Arm China Goes Rogue, Ex-CEO Accused of Blocking the Business (yahoo.com) 102
An anonymous reader quotes Bloomberg:
Arm Ltd., the chip designer owned by SoftBank Group Corp., accused the ousted head of its China joint venture of hurting its business there, escalating a dispute that's becoming a test of Beijing's willingness to protect foreign investment in the world's second-largest economy.
The U.K. chip giant in June announced it was firing Allen Wu, the head of its Chinese unit, over undisclosed breaches of conduct, but the executive has refused to step down and remains in control of the strategically important operation. Rather than the peaceful, rapid resolution that both sides have said they want, the situation has deteriorated. Wu has hired his own security and won't let representatives of Arm Ltd. or his board on the premises, said a person familiar with the situation. He's refused to hold a planned event to connect Chinese chipmakers with Arm Ltd. and avoided negotiations despite public statements to the contrary, said the person, who asked not to be named...
Resolving the conflict will be crucial to SoftBank's reported plans to sell Arm, a lynchpin in the global smartphone and computing industry that the Japanese firm bought for $32 billion in 2016.
The U.K. chip giant in June announced it was firing Allen Wu, the head of its Chinese unit, over undisclosed breaches of conduct, but the executive has refused to step down and remains in control of the strategically important operation. Rather than the peaceful, rapid resolution that both sides have said they want, the situation has deteriorated. Wu has hired his own security and won't let representatives of Arm Ltd. or his board on the premises, said a person familiar with the situation. He's refused to hold a planned event to connect Chinese chipmakers with Arm Ltd. and avoided negotiations despite public statements to the contrary, said the person, who asked not to be named...
Resolving the conflict will be crucial to SoftBank's reported plans to sell Arm, a lynchpin in the global smartphone and computing industry that the Japanese firm bought for $32 billion in 2016.
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https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
It doesn't look like the Democrats to me
Re: I have 'feelz' (Score:3, Insightful)
> by SNRatio ( 4430571 )
> Who has been threatening civil war if the election doesn't go their way?
> https://www.google.com/search [google.com]?... [google.com]
> It doesn't look like the Democrats to me
nytimes, nytimes, newyorker, washingtonpost, nymag, cnn...
So left leaning rags speculating on a civil war if Trump loses but peace if the democrats win?
You could have at least put a little effort in by:
a) quoting some fringe right-wing radical group that really doesn't reflect the typical republi
Re: I have a feeling (Score:5, Insightful)
Radical leftists are already in the streets, burning things and trying to create their own sovereign political zones (CHOP/CHAZ) It doesn't look like Republicans out there.
Re: I have a feeling (Score:5, Interesting)
Arm should simply call their bluff, sever all ties for the time being, and refuse to sell their chips to China. They would lose some business, but I bet Huawei would suffer a lot more without ARM chips...
Trump probably can't pull this trick. In the US, there's no special holy lapel pin that confers the presidency on a person. Trump won't have that to fall back on. If he tries to ignore the election, the supreme court will immediately get involved. They will rule against him because, while they might be conservative, they aren't brain-damaged. And that will probably be that. He will be gone. I seriously doubt that the military or congress will be willing to directly ignore a supreme court order. Every blue state would stop recognizing him as the country's leader, and a fair number of the red ones would abandon him too. That could lead to something that would make COVID look like a birthday party. I just don't see any way that ends well for him. And if there's one that Trump is good at, it's putting Trump first.
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It would certainly seem that nationalism is pushing back globalism at the moment. Trump's claim of 'banning' TikTok in the US is another big example today. Surprised there is no ./ story on it.
If pressed, I doubt any global corporations will pull back up into the west. They'll just spin off and operate independentl
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The stamp is just the same as a signature in the West. Instead of signing your name in a unique way you have a hand-crafted stamp.
The issue seems to be that he is claiming to be the legal head of that company and that the parent company (ARM) doesn't have the authority to fire him. Presumably that's not correct, ARM would have had lawyers put in all the standard stuff about their rights and the validity of contracts for using the ARM trademarks and IP if they were ignored.
Anyway ARM couldn't stop selling ch
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Anyway ARM couldn't stop selling chips to China because they don't make any chips. They licence IP to Chinese company who make ARM chips. If they cancelled those contracts then those companies would sue them and win, while many other companies sue them for destroying their products that rely on that supply, and ARM shareholders pile in as well for pointlessly destroying billions in revenue. While ARM is dying a Chinese court would have already ruled that withdrawing from the contract was illegal and Chinese companies can carry on making ARM chips.
Why would ARM lose in court if they cancelled their licensing deals? Also, why do you assume most of ARM's licensed CPU production is in China? And finally, wouldn't this would make all Chinese produces based upon ARM instantly "illegal" (meaning containing unlicensed IP) in international markets? Are you sure they would lose? ARM did write the contracts as you pointed out.
I doubt anyone wants the kind of conflict we are talking about, but I'm also sure China subsidiaries can't just go their own way w
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Because the contracts doubtless contain clauses limiting ARM's ability to withdraw. After all would you invest billions in designs and manufacturing if the IP you depended on could go away without warning or compensation?
Because most of it is.
For the same reason the Chinese courts would side with the licensees.
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For the same reason the Chinese courts would side with the licensees.
I'm talking about western courts. Wouldn't the cases that matter be decided there? So those Chinese companies would still want to sell to the west but in this case they would lose that ability wouldn't they? Kinda defeats the purpose unless you are no longer interested in exporting manufactured goods to the west.
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So was I. They will look at the contracts and see that ARM is in violation, and either order payouts in the billions or resumption of the agreement.
It won't get that far because ARM won't try it.
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In early June, Arm China’s board – which includes representatives from Arm Ltd. and Chinese investors - ousted Wu for setting up an investing firm that competes with its own businesses there. He refused to accept the decision, saying it was invalid and has remained in control at Arm China’s headquarters in Shenzhen.
So you are saying that a CEO, can just ignore his board and parent company because he feels like it and there is nothing ARM can do about it? In a western court? That is your position? I seriously doubt it...I think you just don't understand how subsidiaries work. And any licensing agreement that ARM China was involved in would be instantly invalid. Setting up the entire supply chain to be invalid. Who would those Chinese companies sue? ARM China as that's is who they would have lice
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So you are saying that a CEO, can just ignore his board and parent company because he feels like it and there is nothing ARM can do about it?
No, he's an idiot and he won't succeed with this strategy. What I'm saying is that if ARM decided to, say, cancel AllWinner's licence, or Huawei's licence, in some weird kind of retaliation against an entire country instead of just Wu, they would themselves have legal problems.
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ARM's not a London company. It was a Cambridge company originally, but now it's majority-owned by a Japanese bank
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The danger here is that he starts selling "ARM licenses" on his own and pocketing the proceeds. If firms in China buy these, they may side with him saying he has the right to sell them.
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They would be crazy to do that because anything they export would be liable to be seized at the border. They wouldn't get any support or updates either.
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Please take this in the intended spirit--nerdy trivia and a commentary on legal formalities. I'm not trying to flame your reference to signatures or mock China. (I do, however, believe that physical stamps have no place in a modern economy.) BTW, I'm assuming that the stamp issue is real in the ARM situation. I don't know if it is.
Fun facts about the west and stamps: The ancient Romans were big into wax stamps (signet rings) for signatures. In the major common law countries (UK, US), using stamps as s
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What happens if you break your fingers and can't sign? What happens if you change your name? What happens if you switch from a ball point to a fountain pen? Isn't it inefficient to require one person to physically put pen to paper every time? What if they are on holiday?
I actually had this problem due to arthritis. Reproducing the same signature on two documents was hard. In the event of failure you just keep trying over and over until the bank accepts it.
China isn't the only country that uses stamps either
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You've got my point backwards. I also think you did not read the last three paragraphs of my post.
My point is that common law systems do _not_ generally have any formal requirements for signatures. If you break your fingers, draw a squiggle with a pen in your toes or your mouth. If you change your name, sign the new one. Change pens halfway through your signature. Doesn't matter; whatever you scrawl is legal unless you're in one of the very few situations where formalities are required.
Yes, it is ineff
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No, that was my point. The stamp is like a signature, if it gets lost of broken or something steals it there are ways of dealing with that. It's not some magical item that confers ownership merely by possessing it, and using it without permission is the same as forging someone's signature - it's illegal.
Re: I have a feeling (Score:2)
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But come on..... this is literally "he who holds the scepter and wears the crown is the king!"... that's sooooo 500 years ago.
Really only about 45 years [youtu.be]:
"The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur..."
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Trump probably can't pull this trick. In the US, there's no special holy lapel pin that confers the presidency on a person. .
What Trump is trying to do is suppress voting and discredit the election overall. If he doesn't win, state governments in swing states he lost may try to challenge their state's electors as being produced by a faulty election. This will be supported by all of the attempts to cause chaos in the election (closed polling stations, missing paper ballots and supplies at polling stations, slowed mail delivery, huge numbers of challenged and provisional ballots, election cases clogging the courts, all things that
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It's happened very recently. Bush vs. Gore came down to Florida as the deciding state. The Florida vote had some "irregularities" which temporarily indicated that Bush won. A recount was ordered and it went to the Supreme Court, which said "Bush won, stop the recount, get over it and move on". After the fact, Florida admitted that Gore was the actual winn
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Just FYI, some liberal college professors took about a year and half after the election to run a project with their grad students come up with a way to count things ao that they could say Gore won Florida. They tried out all different scenarios, different rules, and came up with something.
What they came up with was no fewer than three different sets of rules to apply in different districts. In Republican-leaning districts, it doesn't count unless the chad is 100% removed - hanfing Chad's thrown out. They
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Which kinda concludes that Gore won though yeah it was stupidly close. It does mention academics doing an analysis but makes no mention of evil librul profssrs skewing the results. I’m willing to change my mind, but youre gonna have to provide me with links to real analysis. with real data. analyzed by people with real wualifications.
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I really appreciate the tone of your reply. Very classy, thanks.
That was a long time ago. I don't recall the name of the study offhand and frankly I'm not bothered enough to spend time looking it up. I'm just not that interested. The way I see it, put of millions of votes, essentially there was a tie anyway. Basically people argue whether it's 50.0001 Bush vs 49.9999 Gore or vice versa. One analysis says one guy would have won by three votes - out of millions. To me, it's a tie anyway. :)
For anyone else
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On a tangent, I've been interested in Constitutional law since I was a kid and I'd be interested in wherw exactly you see this case doesn't set any precedent" in the ruling, which you can find here:
https://supreme.justia.com/cas... [justia.com]
I wouldn't be shocked if an opinion they had to decide and write overnight, rather than their usual months of getting it "just right" contained a disclaimer, but I don't see it.
Here is a summary of what the ruling says.
Federal law requires states to certify their results by Decemb
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Translation into standard english - "we want to give our guy the election, but this decision is a one-time thing so the standards we apply here can't ever be applied to us".
An
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I'm not sure RBG was habding her guy the election when she wrote that the recount would be unconstitutional, but anyway that's not the question I asked you. I gave you the link to the decision. Where in there do you see "this isn't precedent"?
I can link to a web page where somebody quotes Ellen DeGeneres as saying "I Never Intended To Make Staff Feel Unsafe By Wearing A Bloodied Ram Skull And Stalking Them With A Hatchet". Thay doesn't make it true.
You sais the decision says X. We have the decision. In
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Agreed on the DeGeneres thing. Nobody believes that she's sorry about anything other than getting called out. Relevant here? No. You're trying to distract people from the massive amou
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Thanks for answering the question of what part you were referring to. From those few words, I was able to search and rrsf the sentence. I actually read the whole sentence, I'm not sure whether you have.
Anyway, I appreciate the conversation. I'm still not sure , Breyer and Souter were "putting their guy in office" when they wrote that the recount was unconstitutional, but if you want to think they switched to Republicans for a day or two, that's cool.
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Come inauguration time, it doesn't matter what the current President says or does. The new guy is sworn in and he becomes President. The ex-President's actions cease to have the force of law.
Trump is an honorable man. Those who accuse him of intending to overturn a valid election are not honorable, and that includes you.
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The thing in China is that you have an actual dictator making those decisions. So if they say "the boss of your company is now party official Wu" then you better well let Wu be the boss.
Trump, if he legitimately loses, will not fight it. He will claim it was illegitimate and with the massive mail-in voting fraud we're sure not going to get an answer for weeks if not months as to who won the election. Both camps may claim they did and there will be war.
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I don't think Biden has the wits to organize a whole confirmation spectacle after he loses.
Allen Wu is simply doing what Xi's gov has ordered (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Allen Wu is simply doing what Xi's gov has orde (Score:4, Interesting)
ARM licenced their IP to Chinese companies before they set up their Chinese division. The Chinese division was created in response to demand from Chinese licencees for local support.
No need to steal anything, ARM's entire business model is licencing their IP to anyone who wants it on decent terms.
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That is wrong.
In most asian countries, a foreign investor can only hold 49% of the shares, though.
However in China 100% foreign owned companies are possible.
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Why exactly do you think that CHina required ALL CAR MAKERS EXCEPT TESLA to form joint ventures with Chin
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Nevertheless "Wholly owned subsidiaries" are possible by Chinese law.
And in most other asian countries they are not.
So what point do you want to make?
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NSA already has access to that data. The issue is that china did NOT prior to tik-tok. Now, they have access to the entire west, which is a problem. Even India has caught tik-tok sharing information with Chinese government.
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Oh please... (Score:5, Insightful)
a test of Beijing's willingness to protect foreign investment
Does anyone truly believe China's government gives a bat's ass about "protecting foreign investment"? They've never been interested in fair play, enacting one-sided barriers to investment or market access, have been consistently willing to turn a blind eye to and even engage in IP theft and industrial espionage, and have stooped to kidnapping and imprisoning arbitrary foreign businessmen simply in order to put political pressure on Canada. I'll admit, this one is pretty brazen, even for them.
Can we just admit that China is a rogue nation, and can't be trusted in the smallest degree, about anything? That Ex-Arm CEO is just flaunting it a bit more than others do. We need to cut our economic ties to that place as soon as feasibly possible. The US has been responsible for helping to elevate China to world power status over the last few decades, and now the orient is paying the price as we see an increasingly belligerent China making aggressive moves towards its neighbors.
Re: Oh please... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Oh please... (Score:5, Informative)
That is BS. We manufacture UL approved products in China. Both UL and ETL have offices all over China.
What the Chinese factory said was they'll make anything you ask them to make. If you tell them to print UL on the box then they will print UL on the box. They'll also print "I love Trump" on the box if you tell them to. But that is not really their problem, you are the one responsible for certifying with UL - they are just a contract manufacturer. So of course there are unscrupulous companies that print UL on products without getting them certified. The way you check is to look for the UL file number in the documentation and then look that number up on the UL website. Does the content of that file match what you have in your hands?
As far as I know US Customs does not check UL because UL is not a law. When products get sold in retail stores, they do get checked. The way unscrupulous companies avoid this is by selling on Ebay or Amazon Marketplace which don't check (how could they? Ebay/AMZN never see the actual product). Amazon Marketplace != 'sold by Amazon'. I believe 'sold by Amazon' does get checked. US Customs does randomly check FCC and I know people who have had their shipments impounded for lack of an FCC ID. FCC is a law.
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That is BS. We manufacture UL approved products in China. Both UL and ETL have offices all over China.. . What the Chinese factory said was they'll make anything you ask them to make. If you tell them to print UL on the box then they will print UL on the box.
That's a false dichotomy. Just because you manufacture UL approved products in China does not mean there are no manufacturers that will just place a label and pretend there was testing. Unless you've dealt with the same manufacturer he dealt with, you can't possibly know.
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That is BS. We manufacture UL approved products in China. Both UL and ETL have offices all over China.. . What the Chinese factory said was they'll make anything you ask them to make. If you tell them to print UL on the box then they will print UL on the box.
That's a false dichotomy. Just because you manufacture UL approved products in China does not mean there are no manufacturers that will just place a label and pretend there was testing. Unless you've dealt with the same manufacturer he dealt with, you can't possibly know.
More importantly, I've bought some products from China, and it's amazing the things they will lie about. And I'm not even talking about the super shady products on Amazon or eBay, but actual pieces of electronic equipment. Yes, that's anecdotal, but just from my own experience I'm not even slightly surprised if someone stamped "UL Approved" on something when they are so willing to lie about all the other specs.
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Be aware that often times "UL Approved" products are on the power cord. The device is not UL approved, but the power cord is (legitimately). You'll notice the UL logo is wrapped around the cord itself and conspicuously absent on the device itself, but it'll say UL approved on the packaging because well, the power cord IS approved.
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"As far as I know US Customs does not check UL because UL is not a law."
I have to correct you on this -- UL is very much a law but at the state level, not Federal It is maintained and enforced by your state's insurance regulators, for obvious reasons.
I know this because in a past life I was responsible for boiler welding and repairs -- and believe me, all of that work is inspected and certified to UL, or you do not get to own or operate a boiler. This falls under the remit of the ASME boiler and pressure ve
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The Chinese guy was right, it's not up to them to get your product certified. You do that and then the certificate applies to the stuff the factory makes to your specification.
Maybe it was a problem with the translation and he just meant that they could work too the standard required to ensure the tests were valid. When I've had stuff made in China for work that's been the case. With high volume tolerances and test coverage have huge impacts on cost so they always want you to specify.
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If they want to continue to increase their influence, yes, they have an interest. Now fuck off.
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Up to a point, yes.
If no one brings anything into China, then there's nothing to steal. So they have some impetus to keep the thieving to a level where people still bring valuables for short term gain.
Re:Oh please... (Score:5, Interesting)
Previously, western companies set up shop there because the labor was incredibly cheap, giving them an economic incentive to look the other way as blatant IP theft occurred. These days, China's labor isn't quite as cheap, and they're now able to compete with the west on technological parity in many areas. So we see that neither side really has the same incentives to play as nice - or rather, *pretend* to place nice, like they did in the past.
It's true that China doesn't want to necessarily become an international pariah, but I don't think they care as much about foreign investment as they used to, as they've grown their own tech base to compete with other global powerhouses. I think at this point they're more concerned about foreign markets for their own companies. I expect to see it becoming more and more difficult for foreign companies to gain access to the Chinese market, except in very one-sided deals that end up hurting the investors more than helping. Yet the allure of that massive, tantalizing Chinese market is so powerful, some companies will inevitably still try, of course.
We've had this idealistic notion that if China opened up, they might embrace a more liberal and tolerant form of government. Or maybe that was just a cheap justification for cheap labor. Instead, the exact opposite has happened, with now dictator-for-life Xi Poo using an increasingly heavy hand on both his own citizens and his neighbors. I just don't see any reason to keep financing this sort of regime. Yes, it's convenient for us, but I just don't think it's worth the short-term benefits. Why should confer the same trade benefits as we offer to friendly nations and allies? China is NOT anyone else's friend, and I think more and more people are starting to wake up to this fact.
Re:Oh please... (Score:4, Interesting)
Does anyone truly believe China's government gives a bat's ass about "protecting foreign investment"?
More than believing US's government gives a bat's ass [reuters.com] about "protecting foreign investment"?
Re:Oh please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone truly believe China's government gives a bat's ass about "protecting foreign investment"?
More than believing US's government gives a bat's ass [reuters.com] about "protecting foreign investment"?
Yes, absolutely. In the US, a dictator has to deal with appeals courts, non-cooperative legislators, and pesky journalists. None of these checks on government abuses exist in China. It's night and day.
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In the US, a dictator has to deal with appeals courts, non-cooperative legislators, and pesky journalists.
Wrong, when the US is waving the sword of "national security", all of those are just camouflage. The judicial court has long succumbed to this deliberate loophole. And that's exactly why the US is using "national security" against a Chinese apps for fun videos -- there's no way to fight back.
This isn't particularly uncommon (Score:5, Informative)
Ask anyone who has lived and worked in China for any length of time to comment on this. I don't recall seeing a spat this public before with a high profile company, but it was not at all uncommon to see smaller businesses usurped by local leadership or have those leaders peel off, start a competing firm, and strip many of the key staff...leaving the original "owner" with a worthless husk. Even when the naughty folks are taken to court, the deck is stacked against the foreign firm. And even if they WIN a judgement, it would be for a relatively small/token amount.
Cue up the replies from the wu mao dang:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Look at the IBM/Lenovo History for example.
This is nothing new.
Re:This isn't particularly uncommon (Score:5, Insightful)
I lived and worked in China for over 18yrs. For a time, foreign investments appeared to be workable, but the reality that everyone feared became clear after Xi Jinping decided to make himself emperor. I always advised clients to keep their IP out of China to keep it safe - most were smart enough to do this, but not all. The money offered by Chinese investors and the potential for sales in the China market fooled a lot of big companies.
ARM and all other companies get what they deserve (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm amazed that western companies still go to China with all this absolute nonsense. I say screw ARM and let them suffer. I think some of these large companies have to learn that the Chinese government is not a friend and only wants to support local businesses.
In my book, if companies go to China for manufacturing or to setup shop, then you should sign a waiver that says, "I will not complain when my stuff is stolen or copied and the government looks the other way."
Re:ARM and all other companies get what they deser (Score:5, Insightful)
The companies making billions of chips that go into phones and cars and washing machines and TVs are in China. If ARM didn't licence to them they would have made their own architecture and it would have come to dominate simply because it was cheap and integrated into the supply chains building the rest of the product.
Re:ARM and all other companies get what they deser (Score:4, Interesting)
Fuck China (Score:2, Insightful)
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Can't end well for him (Score:3)
All that has to happen is nobody should buy or import ARM cores from any entity that is, by international law, illegally licensed. Nobody will pay Allen Wu or "ARM China" for something they can't sell.
Question (Score:2)
When did ARM become Arm?
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When did ARM become Arm?
Just after big became LITTLE.
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After it stopped lifting 3x week?
It is about Nvidia. (Score:4, Interesting)
Nvidia produces most of its products on Taiwan.[0] And their very low end and low volume mainland china.
CCP is probably forcing their hand to move more highend/highvolume production to mainland, to boost china-2025 program.
Nvidia is maneuvering this by buying ARM, and effectively having lots of production on mainland.
Some group in the CCP do not like that compromise and Allen Wu is in it.
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2018/12... [techcrunch.com]
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Nvidia produces most of its products on Taiwan.[0] And their very low end and low volume mainland china.
This doesn't make sense to me. And why would China actually care about this? NVidia has their HQ in the USA not Taiwan. ARM themselves manufactures very little. Their licensees do. Many, many ARM licenses already manufacture their chips in foundries in Taiwan like TSMC. All the transfer means is that ARM is now a US company rather than a UK subsidiary of a Japanese company.
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Entirely predictable (and predicted) (Score:2)
If you transfer production to China, you must transfer the tech there so the workers can do the production. If you transfer the tech there, you give the tech to the Chinese government (that was a major point of last year's new encryption laws there which made it illegal for foreign companies to encrypt any data within China without giving the government there a way to access it and read it).
Only [a] a complete fool, [b] somebody narrowly focused on his CURRENT business but ignorant of history, economics, an
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This was actually started by Nixon and Kissinger; Tolerated by Ford and Carter; Then expanded under Reagan . The theory was that "engagement" would convince the CCP to change their ways. It certainly caused them to drop Communism in favor of Capitalism. But it did nothing to get rid of the corrupt, oppressive, dictatorship. Opponents of the policy have long called it "appeasement" (a reference to the strategy for dealing with Hitler before WWII). It would appear they are correct.
The first of many spilts. (Score:1)