zippy1

Some suspected that the Q1 2023 GDP was "quietly" revised down to make the Q1 2024 5.3% growth. Of course, that begs the question whether later on the Q1 2024 GDP number would be revised down quietly...

Here is the 2023 Q1 report from National Bureau of Statstics https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202304/t20230419_1938791.html Here is the 2024 Q1 report from National Bureau of Statstics https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202404/t20240417_1954640.html

He did say that. Although the whole Silicon Valley is in …

The sooner people get this behind us, the better. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-country-garden-faces-winding-up-petition-failure-pay-2045-mln-loan-2024-02-28/

"Hong Kong (CNN) — Chinese companies are doing something rarely seen since the 1970s: setting up their own volunteer armies. At least 16 major Chinese firms, including a privately-owned dairy giant, have established fighting forces over the past year, according to a CNN analysis of state media reports. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/21/business/china-corporate-militias-resurgence-int-hnk/index.html

I am kind of wondering, though. Designing and building analog chips with old equipment that has been depreciated years ago, can be a great business. I remembered that Linear Technology and Maxim used to have gross margin in 60%-70%. However, XFAB is a foundry and not a IDM like ADI or an analog design house, though. XFAB's gross margin is between 5.5% to ~24%. I looked at their website which lists their fabs. As far as I can tell, most were built years ago. In other words, not much depreciation from the equipment. It may be a good idea to check how many new entrants into this kind of fabrication capacities there are. If they are going to buy brand new equipment for the new fab, the depreciation of the equipment will be different than running fabs with 25-30 years old equipment. If one checks the gross margins of UMC and Vanguard Semi(5347.tw), one suspects that capacities are being added after the industry had very good margins in 2021 and 2022. The previous low margin occurred in 2018-2019. Capacities with new equipment will have quite different economics than adding capacities with equipment that has been depreciated, though. Just my 2 cents.

Actually, in Taiwan, the spectrum of the voters is not between "pro-independence" and "pro-reunion." It is more nuanced as there are many different "answers"in between these two extremes. The president-elect has stressed that he is for preserving the "status quo." (which happens to be "de factor independence.") All three candidates chose to be in the "center" of these two extremes. There is a long running survey by a leading Taiwanese University (Chen-Chi University) about this question. I posted the link below. You can see it yourself. The answers range from: 1) independence as soon as possible, (4.5%) 2) maintain status quo move toward independence, (21.4%) 3) maintain status quo indefinitely, (32.1%) 4) maintain status quo decide at a later date, (28.6%) 5) maintain status quo move toward unification, (5.8%) 6) unification as soon as possible (1.6%) 7) undecided (6%) The numbers in the bracket above were from June 2023. The candidates have positioned themselves for the election accordingly. DPP was looking for votes from categories 1) to 4). KMT and TPP were looking for votes from categories 3)-6). There are all get votes from the middle categories. As you can see, extreme positions are not popular in Taiwan. https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/PageDoc/Detail?fid=7801&id=6963

If you plot the Shanghai stock index, the ShenZhen Stock index, the HengSeng stock index against Taiwan stock index over the past 20 years, Taiwan stock index outperformed all these three. If you plot the chart for the last 8 years under current Taiwanese administration, the gap is even bigger. Taiwanese enjoy higher GDP per capita. The income distribution in Taiwan is more equal than that in China. With a Taiwanese passport, a Taiwanese can visit more countries without first applying for a visa than with a Chinese passport. Why would Taiwanese want to be a part of China? Not only Taiwanese get to complain about their government, they can throw out their government if the government does not perform. If they live under the rule of CCP, they won't have this option. Incidentally, There is very little reporting about the Taiwanese election in China this year. Probably CCP is worried about its own legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Chinese more than anything.

@Spooky I can see your point. However, your choice of using Jimmy Carter as an example is really ironic for Taiwanese. Jimmy Carter is the US president, who cut off the diplomatic relationship between US and Taiwan. Congress had to force the Taiwan Relation Act on him. If you do a poll in Taiwan about which US president treated Taiwan worst over the years, I think likely they likely would tell you that it is Jimmy Carter. But I do see your point about the conflict of interests. CCP is known for "connecting" to the power elites in the democracies to affect the policies. They do not have to limit themselves to only one party, to be frank.

It is an election that all three major parties all felt bad. DPP won the presidency but lost the majority in the legislature. It would be more difficult to pass legislation now. KMT, with its supporters being oldest among the three major parties, now faces an even more difficult future. (think: Oldsmobile) TPP received less votes than its internal estimates. It was hoping for a much closer votes compared to KMT or even to replace KMT as "the opposition party." However, one consolation for TPP is that TPP is now the critical minority in the legislature.

On Youtube, there are several very good interviews with Oriana Skylar Mastro explaining the situation and the calculation involved. I would encourage anyone interested in this question to watch these videos. Taiwanese stock market closed near its all time high on Friday, January 12th. Both the TPP and th DPP candidates said that they would follow Ms. Tsai's foreign policy. If KMT were to win the election, the tension probably will be lowered somwhat in the short term. After the election, I doubt the new administraion will do anything. Certainly, anything but starting a war. China probably will rattle its sabre like it always do over the past 70 years. This, of course, can increase the probabilities of an accidental conflict due to increased military activities. But probably not a planned invasion right now. Whether and when an invasion would occur in the next few years is not so related to the election today. It depends more on who win the US election on Nov. 5th, in my opinion.

Reading about this some, I can understand why they would think the inequality is an issue... It appears to be not only worse than Canada, Germany and Sweden, but also US. https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-inequality-undermining-chinas-prosperity

Is it really true that China has a more "equal" income distribution than US has? I can't really see that from the data... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

Rest in peace, Charlie.

If this is produced with ASML DUV immersion tools as speculated, then what to observe is whether ASML will stopping shipping DUV immersion tools as scheduled at the end of this year. Also, will ASML continue supporting the installed DUV immersion tools in China? If for some reasons, ASML stops supporting DUV immersion tools in the future, then these phones will become sort of "collector items."