee that is transferred to whichever miner verifies the transaction first. Effectively all bitcoin transactions transfers a small amount of wealth to China: buying bitcoin means you're buying into an ecosystem controlled by China, the same as if you bought a Huawei phone. Additionally, in blockchain based systems you just need to control more than 50% of the mining to be able to reverse transactions so it's conceivable that China could one day do a "51% attack".
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  82. 10:35 Okami is actually a Playstation 2 port by the way
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  83.  @MarkWTK  2:39 "Shao Kahn" is a character from the video game series "Mortal Kombat", and is the the emperor of "Outworld". And "ripped" is slang for abdominal muscles. In his spare time, he also co-founded Amperex Technology Limited, the battery manufacturer.
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  84. In case you're not aware, this is the EIGHTEENTH video in this channel's TSMC coverage. Here's the entire playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKtxx9TnH76SRC7ZbOu2Nsg5mC72fy-GZ
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  85. Even without separating the internet using the Great Firewall of China, the language barrier continues to be a big barrier. Most English speakers who visit Facebook, YouTube or Reddit will only speak to other English speakers and rarely consume any content in eg, Korean, Spanish, or Hindi (other than cultural exports like Gangnam Style, Despacito and possibly, the Macarena).
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  86. I'm very comfortable that the United States and Taiwanese governments will tend to block the sale of advanced semiconductor companies to China. I'm a bit less confident about the South Korean and Japanese governments.
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  87. ​ @WasatchWind  The video was available on Patreon Early Access for a month and when "unlisted" YouTube videos are made public the release date gets reset but all the comments remain.
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  88. This video is about the social costs of the mismatch between supply/demand. A 4 year degree in Taiwan is presumably pretty affordable compared to the US, so it's less of a big deal if the degree isn't utilized. On this topic, Peter Thiel has a lot of interesting things to say on this topic (search keywords "Peter Thiel" and "higher education bubble"). He sees as a world that no longer innovates outside of computer technology, and believes that US society requires (in my words) constant radical innovation otherwise it falls into chaos. I should mention a degree shouldn't be about the credential giving you an advantage other people, but about how those skills and knowledge can be leveraged to produce economic value. There are so many problems in the world that only radical innovation can solve. It's great for higher education to be widely accessible. Imagine how much further we would be if every person living in poverty in eg, Africa/India/Myannmar/etc had an advanced STEM (Science/Technology/Engineering/Mathematics) degrees and had the right incentives to eg, cure aging for all humanity and hopefully not eg, developing chemical/biological/nuclear weapons.
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  89. If anybody is interested, Singapore is supposedly not well-suited to wind power, with low-to-intermittent wind speeds (2 meters per second) where commercial turbines supposedly operate at 4.5 meters per second. Also the waters around Singapore are busy shipping lanes, so there supposedly aren't actually that many places to put the wind turbines.
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  90. Thanks for the very thorough mini-documentary. I have never heard of controversy around this Ractopamine animal feed additive. Also I have never heard of this United Nations food safety standards body, the "Codex Alimentarius Commission" (if anybody from the United Nations is reading, here's a better name: "UN Food Standards Authority"). Sounds like I need to start watching those industrial agriculture documentaries on Netflix/CuriosityStream or wherever. Now, from your mini-documentary it sounds like there is concern about the quality of the science coming out of the UN commission, due to economic pressure/influence from "big agriculture" firms via the United States government. My advice to Taiwanese politicians and Taiwanese voters is to create a commission of local pre-eminent scientists to independently analyse the science of such questions, release public reports and advise the government. The goal of such a commission would NOT be to covertly implement non-tariff barriers to protect Taiwan's domestic pork industry, but to be above the political partisanship and be the trusted and respected independent arbiter tasked with protecting public health. If American trade negotiators don't like that, then let them complain and ignore them. Taiwan is a sovereign, independent country. The country should only ever make food safety decisions based in science of public health, not because foreign free-trade negotiators were twisting your arm.
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  91. During the first Cold War, India was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement -- a grouping of countries that were not aligned to the Soviet Union or the Free World. It was of great advantage to China to have India continue to be strategically neutral, to have limited ability to project military power and buy what military equipment they do from regional partner Russia (rather than improving the unit economics of the US military-industrial complex). Even before the most recent border clashes India is moving sharply closer to the United States security sphere. They've rebooted the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) between Australia, India, Japan and the US. Surely pushing India to further align itself to the West (including South Korea, Japan and Taiwan) in not the best interests of China? The current leadership in China seem very short sighted. The strategic value of an neutral/non-aligned India seems extremely valuable.
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  92. 8:16 By the way, I always pronounced this "Zie Links" (and so do colleagues of mine). The CEO and Bloomberg both say "Zie links": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNDgZVm5aDg
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  93. 21:06 I am still in awe that a company that builds apartments also makes *electric cars*
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  94. The question is whether the short-term cash injection outweighs the long-term threat of transferring the expertise to China. If SMIC reaches parity with TSMC in the next few years based on transferred expertise, the decision will look very bad in hindsight. But if China is unable to master the technology and continues to spend tens of billions with little to show for it (like HSMC -- Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) then it was a good decision. Side note: SMIC was just added to the Entity List. This may prevent the company from importing ASML equipment, killing their ambitions.
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  95. Viewers may have heard of Gavin Menzies book "1421: The Year China Discovered the World", which theorizes Zheng He visited the Americas (pre-Columbus) and his vice admiral Hong Bao visited Australia and just of the coast of Antarctica. Scientific inquiry of whether or not the Taiwanese aboriginals (Polynesian heritage) settled all of Polynesia and Australia is a good thing, but the spread of false historical narrative like Menzies, and the sudden appearance of maps purportedly date from hundreds of years ago showing the landmass of Australian and Antarctica may form the basis of territorial claims over not just Australia, but also Antarctica. Just something for clear-eyed Asianometry viewers to keep an eye out for.
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  96. 6:25 Randomly dropping that pronunciation of Shanxi 山西 😂💯 💯
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  97. Repealing the California gold rush-era Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943 was a good start, but by many accounts the US immigration system today continues to be very broken in other ways and it's important we try to understand how to try and make the next hundred years better. Many people in United States (including elected representatives) often suggest the US should move to a "points-based" immigration system like Canada and Australia, where clearly defined criteria (including English language skills, educational attainment, age and strategic national priority skillsets) which supposedly provides a very fair and transparent way for the government to specify exactly the kinds of immigrants who should be given a pathway citizenship (without any consideration of national origin). I'm not necessarily advocating for (or against) the United States to adopt points-based immigration system, just pointing out there's a lot of support for the idea.
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  98. 4:33 I am skeptical of the claims that 1975's Typhoon Nina caused a "one-in-10,000-year flood" along the Ru River and Hong River region. That's a very long time for accurate historical records to survive in oral and written history. It far easier for the population to accept that the Banqiao Dam failed after just 24 years when people say it was "built to withstand a one-in-1,000-year flood but it failed during a one-in-10,000-year flood". This was China during the Cultural Revolution. I'm sure the dam faced poor maintenance and mismanaged water release over a much longer period of time which contributed greatly to its collapse.
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  99. For those interested, that project is called "Asian Renewable Energy Hub" and was originally another submarine power cable project (from Pilbara, Western Australia not central Northern Territory)
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  100. My first smartphone back in the early 2010s had a MediaTek chip in it (MT6575). It had pretty good performance for its era. There were hundreds of different white-label versions of the same reference design, each competing with each other on price and by selecting slightly different components for better battery capacity/RAM/storage/camera etc. The worst part of using a Chinese smartphone was being forced to use the white-label brand's custom modified Android version, complete with all the non-removable Chinese spyware like AdUps: you were stuck with the untrusted vendor's spyware riddled operating system. Advanced users who re-install their operating systems enjoyed very little support from the broader custom ROM community, and no support from the more trusted custom ROMs such as LineageOS (formerly named CyanogenMod). Also the tablet/smartphone manufacturing quality was pretty bad, at least in those days: the microphone and headphone jack broke on that phone, and a similar era tablet had bad overheating and stability issues. That's why I swore off the cheap Chinese white-label brands that MediaTek chips tend find their way into. This was way before the current human-rights situation came to light and modern "boycott China" movement starting gathering momentum. After the subsequent death of the Google's excellent Nexus line, these days I recommend certain Samsung Galaxy M smartphone models. They are very reasonably priced, assembled in Vietnam rather than China (which is better for human-rights), have excellent screen quality if you choose the right model according to the specifications, have exceptionally great battery life (again, if you choose the right model according to the specifications), they get regular security updates from Samsung, and don't have Chinese spyware (but unfortunately have other kinds of bloatware from Samsung). The M series is basically filling the niche that Xiaomi/Oppo/Vivo and the other internationally successful Chinese smartphone brands have been doing quite successfully: great bang-for-buck mid-range phones.
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  101. The biggest macro-economic level that Japan can pull any time is the immigration tap. It would solve all their shrinking labor force problems very quickly, and potentially fix their demographic problems if they do a good job encouraging births and assimilating all new arrivals and their children. But unlike the West, Japan didn't have mass migration in the last few hundred years so is not an immigrant nation: they have strong cultural and racial aversions to this. But the immigration doesn't even have to be from the Middle East and Africa. It could be from East and South East Asia (from Laos to the Philippines). But Japan would rather see its population fall to 60 million people than become an immigrant nation. Which is fine -- that's their decision to make. It's just that it means the country will become increasingly economically irrelevant as time goes on (while the demographic of many western countries continues to be much healthier)
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  102. Your video refers to SMIC and HSMC, who are working on cutting edge semiconductor fabs used to make CPUs and GPUs. I'm not an electrical engineer. Aren't these not the only type of semiconductor fabrication plants that exist? But there are other classes of silicon chips such as NAND flash memory (used in USB sticks and SD cards etc) and RAM memory modules (DRAMs). I believe these electronic components tend to be more of a fungible commodity, and are generally of lower value (but still advanced manufacturing). I may be wrong on this, but aren't China's semiconductor fab facilities for flash memory and RAM already internationally competitive (from a value for money perspective)? A quick Google search found Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. (YMTC) and ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc (CXMT). A lot of the coverage is from Chinese state-backed propaganda sources like Caixin Global and South China Morning Post, and I haven't looked into these companies further yet, but they may be producing internationally competitive chips rather than merely being state-subsidized zombie companies for the government of China's never ending corruption tinged attempts to move up the electronics manufacturing value chain.
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  103. That's a huge simplification: it was the China-backed North Vietnamese against the American-backed South Vietnamese (a similar to the situation in the Korean War). Sadly it took only a years for Deng Xiaoping to turn around and invade Vietnam :/
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  104.  @Asianometry  Yeah that's fair enough. I usually wouldn't be so pedantic but this American economic divide (and the feeling of being left behind) has caused so much political upheaval in recent years
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  105. ​ @N_g_er  Asianometry's videos on India get pretty big view counts from India. See the comments on any video covering India, eg India's Semiconductor Failure is currently the fourth most popular video on this channel with 1.5 million views (after 2 Soviet and 1 Japan video) -- ie beats out any TSMC or China video. So there is a big audience there
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  106. 4:32 "The Rise, Fall and Rise of Hyundai Group": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUUbgS6603w
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  107. 3:20 Interesting pronunciation of Tiananmen. (though in English everybody pronounces way different to the original language eg, Genghis Khan as "Gen-gis Karn" instead of "Chingus Harn")
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  108. I'm liking the increased comedy in the captions
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  109. ​@King Lee I think China will eventually make 4nm chips, I expect it won't come soon enough to make a difference. But we can disagree though. Unlike constructing buildings, doing laboratory research, or even building space probes, large scale manufacturing of semi-conductors nodes using leading edge requires acquiring a lot of international equipment and expertise. And China is currently being blocked from the equipment (but not yet the expertise). I'll be very surprised if China is able to manufacture leading edge semiconductor nodes in the next 30 years. I should also mention that United States also does NOT have any leading edge semiconductor nodes.
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  110. I don't understand this. China got nuclear weapons in 1964, during Mao's reign. Did Mao's China have a 'no first use' policy? Mao famously thought nuclear war was a more extreme version of conventional warfare, and that China could lose half its population in nuclear annihilation (300 million people in those days) and still be victorious. Mao's cavalier view on the use of nuclear weapons contributed to the Sino-Soviet Split.
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  111.  @davidmaglov  The inflammatory/clickbait title "Why China Can't Keep The Lights On" was my suggestion. The video was originally titled a more informative "China’s Energy Shortage Problem is a Coal Problem". But clickbait does well. I have also suggested an upcoming videos with inflammatory clickbait titles "Why Australia Can't Build Submarines", "How Nvidia Killed The Radeon Star" etc. The latter Nvidia title suggestion won't be used unfortunately :/
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  112. I also like 'General Atomics' and 'Industrial Light and Magic'
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  113. ​ @Asianometry  I agree it's a distant possibility. SMIC is only sanctioned because some end-users are supposed the military. If warming ties means other fabs based in China don't get sanctioned then China stands some chance. According to media reports SMIC already has built a 14nm finFET fabs. I don't know their yields, or how their process compares to Samsung, TSMC and Intel's versions but it would appear that they are catching up (pre-sanctions). Xi Jinping's China is pursuing an import substitution strategy. They see that they spend more on imported semiconductors that they do on importing oil. To paraphrase what you have said in a previous video: "In semiconductors, either you're in the lead, or you suck". I didn't intend this comment to be preachy or ideological, but I really hope the free world think very carefully about the dangers of a totalitarian surveillance state becoming the world leader in THE fundamental building block of modern technology.
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  114. Great work! I'm suprised that the government of China even allowed the British to be the ones who demolished the city. The propaganda value of "look how poorly the British ruled over you" seems pretty large.
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  115. 7:35 The 750,000 figure you cite for Australia is those born in Hong Kong and mainland China, but there's actually ~1.2 million people with Chinese heritage. (EDIT: I see you're talking about 2011 figures -- you're probably correct on those numbers then). As many reading may know, like the United States, Australia has a long and storied history of anti-Asian racism -- from way back in the 1800s "gold rush" era to the present day. It was particularly pronounced during the 1990s with an anti-immigration 'One Nation Party' led by a woman named Pauline Hanson who made highly controversial statements like "I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate". Australia is widely considered an immigration success story, experiencing rapid population growth due to new migrants, but in the present day there's some growing issues. Most alarmingly it's been discovered that the Chinese Communist Party's political interference and infiltration bureau called the United Front Work Department is attempting to switch the allegiances of all ethnically Chinese people around the world -- regardless of their nationality and how little connection they have to China. In 2017, the then-head of China's security services (Meng Jianzhu) threatened Australian politicians that they would "instruct" the Chinese-Australian community to vote against one side of politics if they don't support passing a law (the Australia-China extradition treaty). Since then there's been many instances of Chinese government infiltration and intimidation against the Chinese-Australian community, and the broader society. It's very worrying the growing use of the term "ABC" (meaning American-Born Chinese or Australian-Born Chinese) that is often amplified by China's state media to refer to people who have lived their whole life in Australia or America who happen to be ethnically Chinese. This kind of thing is happening in all the Chinese diaspora communities around the world, but Australia just happens to be more aware of it. It will take a lot of effort to remove this political interference and infiltration, but it's obviously of utmost importance.
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  116. @M.O.K. SpaceX cofounder Tom Mueller worked at TRW for decades designing, building and testing rocket engines on the government's dime (none of which ever flew because Old Space are dinosaurs). The skills he learned at TRW, and at the Reaction Research Society amateur rocketry club built his liquid fueled rocketry skills which he applied to great effect at SpaceX. Also the original turbopump for the Merlin 1A engine used on the Falcon 1 first stage was very similar to NASA's Fastrac engine design (official technology transfer) The skills and experiences of an expert workforce gained from decades of experience from previous employers can't realistically be called technology transfer, but I'd argue that Fastrac engine and NASA's involvement on the Dragon capsule (I believe including SpaceX's PICA-X ablative heatshields) can definitely be called tech transfer from the public sector. But the sanctions argument is completely different. The sanctions are because the commercial space industry will fund China's military. But yes, the same argument can be said that buying a SpaceX launch helps subsidize the United States launching of National Reconnaissance Office satellites by increasing SpaceX's launch cadence etc
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  117. Here's a direct link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKtxx9TnH76SRC7ZbOu2Nsg5mC72fy-GZ
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  118. I'm sure overcharging Chinese taxpayers for launching military satellites will be a very profitable niche -- it's what SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (Boeing/Lockheed joint venture) already do for American taxpayers :) One customer isn't enough. As with every industry, you need to achieve high launch cadence to bring costs down. As you mentioned in 1:56, China is locked out of the global commercial market: they are not allowed to launch satellites containing restricted US technology (which tends to be all of them), so instead China finances developing countries to launch their own indigenous satellites designs. This actually sounds like a Belt And Road type project by the way (I'm actually OK with that if there are no predatory loans, bribery and the delivered service is good quality). But there's no reason why the commercial providers can't do similar things. Admittedly most of the SpaceX launches which serve developing countries tend to be for private companies like AsiaSat, ABS and Thaicom rather than governments, but in 2018, SpaceX launched Bangladesh's first satellite Bangabandhu-1, which was manufactured by the French/Italian Thales Alenia Space. It's used for broadcasting satellite TV, and also (high latency geostationary) satellite internet.
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  119. Most underrated semiconductor YouTube channel. Most underrated China analysis YouTube channel. Most underrated Asia business YouTube channel. The list goes on...
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  120. The United Kingdom aerospace manufacturer known as "Rolls-Royce" makes jet engines power many planes, such as the Airbus A380, Airbus A350 and likely China's upcoming plane: the Comac C929. Though the American companies like General Electric and Pratt & Whitney also make popular jet engines.
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  121.  @aave865  Good choice too! Links for the lazy: AC/DC - Thunderstruck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AC41dglnM Men At Work - Down Under: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfR9iY5y94s
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  122. Speaking of Politburo Standing Committee members, I'd like to hear your analysis on the 2012 Wukan Democracy Experiment, which was of course later crushed by tanks. It was spearheaded by Wang Yang who later joined the 7-member Politburo Standing Committee -- a position he still holds. It seems that before Xi Jinping consolidated power, there was some acceptance that China could start using democratic processes to resolve disputes at least at the village-level. Maintaining such an experiment doesn't risk the CCP's grip on power, but would pacify other countries from launching Trump-style trade wars because China "is headed in the right direction". Such experiments would also help pacify Hong Kong independence movement ("Look at Wukan. Don't worry, by 2047 China will be a democracy too!!"), and help keep China's system close to Taiwan's for eventual unification.
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  123. I 100% agree. If the United States government was only blocking access to one thing China could adapt and workaround the roadblocks. But the United States is leveraging its economic might and financial system with trade sanctions across the board (after the end of One Country Two Systems and the annexation of the South China Sea). I expect this new Cold War to outlive Xi Jinping -- who by the way is only 67 so likely has 25 more years as paramount leader left in him, like Deng Xiaoping.
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  124. This is an great video. From what I can tell until now Hikvision has not had a large "moat" (some technology that differentiates itself from competitors) other than its manufacturing scale and associated low prices. In contrast, Huawei builds smartphones and deploys its own compatible 5G infrastructure (at least in the absence of external sanctions). What's interesting to me is Hikvision's attempts to develop a moat based on AI + facial recognition. I'm sure it doesn't work too well yet but it might one day (the exact same technology is being tested on Uighers in Xinjiang). Until now it's been possible (for an increased price) to develop trusted IP camera system using components sourced and assembled without any Made In China involvement. For those who don't know, typically IP cameras are just an easily mountable package containing a digital camera module (plus optics) attached to a small motherboard (over eg, an internal high-speed bus such as USB) with a "system-on-chip" that does video compression and provides Ethernet and Wi-Fi networking. The software typically runs Linux, but just like other "Internet Of Things" devices the manufacturers have often unlikely to provide security updates. It would be great if sanctions against Hikvision lead to a more companies emerging with far fewer links to the Chinese Communist Party that produces IP cameras with guaranteed security updates for a competitive price.
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  125. 2:51 A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one
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  126. I should also mention that ASUS RoG (Republic of Gamers) equipment including the ASUS "Strix" brand are also really great in my experience. Yes they have the over-the-top design of most gaming hardware (multicolored LED lights etc), but they have been great bang-for-buck every time I've researched their stuff. For smartphones my advice is currently "just buy the mid-range Samsung phone with the 5000+ mAh battery and a very high resolution screen) but for computing equipment the advice of "just buy ASUS/ROG and Gigabyte hardware" is actually pretty reasonable.
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  127. 3:58 "According to the trial documents the Zhou's paid just $20 million US dollars for assets worth at least $15 billion US dollars". Haven't read the paper yet, but it's always worth mentioning that these figures comes from the Chinese Communist Party, and that any hard number or allegation made by the CCP should be taken with a massive grain of salt unless those specific claims are corroborated by independent sources.
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  128. ​ @Asianometry  I would have thought the United States would be willing and able to retain high margin manufacturing like building Boeing fuselages (and their General Electric jet engines), SpaceX rockets, Intel chips and cars. It's a good sign that the TSMC and Samsung are building leading edge factories to the United States (though outside of California). Analysis of those decisions might be a good video idea by the way. Your semiconductor fab videos tend to do very well.
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  129. As you say, the bondholders of Tsinghua Unigroup are China's provincial governments which themselves create debt through local government financing vehicles. China's crumbling ghost cities are also built upon this debt. Given this is public debt that's being defaulted upon, it's ultimately the regular people of China who end up paying for it (in lower pensions, less service delivery etc).
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  130. I am against further integrating a totalitarian surveillance state into the world economy. I would definitely like to see the United States and allies actively move towards a 'containment' policy (which was successfully used over decades to destroy the Soviet Union). I don't think completely decoupling China from the rest of the world is possible, but we can go a long way towards reducing our reliance on a totalitarian dictatorship without actually affecting our standard of living.
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  131. In the 1980s England was a innovator in the computer industry, teaching students with the indigenously developed BBC Micro computer, so it's funny (and perhaps expected) that Margaret Thatcher's controversial 1980s laissez-faire reforms of the United Kingdom's tightly-regulated post-World War 2 economy ended up mirroring the laissez-faire environment of Colonial Hong Kong and with both places undergoing brutal deindustrialization and eventually becoming overly reliant on the finance industry. Another parallel is that because of Brexit the finance industry is reportedly starting to leave London for Germany (and I'd expect, Switzerland). And thanks to Xi Jinping ending One Country Two Systems the finance industry is leaving Hong Kong for Singapore (for global companies), and Shanghai (for companies targeting the China market).
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  132. I think it would be interesting hear your thoughts on China's money supply (as in M1/M2/M3), and its reserves. Knowing the Chinese Communist Party reputation, how can their central bank numbers ever be trusted? How much can the (fiat and gold) reserves of Chinese private banks even be trusted?
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  133. Fertility is not uniform around the world. You can worry about the massive population growth in sub-Saharan Africa stretching such countries to their limits and creating fertile ground for future violent extremists while also being worried about the ability for developed countries to maintain their populations.
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  134. You should end every video by asking for like/comment/subscribe. Also you should pin a comment asking for topic ideas. You don't necessarily need to listen to the comments, but the boosted engagement will make the YouTube algorithm will share your videos more widely.
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  135. There's a lot of wild speculation on the internet about the collapse of the Three Gorges Dam (given how common "tofu building" construction techniques are in China) due to it nearly "overtopping" earlier this year. The collapse of the Three Gorges Dam would clearly cause millions of deaths directly (a 100 meter high wall of water travelling at 100 kilometres per hour reaching highly populated downstream cities like Yichang in less than an hour), and many more through disease. I don't doubt that the Three Gorges Dam has many structural issues that the Chinese Communist Party members in charge are doing their best to cover up, but a catastrophic failure/collapse has been predicted for decades. The idea that it's going to collapse the imminently has been vastly overstated.
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  136. Great video. I know Japan, Europe and South Korea have work cultures that prize joining safe/large/established companies immediately after entering the workforce, with major societal pressure (seen as a failure) if you choose to pursue life paths with less guaranteed success. I presume Taiwanese youth have a similar outlook.
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  137. The solution is definitely to call out people who post stupid and false information with accurate information based in science, rather than the censorship approach favored in some countries. It would be very sad if valid hypotheses get marked by society as crazed conspiracy theories because they got (incorrectly) evaluated as less likely than the alternative hypotheses. In the initial stages of the outbreak the "lab leak" hypothesis was clearly mistakenly identified as a conspiracy theory. Yes, it may yet turn out to be false (it may even be more likely to be false), but it definitely continues to be a valid hypothesis that needs investigation until it is ruled out.
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  138. If people in Taiwan are leaving for greener pastures in other countries then that should BOOST wages in Taiwan as companies try and retain their workforce
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  139. Hmm, here are some direct links anyway. Hopefully they won't experience 'link rot' in the coming few years: Direct link (HTML): https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/134/1/185/5140154 Direct link (PDF): https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-pdf/134/1/185/27494631/qjy027.pdf (Again, if the links do break, Google for "Busting the 'Princelings': The Campaign Against Corruption in China's Primary Land Market")
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  140. I have confirmed with Asianometry that this was a typo. It's 14km (8.7 miles), not 140km (87 miles). The description and transcript has been updated. The number comes from a book: "Over 1973-4, the new disk brake was tested in wind tunnels and in drops from helicopters and aircraft from altitudes as high as 14,000 m. The spacecraft model was also dropped onto simulated Venusian soil made from foam concrete." (from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects: by Brian Harvey).
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  141. That's the real power of selective censorship: you can show one side of the story. And without any alternatives you can convince people of anything. Ideological news exists in the West (eg, Fox News for conservatives), but at least people can change the channel to CNN and the other networks with different biases. Also YouTube and Google News automatically recommends many international sources of high quality journalism like the BBC, Germany's DW, and Qatar's Al Jazeera English, and even the low quality international networks like Russia Today and China's CGTN. In China, the only people who regularly scale the Great Firewall are young and computer savvy. The vast majority of people in China accepts the government of China's propaganda and have no hope of ever finding alternative viewpoints.
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  142.  @Asianometry  I guess Ambarella does have an Asia connection given that founder and CEO Fermi Wang is a Taiwanese immigrant. Though pretty much the entire US fabless semiconductor industry seems to be run by people with Taiwanese heritage (from AMD's Lisa Su to NVidia's Jensen Huang).
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  143. "America is a third world country in a Gucci belt"
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  144. @Anti-CornLawLeague Thanks for the recommendation of Masaman. I just watched a video and it is the kind of no-nonsense, high-information density brain dumps that we Asianometry viewers enjoy. For similar very dry but relatively information dense autistic content, you may enjoy academic Thomas Sowell's audiobooks. There's a lot of YouTube videos that pull chapters from his many audiobooks and make them into Asianometry-like presentations. Actually, I recommend non-fiction history-focused audiobooks in general.
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  145. The resolution of the image you chose at 0:00 is pretty bad. you should have selected a higher quality template image with less compression artifacts (High Expectations Asian Father expects nothing less of you).
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  146. Singapore has reportedly passed a law that no single source can provide more than 25% of Singapore's electricity. That spread your risk approach seems to be how they approach international relations. They try to make sure their economy and security is not overly dependent on either the United States or China. Whether they are getting the balance right can be debated, but that's their strategy.
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  147. As he said a in a previous video: "In semiconductors either you are the leader, or you suck". TSMC is the leader in high performance chip manufacturing. It's not currently Intel, not Global Foundries (spun out from AMD), not Samsung. And certainty not currently China's SMIC. It probably also helps that Asianometry is based out of Taiwan, and TSMC is the world-leading technology company from Taiwan.
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  148.  @crystalball020  Judging by their actions, I think the current leadership in China agree with you. I may be wrong on this, but as far as I can tell the government of China is NOT currently using the conflict to stir up nationalism and anti-India sentiment (in an attempt to draw attention away from domestic issues). Conversely in India there are private news channels and politicians which ARE generating lots of nationalism and anti-China sentiment within the Indian population. As mentioned in the video, given the the nuclear weapons of China, Pakistan and India, any regional war risks nuclear escalation so it's all very worrying.
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  149. 2:38 Wait, Taiwan has the Hukou system? So Taiwanese also have the "internal passport" preventing the migration of people living in the countryside to prosperous cities? China's Hukou is considered by many a type of caste system -- completely against the "everybody is born equal" concept. I'll have to look into this further
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  150.  @Asianometry  Oh right I misheard the name when I googled it: Kofukuji temple in Nara, not Tofukuji temple in Kyoto (which Wikipedia says takes it name from both the Kofukuji and Todaiji temples in Nara).
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  151. 10:29 I wonder what would have happened if Japanese didn't try to squeeze every cent out of their monopoly, but instead chose to accept a lower margin. 12:28 Maybe DuPont would have spent less effort researching how to produce synthetic camphor and the Taiwanese camphor industry would have survived far longer? But perhaps it was inevitable that the world would switch from isolating camphor from plants (which need massive tree plantations) to a much more scalable solution: extracting precursor chemicals from mineral deposits then synthesizing camphor in industrial scale processing plants. It's a very interesting thought experiment in supply/demand of industrial feedstocks and our global supply chains. Something that's absolutely relevant to today's "rare-earth" mineral dependence on China.
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  152. 1:10 Working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week is 72 hours, not 60 hours. I saw a saw video recently (search 'advchina sleep' in YouTube) about the work culture including 2 hour daily lunch breaks (which include midday naps). Do those tech companies you mentioned have siestas as part of the 996 culture?
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  153.  @Asianometry  4:23 I like how you subtly said "what are the tax incentives" twice LOL. Very accurate!
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  154. To be fair, Evergrande's cash crunch is only for the interest payments. The $300 billion principle of the loan doesn't really matter that much: what matters is their ability to always pay the monthly repayments or refinance, and have a pathway to deleveraging overtime. The immediate cash crunch is only a few hundred million dollars (pocket change) for their monthly interest payment to bond holders. It's just that if they miss that, then the entire $300 billion in debt probably won't be paid back, and the company would collapse (along with potentially other players in China's property sector) causing a big slowdown in the China and the world's economy.
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  155. Direct link to "How Taiwan Created TSMC": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fVrWDdll0g
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  156. The concept of the "3rd world" was originally based on the Cold War worldview: The free world / first world: US and allied countries, the second world: Soviet Union, and allied communist satellites, and the third-world: the non-aligned regions (India, Africa, etc) which were universally poor. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the "1st world" has come to mean developed countries, and "3rd world" simply meaning being the poor and corrupt countries (sometimes called "developing countries" or "emerging economies" but really some of those countries are neither). Also as Peter Thiel suggested in Zero To One, the world's richest countries shouldn't really consider themselves "developed" because they can still develop far further than they are currently. With this new Cold War between the US and China, we might see a return of the "free world" rhetoric. Even in the first Cold War the United States had massive political upheaval (the 1950/1960s Civil Rights Movement that ended segregation, Anti-Vietnam War protests). The US is no stranger to massive protests and upheaval. Maybe this time is different, but at least in recent history it has been managed with careful leadership where the United States come out the stronger for it.
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  157.  @sinoroman  It's still the richest country in the world, where almost all the world leading technology companies, science and innovation comes from. The innovation is often done by attracting immigrants like Sergey Brin and Elon Musk to the country. Maybe that will cease in the future. The United States has major fractures, especially economic but also centuries of racial issues. No country is immune from authoritarianism and tyranny and it's definitely possible in the next 30 years that the US breaks into separate countries (like an independent California, Texas etc) with armed uprisings and all out civil war. A violent revolution in the US is not in the best interests of the richest and most powerful -- they stand to lose a lot. So I think any big crisis could spur the United States into fixing its societal problems and with enough effort we might see the country emerge stronger and more united. But maybe not. We'll see how things go!
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  158. Keeping up quality is key. Thorough research to create an insightful script with information that can't be gathered easily otherwise, good microphone recording with clear pronunciations, Pinyin displayed on screen for any Chinese words so interested English-speaking users can learn more themselves, and links to previous Asianometry videos.
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  159. lol Communist China doesn't represent 5000 years of Chinese civilization. Mao Zedong destroyed much of that cultural legacy by his "Four Olds" campaign (Destroying Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Habits, Old Customs). The only reason why many ancient Chinese artifacts have survived is they were moved to Taiwan by Chiang Kai-Shek's people, and saved from destruction during Mao's violent and deadly Cultural Revolution. The CCP propaganda likes to blame the West for everything, but much of what pushed China backwards was Mao and the CCP. You don't see kangaroo courts in modern Taiwan. Hong Kong is has become a different story though (with the CCP takeover virtually complete).
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  160. Moses Alazzawi YouTube are rolling out hiding the number of dislikes: https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/update-to-youtube/ Terrible decision by YouTube.
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  161.  @markedwards4879  Good call!
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  162. 14:21 Here's a direct link to the Asianometry history video on Heaven Lake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4_glr9BofI
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  163. For anybody reading this comment, checkout this channel's "TSMC - Essays" playlist for more videos!
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  164. 3:02 "nor does it explain the numerous bullet holes in the boat's hull" It's a somber tragedy, but damn did that statement catch me off guard.
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  165. lol "umm, no" as in "thanks but no thanks"?
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  166. 2:08 The English word "chow" (meaning food) appears to come from pidgin English "chow chow" in the 1700s. It looks like it may be related from the Chinese food "a Chinese preserve of ginger, orange peel, and other ingredients, in syrup" and "a mixed vegetable pickle". The dog breed Chow Chow ("a dog of a sturdy Chinese breed with a broad muzzle, a tail curled over the back, a bluish-black tongue, and typically a dense thick coat") is only a very happy coincidence, as best I can tell.
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  167. ​ @shakingwater  Yes and no: the reasons NVMe solid-state drives tend to be faster than MicroSD cards are because solid-state drives have multiple flash chips being written to in parallel with a much larger thermal envelope (with higher performance drives including a heat sink), and they have a much larger bus (eg 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0). The NAND flash memory is otherwise exactly the same. Though as you may know "part binning" will mean typical MicroSD card tend to get flash memory with more factory defects, with the built-in controller chip on both solid-state drives and MicroSD cards transparently marking bad sectors, handing wear leveling and doing error correction. Designing the circuit boards that can transfer the data very fast without data errors is not a show stopper, and lanes of PCI Express scales pretty linearly (eg, 16 lanes of PCIe 4.0 provides 32 GByte/s). The proposed device is the size of a 2.5" laptop hard drive, so signal integrity issues at high data rates over such short distances shouldn't be a big problem. But as mentioned, trading slow transfer rates for extremely high capacity is acceptable for many workloads (at an extreme, see Amazon Glacier). I think the only show stopper to the 2.5" laptop hard drives storing hundreds (even thousands) of terabytes of flash memory is figuring out a way to manufacture the huge amount of silicon required at much lower prices. Hopefully the entrance of companies like Yangtze Memory spurs this on.
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  168. It's up to the current generation of young adults (and the upcoming generation of students) to build upon Taiwan's economic prosperity and democratic inheritance. I hope the Taiwanese start to understand population demographics and come up with policies to boost the fertility rate. For Taiwan to have a baby boom, it's likely you need changes to your paid parental leave policies, child care etc. Don't make the same mistakes that China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore have made.
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  169. Checkout out his entire library of playlists! If you have even a passing interest in technology, I recommend the playlist "TSMC - Essays" about the worlds leading chip manufacturer called Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation. Yes it's a mouthful, but most of the world's best tech companies use TSMC to make their high end chips (from Apple processors to AMD processors to NVidia graphics cards). A few years ago TSMC took the lead with the most advanced chip manufacturing process and became the king of chip making (Intel held that crown for decades). The world hasn't caught up with TSMC not being a household name like Intel is. I find it fascinating that little Taiwan is punching above its weight and creating world class companies!
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  170. Viewers of this video may be interested in the YouTube channel "PBS Eons": a fascinating look into the history of life on Earth.
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  171. ​ @buzzlightyear3715 😂😂😂
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  172. I don't believe in Gordon Chang's 'Coming Collapse of China' hypothesis, but I do see China soon having several lost decades from the 2030s onwards: experiencing near 0% economic growth (while the rest of the world grows above that).
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  173.  @Asianometry  I absolutely agree that the rest of the world should push to out innovate China. Companies like SpaceX are building Starship and Starlink (not to mention the previous generation re-usable Falcon 9) while China continues to launch Soyuz-derived capsules and crash toxic UDMH fuel onto unsuspecting villages. Without hacking and tech transfer (previously from Soviet Union, now from private companies) the CCP will find it very difficult to catchup. China is blocked from the bidding on commercial rocket launch services for obvious security reasons.
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  174.  @missingmochigumanofficial  Supporters on Patreon get early access through an unlisted video link. When the video is published the published date resets
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  175.  @ProfCantonius  Under Xi Jinping's leadership, I think Hong Kong will become "just another city in China". Before Xi Jinping, I thought there was a high chance for an extension to the One Country Two Systems model because Hong Kong's common law system is very useful. These days I think China's top leadership mistakenly believes that China has nothing to learn from Hong Kong's model and at 3% of China's GDP it's not a place that even matters to China anymore. I think Hong Kong will still do OK: it will continue to be far richer than China and preserve a lot of its wealth. But it will definitely becoming less of a global city. This may change if Xi Jinping leaves office, but that's not going to happen in the short term. * (I'm not from the region, so my analysis is based on my reading about Hong Kong and the psychology/decisions that the leadership of China has made)
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  176. Corporate structures are very dry, and as somebody else said in the comments: arcane. This video is a bit hard to follow and requires a lot of active listening and thought to try and piece things together. A simplified diagram explained as a slideshow using PowerPoint might have kept people's attention further. All that said, this video is a great deep dive into the arcane part of Chinese corporate structures, specially in relation to Alibaba and its businesses (Youku, Taobao, Ant/AliPay etc). I also really enjoyed your examination of the "big red button" / "nuclear option" provided by what you eloquently call the "strategic ambiguity": the legality of those Variable Interest Entities that are used in those Chinese corporate structures. I guess it tells us what everybody already knows: the Chinese Communist Party (and well placed executives like Jack Ma) can consolidate power at any point (and steal money from investors, especially foreigners) yet still be 100% legal, because the contracts, courts and legal system in China are specifically designed with the "strategic ambiguity" that the CCP can leverage at any time. I can understand why China is constantly trying to clamp down on people moving all their assets to safer legal jurisdictions. If I had capital in China, I would too LOL
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  177. If you're looking for future topics, you should consider making a video about The Great Firewall of China. I consider it one of the most dangerous technologies ever invented.
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  178.  @TheFreshSpam  TSMC and Samsung are ahead of Intel in manufacturing. Especially TSMC. Due to the semiconductor shortage Intel can still sell their inferior chips at a decent premium. The have plenty of cash on hand and might still might come back if new CEO Pat Gelsinger can get their house in order. It's not clear whether he'll succeed. These days most would take an AMD design (manufactured in an TSMC fab) over an Intel design (manufactured in an Intel fab).
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  179.  @douginorlando6260  First flight in 2030s? What's the fuel and engine selection? Will it be even partially re-usable? It sounds like a great competitor to NASA's Space Launch System (SLS). But LM9 seems like vaporware right now, and even the SLS isn't vaporware. If it's the "Elephant in the room" it's the "white elephant" in the room. China doesn't yet have an answer to the Falcon 9's reusability yet. Maybe they will one day, but until then you may as well call Long March 9 the "New Armstrong". They call such systems "paper rockets" for a reason. The rocket only exists on paper.
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  180. For another excellent minidocumentary from this channel, checkout the video titled The Geopolitics of Taiwanese Pork Imports
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  181. Brouhaha is just another word that means "commotion"
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  182.  @evanh9301  Potentially. I see Trump = tough rhetoric, trade war and high tariffs, but hurting the US alliances system and international leadership. I see Biden = Softer on the CCP in rhetoric, won't increase the tariffs, but more likely to bolster US alliance and international leadership, and do longer term economic integration through things like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (a trade agreement designed specifically to exclude China). Congressional Democrats like Senator Chuck Schumer are definitely far tougher on the Chinese Communist Party than Biden has been so far. We'll see if that kind of anti-CCP thinking within his own party influences the decisions Biden will make.
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  183. 4:37 It's interesting how different the world was in 2008 (the year of the Beijing Olympics). I can't imagine it being politically feasible for AMD and Fujitsu to transfer advanced manufacturing knowledge to China these days. These days in political circles it's more widely recognized that the skills Yangtze gains from manufacturing lower value semiconductors will eventually be used to move up the value chain, and crucially that China (unlike South Korea or Taiwan) is not going to become more open as it grows richer. Like it or not, this view means that policy makers see China moving up the value chain as undesired outcome, something that should be blocked with policy and sanctions. I suspect that NAND manufacturing tech transfer would have been blocked if it was 2021.
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  184. Not to "dox" Asianometry, he's mentioned he's part of the "Taipei elite" in a previous video talking about the economic divide between the north and the much poorer regions like southern city of Tainan (and the Taiwanese indigenous people in the mountainous eastern countryside). Given his interest in semiconductor fabs presumably he seems to be trained as an electronics engineer. (Though for all I know all Taiwanese people are well versed in the finer points of extreme ultraviolet lithography.) EDIT: beaten to the punch
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  185. ​ @Asianometry  Once you reach let's say 250,000 subscribers (10 times your current subscriber count) and have grown your Patreon proportionally from 81 subscribers to 810 subscribers it should become increasingly obvious that entertaining the global internet is far more financially lucrative than any professional career path you could possible have in Taiwan. Yes ad revenue, sponsorships and view counts may be a fickle income source, and you face global competition with your videos. But Patreon is consistent, as so is the user-base for quality content. It's enough to one day make the jump to being a full-time YouTube creator. As a famous senate once said, "we will watch your career with great interest".
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  186. Good to see at least Taiwan's 'high art' scene seems thriving. I think 24 million person Taiwan punches WAY ABOVE its weight in electronics (mostly due to TSMC and Foxconn/Pegatron/Wistron), but punches WAY BELOW its weight when it comes to pop culture exports. Even 51 million person South Korea has produced "K-Pop" music. Meanwhile 126 million person Japan is highly influential -- generating huge amounts of video games (Nintendo and Sony PlayStation), anime (cartoons), and manga (comic books) including internationally recognizable characters like Super Mario and the pokemon Pikachu, generating billions of dollars of export income and huge amounts of soft power. Some Japanese media also get adapted into high budget Hollywood movies, like 'Edge of Tomorrow' starring Tom Cruise. I feel Taiwan could do much better in this regard.
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  187. He's not swift like a coursing river
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  188.  @shakingwater  You can type "!g" in a DuckDuckGo search query to make it search using Google. You might find that your percentage of searches with "!g" falls over time.
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  189. Microphone stuff up around 1:41
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  190. Another great and informative video. Here's a comment for the YouTube algorithm
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  191. China doesn't have access to large amounts of fast GPUs due to sanctions, so can't as easily throw as much compute and training as other country can. China also doesn't have access to the ability to fab leading-edge semiconductors, or the EDA design tools either. Only TSMC can fab the chips, and they obey sanctions due to using ASML machines and other US funded (or founded) components and intellectual property (see Asianometry video on sanctions) All that said, engineers in China can spend more time optimizing algorithms to do more with the compute they have. And I'm sure they'll try sanctions busting too.
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  192. For more great stories on natural history, I highly recommend the YouTube channel PBS Eons (see direct link below)
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  193.  @justicedemocrat9357  The original ~2008 Kevin Rudd government NBN was to build Fibre To The Premises (FTTP, maximum initial speed 1000mbps) to 93% of residences. The 2013 LNP government switched to a "Multi Technology Mix" which used the inferior "FTTN" (fiber to the node, limited to ~60mbps depending on the cable quality), "FTTC" (fiber to the curb, max 80mbps right now depending on cable quality) and "HFC" (Hybrid Fiber Coaxial, max ~100mbps depending on cable quality). For HFC they bought Telstra's Foxtel cable TV network and Optus's HFC network (for $30 billion if I recall correctly). The limits of FTTN means they have started building out FTTP for certain suburbs after first installing FTTN. Because the FTTN existing network turned out to be too slow. By the way, it's possible to get a free quote from the NBN "Technology Choice Program" website and pay out of pocket to upgrade to FTTP. Fiber optic cabling to the premises is the best internet technology around, and will continue to be for many decades.
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  194. Interesting how China has become a nation of high consumer debt (and high corporate debt). The high household savings rate is completely offset by the lack of any decent pension system, and the sky-high cost of real-estate.
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  195. There are some India semiconductor content coming up (Patreon Early Access), and some older videos on the Galwan Valley and the Sino-Soviet Split (which is India related). On the Discord server Jon mentioned that the recent India video (the Reliance Jio video) didn't do very well compared to how much research it took to make. Please share videos you like to people who may not be aware of the channel!
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  196.  @testla3383  You're right. Hyundai makes cargo ships and their ports (including the elevators in the buildings), as well as cars. And Sony sells personal insurance. Any company that can successfully diversify into such distant markets is definitely very impressive.
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  197. The only ASUS product I've ever been disappointed with was a *very* low-end Windows 10 laptop that had 32GB of non-expandable storage in around 2015. For Windows 10 the 32GB of storage wasn't even enough to do a Windows Update. Microsoft later created a workaround that used an external USB drive as a temporary storage medium to do the Windows Update, but I can't believe Microsoft (and ASUS) even allowed a laptop to be released with such a low amount of storage. Other than that I've had very good experiences with ASUS products and recommend ASUS, Gigabyte (and Samsung) for those who want high quality (and relatively cheap) electronics that has been made outside China.
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  198. Singapore gets its water from Malaysia right now and 81% of its natural gas (and thus its electricity supply) from Malaysia and Indonesia. See Asianometry's video "Singapore's 50 Year March Towards Water Independence" for more information on the water side of things... That reliance is already should be a *massive* national security concern. Given Singapore is a small city-state it realistically can't do everything within its borders. Even continent sized countries follow the economic principle of "competitive advantage" (not every country needs to make its own clothing, or cars, assemble its own electronics). So it comes down to diversification: never be overly reliant on the United States, China, Australia or the Middle East (for oil). Also Singapore has also passed a law saying no one source can provide more than 25% of Singapore's energy, and Sun Cable suggest they will only power about 20%
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  199. "How TSMC Came to Taiwan's South": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x02pq2HeKQY
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  200. Watch Compounding Curiosity podcast (ep 24). The interview covers it!!
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  201. All dudettes are also dudes, like how actresses are also actors.
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  202. Here's the quote from 10:18: "They licensed a promising technology from Bell Labs and gathered a small team of their best dudes to rapidly develop a rough concept machine in less than a year - the 8100 Plasma Etching Machine." The word "dude" is definitely used in a genderless way, my dude!
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  203. As Darth Vader famously said, the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of friendship
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  204. I think Asianometry might be a fan of Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series. First ~10 episodes are very funny and highly recommended to anybody familiar with the original Yu-Gi-Oh series.
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  205. I also saw chop seals as an outdated concept, but in Western legal systems there is actually the concept of a "bearer instrument" where the holder of a document gets legal ownership of an underlying asset. This can apply to company's shares, bonds etc. Because the bearer share certificate can be transferred (or stolen) without records, and their use in tax evasion means they're slowly becoming banned. But bearer certificates are still used. By the way, I believe cash (banknotes and coins) are also considered bearer instruments. Though like other bearer instruments, large cash transactions are slowly being phased out for other transaction systems with fully auditable transaction history such as electronic funds transfer.
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  206. I think Taiwan being seen as "heading in the right direction" helped a lot (even before the democratization of the 1980s/1990s). Hypothetically when Xi Jinping took power in 2012 had he not inflamed tensions (annexing the SCS, interning 1 million Uighers) but instead immediately implemented very minor democratic reform (eg, widespread local village elections reminiscent of China's famous "Wukan democracy experiment"), then I think Trump would have struggled to gain political support for his 2017 trade war and subsequent sanctions. China's leadership could persuasively argue that Trump's actions would make continued reform impossible, even if they didn't actually intend on continued reform.
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  207.  @allacerz2289  I agree the CCP's number one goal is to remain in power indefinitely, and everything else is a means to that end.
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  208. I have confirmed with Asianometry that this was a typo. It's 14km (8.7 miles), not 140km (87 miles). The description and subtitles/transcript has been updated. The number comes from a book: "Over 1973-4, the new disk brake was tested in wind tunnels and in drops from helicopters and aircraft from altitudes as high as 14,000 m. The spacecraft model was also dropped onto simulated Venusian soil made from foam concrete." (from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects: by Brian Harvey).
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  209. Really enjoying your random vlog content / mini-documentaries, like your earlier videos on Chiang Kai-shek Statue Park and Kaohsiung Pier 2 Art Center. Also if the growth in hard drive capacity and archival is any indication, it's likely your video will continue to be freely available on YouTube for many hundreds of years, long after the museum has closed down and been long forgotten. Thanks for documenting it.
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  210. 14:02 The video states Australia's *Nothern Territory* has 250,000 people (compared to the similar sized Egypt's 103 million people). It's not saying the whole of Australia has 250,000 people. For those interested, the Northern Territory (or "the NT" as people here call it) is an administrative district in Australia known as a "territory". This is actually a distinct administrative jurisdiction to an Australian "state", like Queensland or Victoria. And as such there are some limitations on the power of the politicians in that region. The only other territory of the same status Australia has is the Australian Capital Territory (or "the ACT" as people here call it), which contains Australia's capital, Canberra. There's been talk of the NT becoming a full-fledged Australian state, but nothing has come of it yet. I fully expect one day it will become a state, especially as its population and importance to the Australian economy grows. The Territorians grow some mighty fine mangoes up there!
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  211. ​ @dragonchan  Visit this link https://www.patreon.com/Asianometry and look at the posts. There are about 20 videos that are not-yet-released that can only be unlocked by paying for the "Early Access Tier", which is $6/month. For most of the world, this is of course a lot of money to spend to support a YouTube content creator. All videos on Asianometry's Early Access Tier gets released for free after 2-3 months.
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  212. For those reading, here are those videos: "Taiwan's Biggest Company - Foxconn" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LytEuoS87EA "TSMC vs Samsung Foundry - The Billion Dollar Rivalry" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4L1IdbQyLg
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  213. Punctuation, my dude!
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  214. Intel absolutely dominated high-end semiconductors from like, 1950-2010. With the notable exception of memory chips, which Japan dominated in the 1980s.
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  215. Some people think the US dollar (and all currencies in the post-1971 era) is the largest Ponzi scheme in history. That may be true, but the constant clamping down on capital flight from China indicates the US dollar is preferred over Mao-nopoly money. Hedge fund manager Kyle Bass had some interesting things to say about this on the Real Vision Finance YouTube podcast. He also did a thought-provoking show with exiled billionaire Guo Wengui, but I'm not sure how reliable Guo is as a source.
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  216. The archivist in me wishes you recorded the name tag for every cup
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  217. LG's quality control has always tended to be lower than other companies. It sucks because they make extremely great products at really great prices. My household has had several LG 4K 27" monitors for several years now, and they're so great! I recommend them to everybody. Great image quality, and very cheap. One monitor developed a delamination issue (red corners) which some people on Twitter also had. But panel was replaced for free under warranty, and I haven't had any issues with the other 3 monitors. I find LG makes good (to great) products, but tends to have bad (to terrible) quality control. Samsung are definitely far better in this regard. Also, interestingly enough they both tend to manufacture in South East Asia (Thailand, Malaysia etc) rather than in China.
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  218. PayPal only entered the market after buying the Chinese domestic firm GoPay less than 12 months ago, and it was only this year that China allowed full foreign ownership of financial firms. But WeChat and Alipay have already developed strong 'network effects', so the odds are stacked against PayPal and other platforms. You're right that the US under President Trump is becoming increasingly hostile to firms in China with close links to the Chinese Communist Party since the trade war began. To expand on your comment, I'll mention that since 2019 the US has been using the Entity List to block companies like Hikvision and Dahua security cameras due to those companies being involved in the Uighur concentration camps, but DJI drones are currently still available for consumers to buy (admittedly the US government is banned from using DJI drones). Huawei and ZTE (makers of network equipment and android devices) have been added to the Entity List due to concerns the equipment will (rightly or wrongly) be used for espionage. I am very interested to see what President Biden will do with ongoing China trade disputes. I hope a reformed World Trade Organization plays a bigger role in such dispute mediation, but I think this is unlikely.
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  219. The "ASML: TSMC's Critical Supplier, Explained" goes into sanctions and the international suppliers chain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFsn1CUyXWs Also checkout the multiple videos on this channel on SMIC and HiSilicon for more coverage.
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  220. Very serine snapshot of a place I never intend to visit! But I find the interesting historical background always fascinating. Thanks for making these video (and all the others on your channel). You have a very underrated channel.
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  221. Speaking of feedback, the acronym 'MRT' in the video title should be replaced with "Mass Rapid Transit system". With only a little bit of polish, this channel has the ability to grow into having a CGPGrey or Wendover Productions level audience.
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  222. If this video does well, I highly recommend making a video titled "Why Australia Can't Build Submarines". The Australian Government controls a large state-owned enterprise formerly known "Australian Submarine Corporation" which focuses on building ships for its military. A few years ago Australia's then-Defence Minister said that he "wouldn't trust them to build a canoe". A politician saying that of his own nation's industrial base is pretty jaw-dropping, and shows how far Australia's heavy industry has receded. It seems like a great story for Asianometry, particularly in light of the "AUKUS" nuclear submarine deal.
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  223. 9:13 When you said the government of Taiwan helped organize "housing" you meant real-estate for the businesses right? Or did they actually help organize residential apartments near/within the Hsinchu Science Park?
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  224. ASUS makes the best routers. In addition to the official firmware there's a really great community firmware project called ASUS-Merlin.
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  225.  @Asianometry Al Jazeera English made a great 6-part documentary on China's (once famous?) officially-sanctioned democracy experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mglQckQGwbg
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  226. 1:48 You flubbed the pronunciation of Tiananmen exactly how you did it in a previous video!
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  227. 13:32 It's pronounced baker-light, not backer-light
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  228. The Sun Cable project discussed here is a completely different to the "Asian Renewable Energy Hub" proposal you refer to. Their proposal was for a wind and solar farm in the Pilbara region of the state of Western Australia, with submarine cables to Indonesia or Singapore, and like you say, has now switched to use the energy to produce ammonia. The Sun Cable company appear to be continuing with their HVDC submarine cable plan.
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  229. 😂😂😂
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  230. Continuing on from your video on Hua Mulan, this song (which most Asianometry viewers would not be familiar with) is about the island hopping settlement of Polynesia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubZrAmRxy_M (Interestingly enough it's by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the musical Hamilton about United States independence)
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  231. For viewers who enjoy Asianometry, I recommend watching videos by PolyMatter (China), Wendover Productions (Aircraft+Logistics), Caspian Report (Geopolitics), VisualPolitik (Geopolitics), CGPGrey, Johnny Harris (Vice / New York Times video journalist). For more China specific videos, serpentza/laowhy86/advchina has some gold (among lots of clickbait). You may also like Cheddar and Quartz (for random topics), and Newsthink (SpaceX/Tesla/Elon Musk), ColdFusion TV (future tech focused), RealEngineering, CuriousDroid (mostly engineering focused)
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  232. That reminds me: Asianometry, please re-order your "TSMC - Essays" playlist in chronological order. Currently the first video in the playlist is NOT the one a viewer should start with...
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  233. Hmm. I refer to Isaac Newton (or anybody else) with their names without the "Sir" honorific because I don't respect the idea of honors bestowed by the monarchy of the United Kingdom. But I haven't yet started done the same with honorifics like Alexander the Great as "Alexander of Macedon", or Mahatma Ghandi 🤔 I don't think I'll ever try to refer to Lord Kelvin as "William Thomson" 😞
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  234. ​ @Asianometry  The recent subscribers entered your channel through your recent explainer videos which did really well. I think you'll eventually get to 100,000 subscribers if you maintain current research and quality. But you'll get way more if you use more clickbaity titles and thumbnails. More dynamic content would also help. For your great/punchy rapid-fire explainer videos I look forward to you playing more dynamic background music (I Dunno by Grapes). Your microphone quality is better now, so you can easily make sure the background music doesn't drown your voice out. It will be pretty mindblowing if you can get your Patreon numbers to scale proportionally! As they say in Star Wars "We will watch your career with great interest" :)
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  235. I have confirmed with Asianometry that this was a typo. It's 14km (8.7 miles), not 140km (87 miles). The description and transcript has been updated. The number comes from a book: "Over 1973-4, the new disk brake was tested in wind tunnels and in drops from helicopters and aircraft from altitudes as high as 14,000 m. The spacecraft model was also dropped onto simulated Venusian soil made from foam concrete." (from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects: by Brian Harvey).
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  236. ​ @Asianometry  I actually think your Formosan salmon will do pretty well, especially with the recent hockey stick growth of your channel you'll gain about 1,000 views on it no problem. It's entertaining content that melds scientific and historical information while being high-information density, just like your Ractopamine pork additive video. It's your coffee cup competition video that won't be a hit
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  237. I have confirmed with Asianometry that this was a typo. It's 14km (8.7 miles), not 140km (87 miles). The description and subtitles/transcript has been updated. The number comes from a book: "Over 1973-4, the new disk brake was tested in wind tunnels and in drops from helicopters and aircraft from altitudes as high as 14,000 m. The spacecraft model was also dropped onto simulated Venusian soil made from foam concrete." (from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects: by Brian Harvey).
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  238. 17:23 LOL
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  239. I have confirmed with Asianometry that this was a typo. It's 14km (8.7 miles), not 140km (87 miles). The description and subtitles/transcript has been updated. The number comes from a book: "Over 1973-4, the new disk brake was tested in wind tunnels and in drops from helicopters and aircraft from altitudes as high as 14,000 m. The spacecraft model was also dropped onto simulated Venusian soil made from foam concrete." (from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects: by Brian Harvey).
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  240. Currently the United States can comfortably pay its debt servicing obligations (interest on the bonds) due to record low interest rates. But rates won't stay low forever. The bet is that the US will keep growing (making debt a smaller share of GDP), and the deficit will drop. Then the most amazing thing is the US doesn't actually need to pay back the $28 trillion dollar principle. It can keep refinancing it indefinitely with fresh bonds. And the bond interest rates are lower than inflation, so after a few hundred years the value of the $28 trillion dollars in debt will be virtually nothing. The "wait and inflate" strategy has worked before (European war bonds from hundreds of years ago). It's a very dangerous strategy though. I hope the US cuts the budget deficit to slow the growth of new debt.
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  241.  @Asianometry  haha
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  242. ​ @Asianometry  You can upload your transcript, and it automatically creates timed subtitles from it. It means near perfect accuracy rather than YouTube's autogenerated speech-to-text one.
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  243. Direct link to Asianometry's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Asianometry
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  244. ​ @Asianometry  Right now the biggest legislative change is the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme's Public Register (transparency.ag.gov.au) where anybody working on behalf of a foreign power (including eg, people working for the Confucius institutes) are required to register. Also there has been somewhat controversial increased powers to the Australia's equivalent to the FBI that's meant to combat China's infiltration attempts. More sunlight on CCP influence is definitely a good thing. Also billionaire CCP-linked property developer Huang Xiaomo had his citizenship application rejected and barred from re-entering Australia after he was found to be bribing politicians to change their position on the South China Sea issue from "international law must be respected" to the CCP's position. Other than that, the Australian government has definitely changed its rhetorical stance on China and is pushing back MUCH harder (leading the world by calling for an inquiry into COVID even though that meant retaliation on our beef and barley exports). Recently a centrist senator named Rex Patrick called for a Chinese consulate to be closed given the risk to the local defence sector. This is a big change to how things used to be. Also for what it's worth, public opinion on China is at record lows since the interference was discovered (see the Pew research polls on China sentiment), so politicians are to some degree reflecting the public mood.
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  245.  @astroboy2345  The United States has been supporting Taiwan under the table for decades after switching recognition in the 1970s. Of course before switching recognition the R.O.C was a card carrying ally of the United States. Since Taiwan has become a beacon of democracy and freedom its just a matter of time until overt support of Taiwan comes back. It will help once Taiwan chooses to formalize its independence in a few decades. Just keep the status quo for a few more decades and let the Chinese Communist Party's Chairman Xi do to his country what Chairman Mao did a few decades ago.
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  246.  @citizenofdaworld7582  I'm saying SpaceX already serves the "Global South" (I hate that term). So China's private rocket companies don't really have any international markets. Where is China's competitive advantage here? SpaceX is operating at costs far below the rest of the industry. It would take China tens of billions of dollars to match them. And then what? Still no international markets.
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  247. Like it or not, Singapore will be reliant on Malaysia for water resources for some time (side note: I recommend watching the previous Asianometry video titled "Singapore's 50 Year March Towards Water Independence"). As a tiny, extremely wealthy city-state in the middle of the world's busiest archipelago Singapore needs to think outside the box to thrive. Like it or not, Singapore also needs to work with Malaysia (and the US, Australia and China), even though all of these countries cannot always be relied upon. Diversify where it makes sense!
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  248.  @Asianometry  If the topic doesn't pique your interest then don't worry about it. Life is too short to spend your free time on things you aren't interested in. Also unlike perhaps semiconductor fabrication, I have enough background to deeply research and understand the technology aspects of the Great Firewall / "Golden Shield Project" myself (though less so about the Chinese government political / historical aspects, which are also important). (Side note: sorry about recent spam in this comment section -- hopefully it might helps with the YouTube algorithm though!)
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  249. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Taiwanese_Americans#Business https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asian_Americans#Business_and_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_ceiling
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  250. I'm surprised one of Australia's retirement funds (the "superannuation" system) hasn't invested in it, with trillions under management hungry for long-term infrastructure projects. But I guess the project might be too high risk right now. I'm sure they'll invest eventually.
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  251. I mean signatures can be forged too. It's just takes a lot of effort to do correctly, and the criminal justice system doesn't look too kindly upon such things. So as long as there is a functioning independent dispute resolution process (such as the courts) and if the justice system holds a monopoly over violence (in this case, jail time) then the chops and signatures shouldn't be widely forged. Now whether any specific countries meets these two criteria is up to you to decide.
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  252.  @Ṽïkiṇḡ--ṝ-w  It might be changing because urban youth in China see dogs as pets. There is still a long way to go, but it's a start. As long as animals are bred, butchered and eaten in humane and sanitary conditions a lot of criticism would be much reduced. I wonder how much Hong Kong contributes to the endangered animals trade for traditional Chinese medicine compared to China?
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  253. Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKtxx9TnH76SRC7ZbOu2Nsg5mC72fy-GZ
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  254. That's fair enough. You should definitely focus on fixing that as your first priority (by keeping your costs and spending as low as you can for a long time)!
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  255. By the way, as you may know there's more than 200 videos on the Asianometry channel already released. So plenty of videos free already, and you probably haven't seen them all yet!
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  256. Just to clarify your wording, according to that video in the 1800s Australia had the larger Chinese immigrant population and it was New Zealand who didn't want the extra Chinese immigration. The video also mentions that New Zealand had negotiated the Treaty of Waitangi with the indigenous Maori people and that federating under the Commonwealth of Australia would impact the treaty, which was the big issue around joining the new Australian federation. It's also worth noting that in 1901 (the year "federation" was completed making Australia a single unified nation), the Australia implemented the "White Australia policy" that banned immigration from most of the world. That was only dismantled in 1966 (which is actually very recently if you think about it), and in just 50 years Australia has become what many call the most successful multicultural nation in the world -- a melting pot of all the worlds people and cultures. Australia has its own fair share of racist government policies and citizen's views in the past and in the present (polices and views that also effect Australia's own indigenous people), but like Canada it's done alright job to integrate many millions of people from around the world into a cohesive nation. Just something worth noting in this discussion about Australia's race relation issues.
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  257. There are now three Asianometry videos on the dam: "The Three Gorges Dam, Examined" "How the Three Gorges Dam Handles Extreme Floods" "The Three Gorges Dam Resettlement Problem" I can't post direct links right now because the spam filter.
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  258. Don't get into a flame war. I'll just mention that I don't trust any government to correctly maintain a dam and keep the people informed. Things are a little bit better with thousands of independent media organisations and whistleblower laws, but dam collapses STILL happen everywhere in the world. Lookup the photos and videos from the Oroville Dam crisis in California just 3 year ago. Large amounts of fast moving water can do some crazy damage
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  259.  @SilentStorm_5  Fair point, my broader point is to stand a chance to have CCP-indoctrinated people and wumao (or anybody else who holds strong opposing opinions) try wording yourself points differently. Otherwise you'll quickly run into "whataboutism" and flame wars.
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  260.  @SilentStorm_5  Fair point. I wasn't saying your comment was whataboutism, just that it's a common response to any kind of criticism... Keep fighting the good fight against human-rights abuse my dude!
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  261. Really great video. I forgot to watch it during Patreon Early Access. But it's a really nice deep dive!!
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  262. I have confirmed with Asianometry that this was a typo. It's 14km (8.7 miles), not 140km (87 miles). The description and subtitles/transcript has been updated. The number comes from a book: "Over 1973-4, the new disk brake was tested in wind tunnels and in drops from helicopters and aircraft from altitudes as high as 14,000 m. The spacecraft model was also dropped onto simulated Venusian soil made from foam concrete." (from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects: by Brian Harvey).
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  263.  @Joseon660  Checkout his latest video "TSMC vs Samsung Foundry - The Billion Dollar Rivalry"
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  264. 1:38 "To simply yell at each other, and me, does not help anyone. That’s what shouting into a pillow is for. And I suggest you do that if you have anger issues that need to be worked out." 😂
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  265. The followup is on Patreon Early Access
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  266. I don't think saturation of internet businesses is a big deal. The low-hanging fruit may have been picked in mature fields, but the world is always changing. In virtually every niche there are highly profitable software businesses just waiting to be built. And not every software business needs to grow to employ tens of thousands of people.
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  267. I would assume most Taiwanese don't care about what the World Health Organization says, given Taiwan is blocked from even joining that body
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  268. I have confirmed with Asianometry that this was a typo. It's 14km (8.7 miles), not 140km (87 miles). The description and subtitles/transcript has been updated. The number comes from a book: "Over 1973-4, the new disk brake was tested in wind tunnels and in drops from helicopters and aircraft from altitudes as high as 14,000 m. The spacecraft model was also dropped onto simulated Venusian soil made from foam concrete." (from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects: by Brian Harvey).
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  269. Everyone operating razor thin margins to gain market share because there are big economies of scale if you dominate the industry. Everyone likes to manufacture on the leading edge node, if possible.
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  270. Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MCZrZiq9BE
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  271. 19:49 LOL I can't believe that was actually the Wikipedia photo of Tony Abbott when you took the screenshot.
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  272. The key indicator for an aging population is the 'total dependency ratio' (the working age population divided by the number of children and elderly) and the median age. The cost of an aging society is (at least initially) economic stagnation (while the rest of the world marches forward). Consider that Japan averaged 0% economic growth **1980-2020**. While high-tech industries like semi-conductors tend to require relatively small numbers of extremely highly skilled engineers, they work closely with a large numbers of skilled technicians and need extremely good communication. Even an aging Taiwan (and South Korea) can retain leadership in these industries if careful. The next 60 years are going to be brutal for Taiwan's demographics (and also for Korea, China, even the US). For more information search for the "United Nations World Population Prospects" website. Select Graphs and Profiles -> Taiwan -> Probablistic Projections -> Pop Ratios -> Total Dependency -> Age 0-19 plus 65 and over by 20-64. Well managed aging societies can retain their infrastructure and industries but once you're in a "low-fertility trap" with high debt it's difficult to leave.
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  273.  @etbadaboum  Immigration can definitely reduce the impact. I hope Taiwan (and Japan, South Korea) consider allowing more foreigners to immigrate and assimilate. But fixing the root cause is important: the cost of having children is too high for many families. Especially the cost of housing and child care. The developed world should at least achieve 2.1 children per family (the replacement rate).
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  274. In some way I'm inclined to agree. Almost all areas in Australia without HFC keep their old (formerly Telstra-owned) copper telephone cables (so no digging up people's gardens) while the rest of the network is upgraded to FTTC (so fiber-optics all the way to those oval shaped pits in the footpath). Everyone on FTTC has the option to pay $3000 per residence to upgrade to FTTP (under the "Technology Choice Program"). Side note: I heard from ISP owners that installing a fiber-optic "lead in" shouldn't cost more than $300, so NBN Co charging $3,000 is still a bit crazy. For FTTN, getting FTTP costs a crazy $10,000 upgrade per premises under the "Technology Choice Program". As you may know, FTTC can in theory ~1000mbps speeds with G.Fast, but you may have to replace ageing copper telephone cabling to get there (at which point you may as well install FTTP because most of the installation cost is labour). FTTP is absolutely not "glorified HFC": Yes, HFC can in theory also have speeds in excess of 1000mbps, but you need to have "DOCSIS 3.1" modem endpoints, high quality cabling and most expensively restructure the entire HFC network in a way that allows end users to get those speeds. Australia's HFC network was decided for cable TV (where there's a common signal broadcast to many houses), and restructuring the HFC network to handle this is extremely expensive. While the term GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) is sometimes used interchangeably with FTTP you should be very careful: GPON can refer to the standard "G.984" (which NBN uses to provide a maximum 1000mbps connection), but by simply upgrading the modem in your kitchen (and some equipment in the exchange) you will be able to 10G-PON (10,000mbps), and I believe even NG-PON2 (40,000mbps). Because fiber-optic cables can handle far more data than HFC. The HFC/FTTN/FTTC sounds cost-effective in theory, but so much money has been thrown at trying to make those ageing copper networks fit for purpose. It costs a lot of money to rebuild the HFC or FTTC network to be capable of 1,000mbps. But now there are 10,000mbps and 40,000mbps network speeds that are being rolled out in countries with with fiber-optic networks. Even the Adelaide CBD has that, see GigCity. Starlink and its 150mbps download will not be widely used in dense cities. NBN's FTTP network can get you 1,000mbps download today. And in future 10,000mbps under 10G-PON, with hopefully 40,000mbps under NG-PON2 being rolled out eventually. Simply put: for high-speed internet, nothing compared to fiber-optics.
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  275. John-Patrick Dickson, maybe start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loiltpe6q-s&list=PLKtxx9TnH76SRC7ZbOu2Nsg5mC72fy-GZ This is like the 40th video in the series that spans multiple playlists. Start on the first video and go from there.
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  276. Yes it's to differentiate. With Vietnam there's no longer North and South Vietnam, but that's the case with other places: North and South Korea, East/West Germany (back when that existed), Soviet Russia (as opposed to the modern Russian Federation). Even to distinguish between Imperial Germany (the Kaiser's Germany) and the WWII Germany (Nazi Germany). With Communist China sometimes called Red China (the People's Republic of China), there's also Taiwan (The Republic of China).
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  277. At least historically, people in well-connected border regions like Shenzhen could buy Hong Kong sim cards and connect to the unfiltered internet through Hong Kong cell towers just across the border. But with the recent complete breakdown of "One Country Two Systems" I would expect Hong Kong to see its own internet censorship being implemented eventually. It's possible that the new low-earth orbit satellite internet systems like SpaceX's Starlink could have a similar effect as Hong Kong sim cards. Elon Musk has played this down, pointing out China can shoot down his satellites with anti-satellite missiles. While true, the ability remains for satellites to broadcast unfiltered high-speed internet to border regions like Shenzhen and Inner Mongolia without incurring Chinese military escalation. As China continues to close and move towards what financier Kyle Bass has called a "richer version of North Korea" I would expect it will become increasingly dangerous to even own satellite internet dishes or to use computers without the Chinese spyware since the Chinese Communist Party believes it needs absolute control over information to hold on to absolute power indefinitely.
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  278. The Asian Renewable Energy Hub (a different proposal to the Sun Cable) is suggesting something similar after they changing from their original submarine cable approach. Solar + wind farm in the Pilbara region of Western Australia to produce ammonia and ship that over for "green hydrogen". The Sun Cable company is pursuing the (much cooler in my opinion) HVDC approach. Right now it's all private investors betting on these renewable energy megaprojects, so it doesn't hurt you if their investments fail. I'm glad there are people with the capital and risk tolerance to invest in these really exciting solar farm and HVDC submarine cable approach! For the sake of our carbon dioxide levels I hope they succeed :)
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  279. Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCnF-i1XDiU
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  280. Premieres receive a bunch of comments and likes before the video goes online, and YouTube's clock only starts counting once the video is released. From what I've read, this makes premieres do better than non-premieres in the long-term, because the algorithm takes into account the number of comments and likes since the video became available. I agree it's annoying that you can't watch instantly as soon as it's scheduled. I have an idea on this which I have messaged Asianometry about.
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  281. The only way to do honest polling is with regular free and fair elections: even the Trump vote was higher than polled in 2016 and 2020 due to the famous "shy Trump voter". I'm sure there's a massive "shy CCP supporter" (and "shy staunchly anti CCP" groups too). High-ranking members of the Taiwanese government have said that Taiwan is not going to unify with China unless it becomes a full-fledged democracy compatible with Taiwan. And the Taiwanese people have been voting clearly against unification with Xi Jinping's China. Especially along generational lines (and everybody sees what happened to Hong Kong). And the most likely way that China will become a democracy is if a reformer like Taiwan's Chiang Ching-kuo makes the Chinese Communist Party a democratically competitive party and slowly loosens the restrictions like Deng Xiaoping did for the economy. It may take a few decades from the leadership to come to the realization that this is the only path forward that would see China growing. Though Xi Jinping may still be in power in 3 decades, so I doubt this will happen. If China doesn't have democratic reform it's a just a matter of time (a few short decades away) until Taiwan formalizes its status as being an independent and sovereign country for more than 150 years (since 1912) and it will formally rename itself the Republic of Taiwan. Time is ticking for China, so the next few decades are dangerous. I recommend listening to Jim Fanell's "Decade of Concern" arguments. The easiest way to do this is from episode #45 of the China Unscripted podcast, which is available on YouTube under the titled "#45 How Big a Threat is China's Navy? | Captain Jim Fanell".
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  282. "TSMC - Essays" Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loiltpe6q-s&list=PLKtxx9TnH76SRC7ZbOu2Nsg5mC72fy-GZ
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  283. The cars were exported. Higher exchange rate makes the exports more expensive for overseas buyer. Basically Low exchanges rates are good for exporters, high exchange rates are good for importers (or people who import raw material to produce their stuff)
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  284.  @NordicDan  You probably shouldn't be posting about that on YouTube, my dude! 😅
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  285. 1:05 "Maybe it's better that the Great Firewall exists so as to keep the Chinese in rather than the foreigners out" That's an awful argument (which happens to be used by wumao and the CCP). The Great Firewall prevents 1.4 billion people from connecting the the global internet and freely communicating with the rest of the world (and getting news from a source other than their totalitarian government). The GFC is a huge human-rights problem and I hope governments around the world pressure the CCP to tear down the Great Firewall.
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  286. I've done reading about the GFC in the past and it's indeed very sophisticated. They also approve many VPNs that allow punching through the GFC. Hawkish former Trump advisor Steve Bannon has said ""if we were to take down the firewall which is a 100% within our purview to do" on an interview on YouTube titled "The Chinese Communist Party Is Our Enemy - And What We Must Do To Defeat It" so at least some in the national security sphere are considering the problem. To adapt an old comment of mine from that video (sorry for the length): I think broadcasting 4G/5G mobile internet into China from say Vietnam would not work perfectly, neither would using other mobile-internet based technologies like Google's Project Loon high altitude balloons would not work. Because in the worst case China can always achieve censorship "client-side" (using their total control over end-user devices (eg, any Huawei/Motorola/etc smartphone, or any phone with Chinese spyware including WeChat etc) to block access to external websites. Traditional geostationary satellite internet, or new technologies such as Elon Musk's Starlink would also not work (they need ground-based receivers, and China can and will use spectrum analyzers to track down and immediately execute anybody who is transmitting using an illegal ground-based dish. China could also potentially shoot down the satellites) Cyber attacks against the GFC risk escalating cyber retaliation (not just more hacking/stealing from China, but the United States suddenly experiencing a few Chernobyl style nuclear power plant meltdowns). It's a tough problem. I think economic sanctions (including consumer boycotts) is the only way for the West to eventually cause a peaceful revolution in China (by the people of China) which would bring down the GFC. Other than Trump's tariffs nobody is considering anything like this at the moment.
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  287. I don't think you should let the spam comments from CCP indoctrinated people like wumao change the way you write or think. You're not a diplomat who needs to tiptoe around face saving policies. Why call China "the Mainland"? When you're talking about China, then say China. When you're talking about Taiwan, say Taiwan.
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  288. Why isn't Western Australia connected to the Australia's National Energy Market (NEM)? I thought it was because Western Australia was like Texas: wanting to be independent and secede from Australia at any moment. Then again the Northern Territory isn't connected to the NEM either.
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  289. 13:51 Platypuses
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  290. Just buy a Samsung phone. Made in Vietnam
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  291. I have confirmed with Asianometry that this was a typo. It's 14km (8.7 miles), not 140km (87 miles). The description and transcript has been updated. The number comes from a book: "Over 1973-4, the new disk brake was tested in wind tunnels and in drops from helicopters and aircraft from altitudes as high as 14,000 m. The spacecraft model was also dropped onto simulated Venusian soil made from foam concrete." (from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects: by Brian Harvey).
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  292. Yes, the video thumbnail has been updated with the correct map but the video itself shows Darwin in the wrong place, and does not show the cable starting point correctly either
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  293. Addressed at timestamp 2:00 with "Pioneer-Venus doesn't count" comment. I don't really agree with that comment though.
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  294. Don't hate the player, hate the game
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  295. 9:45 That same argument was made about NVidia (maker of high-end graphics processors) buying ARM (the creator of the CPU reference designs which other companies like Qualcomm, MediaTek, Samsung license, modify into their Snapdragon, Exynos etc chips), yet NVidia still bought ARM for $40 billion. Apple has $200 billion in cash on hand and more importantly they have a $2 trillion market capitalization. Raising $500 billion in cash (and debt) to buy TSMC outright is definitely possible. Especially if they guarantee TSMC will stay in Taiwan. The move would have anti-competitive undertones, but in my opinion so does NVidia's buying ARM.
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  296. I'm not a fan of the seemingly pervasive idea that China is moving fast in its development of space technology. They put people into orbit in 2003 but 18 years later they've done little else. China's new super-heavy lift moon rocket (Long March 9) won't even be ready until the 2030s! That's the kind of snails pace that NASA's Space Launch System works on. By contrast, it look America just EIGHT YEARS to go from launching a person into space in 1961 to Neil Armstrong walking on the moon in 1969! That was of course spurred on by the Soviet Union during the first Space Race. For those of us who want to live through a new space race back to the moon and onto Mars, I hope China lifts their game and soon!
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  297. 11:43 Here's a direct link to that amazing photo of the Queen of England wearing protective shoes while visiting this Siemens factory at Wallsend, North Tyneside: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-queen-wears-protective-shoes-to-be-shown-around-the-new-news-photo/829922156
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  298.  @Asianometry  Oh, if that's the issue I would suggest almost approaching it like a university lecture: whenever talking about complex concepts eg, the TCP/IP stack, VPNs etc you can just show the textbook diagram (but presumably without the textual dot points, because that's not your style). I wouldn't worry too much if the diagram is too complex for the audience. If showing the diagrams is not covered by fair use copyright, places like Wikimedia Commons should have freely licensed diagrams.
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  299. I have confirmed with Asianometry that this was a typo. It's 14km (8.7 miles), not 140km (87 miles). The description and subtitles/transcript has been updated. The number comes from a book: "Over 1973-4, the new disk brake was tested in wind tunnels and in drops from helicopters and aircraft from altitudes as high as 14,000 m. The spacecraft model was also dropped onto simulated Venusian soil made from foam concrete." (from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects: by Brian Harvey).
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  300. If wages rise due to falling labor supply it reaches a tipping point where manufacturing moves to other countries. The promise has been increased labor productivity (through automation) will stop this, but I'm not so sure. Just something to keep in mind. Taiwan is very important to the global electronics supply chain with so many products manufactured there. I would hate to see that capacity move to the countries which are not as free, open and democratic as Taiwan.
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  301.  @Parasol_b  It's currently only available on Patreon Early Access. This First Half Mega Review is timely so was scheduled for a fast release and therefore bypassed the usual 3 months on the Patreon Early Access backlog.
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  302. Yes, the line going through Darwin was in the wrong place, and so is the starting point (near the town of Elliot, NT). I have helped get this corrected for this video's thumbnail but unfortunately the video itself is already released and can't be changed. Side note: there is/was another similar project called the "Asian Renewable Energy Hub" that wanted to build a submarine cable from a solar farm in the Pilbara, Western Australia. But they've switched to a plan involving using solar power to produce hydrogen/ammonia fuel and transporting the energy by cargo ships not electrical cables.
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  303. Landing people on the moon was pretty cool too
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  304.  @Asianometry  I read 81% of Singapore's natural gas comes from Malaysia and Indonesia but I didn't look into the fraction that was "LNG". My understanding is LNG and natural gas are equivalent with the large and expensive liquefaction systems being the only way to convert gas to be transportable long distances. My impression is Singapore's natural gas powered power plants are dependent on Malaysia and Indonesia natural gas not "Qatar, Equatorial Guinea, and Australia". But I am happy to be proved wrong.
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  305. Oh it's out now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k3Xc7dNi-s
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  306. 5 liters of water for every single almond grown 😂
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  307. There's 16 unreleased videos available for streaming on the Patreon Early Access tier. I highly recommend the first Carl Zeiss video. It's a great story.
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  308. Yes, the video thumbnail has been updated but the video content is fixed.
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  309. Singapore's strategy is to diversify, diversify, diversify. Spreads the risks. Rely on the United States for security (including free and open sea lanes and at least currently, dollar-denominated clearance system), Middle East for petroleum, Malaysia for water, China as an economic partner. Spreading risk to Australia for electricity doesn't sound too bad!
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  310.  @Asianometry  Don't forget to add a visual like/comment/subscribe popup at the bottom of the video at various timestamps. It's natural that users (particularly mobile users) will forget to do this unless reminded.
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  311. I've come across multiple people that believe in a conspiracy theory that China's "Later, Longer, Fewer" policy and the One Child Policy were not designed by the Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and the rest of the Chinese Communist Party. The theory argues they were tricked by economists working at Western charitable foundations (the Rockerfeller Foundation and Rockerfeller's "Population Council") who convinced them to implement the family planning and population control policies. The reasons they argue were not even based on managing the number of dependent children, but to curb the populations of Asia for racial supremacist reasons. As far as I can tell, it's all conspiracy theorist nonsense, but I've come across a 30 minute documentary on YouTube from 2013 titled "Population Control: The Eugenics Connection" that at least starts out arguing a similar point (I haven't been able to sit through the whole thing yet). The video quality is grainy but it's otherwise relatively well-produced (going as far as including the same background piano track I've heard in actual PBS documentaries grainy 1990s VHS tapes). My concern is that when the Chinese Communist Party eventually comes to the realization that they have made a massive mistake with their population management policies allowing the total fertility rate to fall so far below 2.1 children that they will end up reviving the conspiracy theory in their propaganda to whip up nationalism (in the same way China's propaganda arms have convinced people in China that COVID-19 did not emerge in China).
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  312. Here's a direct link to the conspiracy theory video titled "Population Control: The Eugenics Connection": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcmqkboIOBQ I don't actually recommend the video (and haven't been able to sit through the whole thing yet), but its worrying and kind of interesting that at least some people I've come across online believe China's population control policies were actually a Western conspiracy.
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  313.  @hariranormal5584 It's recycled water. It's drinkable, but it's not 100% H2O. Pure water ("distilled water") is not healthy because it pulls minerals out of your cells. Checkout the video titled "Singapore's 50 Year March Towards Water Independence" for more information on New Water. Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCova_p72Ck
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  314.  @SilentStorm_5  If you want to start posting YouTube videos then just do it. The worst thing that can happen is nobody watches your videos, which doesn't matter. Sounds like it would be a hobby you would enjoy
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  315.  @SilentStorm_5  Who cares if the video you make is garbage. You'll build the skills by doing it. Just remember that quote "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take". Create your videos anonymously under a new YouTube account using a pseudonym if you're so concerned.
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  316.  @aniksamiurrahman6365  0:05 "I was hoping to spend my weekend working on a video about the bubble tea industry, but I have gotten far more emails asking me to do this one"
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  317. Very much enjoyed the video. Thanks for making it despite the chances it won't be a successful video in view count! Hopefully more people become patrons!
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  318. There already is an Asianometry twitter: https://twitter.com/asianometry/with_replies but it mainly posts videos links without additional commentary
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  319. Thanks for the thorough mini-documentary on the subject. No other YouTuber covers so many subjects in such depth so often. I'm very happy to be a patron on the Early Access Tier!! Hopefully this 27 minute documentary will get the recognition it deserves from the YouTube algorithm!! Keep up the great work!
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  320. I think the world is at a very dangerous (but in my opinion, intellectually interesting!) tipping point around nuclear proliferation. Iran is likely to have a major political transition at some point in the next 20 years. The Iranian youth are very different to its conservative and aging leadership. I think if Iran is delayed for just a few years in getting the bomb, they will likely never get it. But if they do, they'll be quite a few new nuclear powers trying to counter-balance. Fun times!
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  321. I am hijacking this post to recommend two amazing websites to the esteemed viewer looking to buy hard drives: https://edwardbetts.com/price_per_tb/ (Amazing dollars-per-terabyte drive listing based on NewEgg) https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B08K3TFM92 (Amazon price history tracking and email alerts) The Camelx3 website above is great to view a specific Amazon listing (in this case a Western Digital 18TB drive), check its Amazon price history to see if it has been cheaper, and then receive an email alert when the price reaches are certain amount. The email alert feature is AMAZING. Camelx3 makes money through Amazon affiliate marketing, and they deserve every cent for their great website. I hope people check both websites out :)
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  322. Watch the Sun Cable video by EEVBlog2. Dave is an electrical engineer, and he ran the loss numbers and seemed relatively impressed. This is not to say the economics of the cable and the other engineering challenges (like tectonic activity) are easily solved problems, but it seems at least from an electrical engineering perspective the project passes a sanity check.
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  323. He's already done one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXG447KQLwg
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  324. Also the inference step (using the trained model) requires very little compute compared to training the model. And you can fine-tune the model without much needing compute too. In short getting fully trained models is very valuable for entities that have limited access to compute resources, including universities, companies and individuals. But there's a bunch of good open-source ML models that such entities are free to use, like Meta's LLAMA LLM or the diffusion models from StabilityAI
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  325. Great video! Never heard of him or his products before
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  326. Previous coverage of Carl Zeiss: "Carl Zeiss, Explained: Germany’s Semiconductor Optics Master": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0teMtLT9XI "How Carl Zeiss Crafts Optics for a $150 Million EUV Machine": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V__HbVlnICc
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  327. By the way people do refer to modern Japan separate from the previously regime: Imperial Japan
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  328. Oh, there's a playlist now. Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZSvDYDfd78&list=PLKtxx9TnH76QEYXdJx6KyycNGHePJQwWW&index=3
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  329. Yes, the line going through Darwin was in the wrong place, and so is the starting point (near the town of Elliot, NT). I have helped get this corrected for this video's thumbnail but unfortunately the video itself is already released and can't be changed. Side note: there is/was another similar project called the "Asian Renewable Energy Hub" that wanted to build a submarine cable from a solar farm in the Pilbara, Western Australia. But they've switched to a plan involving using solar power to produce hydrogen/ammonia fuel and transporting the energy by cargo ships not electrical cables.
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  330. Oh the song I Dunno by Grapes apparently leads to copyright claims now apparently. So perhaps don't use it. I'm sure there are other similar tracks!
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  331. Here's a direct link to random video from the channel: https://youtu.be/1MCZrZiq9BE
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  332.  @gregparrott  You missed this Asianometry video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZBaDle5NbU
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  333.  @nochance3914  Lookup the US National Debt Clock. Countries (and companies) can stay in huge debt forever as long as they are able to manage the cost of servicing the debt. As long as the country or company grows at least at the same pace as debt is accumulating this is completely sustainable. In the case of the United States, if they had a balanced budget then inflation would slowly eat away at value of the debt until in 300 years time it could be paid for with pocket change. There were big European war bonds from hundreds of years ago that were "paid" in the same way. When the cost of servicing a loan is so cheap, paying off the principle of a loan is usually not the right strategy. But I agree: for individuals, unfortunately interest payments are high enough that the "wait and inflate" strategy probably won't work.
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  334. Both are acceptable: pronunciation as "Neesh" is British English and pronunciation as "Nitch" is American English.
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  335. I have confirmed with Asianometry that this was a typo. It's 14km (8.7 miles), not 140km (87 miles). The description and subtitles/transcript has been updated. The number comes from a book: "Over 1973-4, the new disk brake was tested in wind tunnels and in drops from helicopters and aircraft from altitudes as high as 14,000 m. The spacecraft model was also dropped onto simulated Venusian soil made from foam concrete." (from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects: by Brian Harvey).
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