The hard question is over the lengths to which America should go. Protectionists in the White House would doubtless like to move the semiconductor supply chain to America. Good luck with that. The industry is a hymn to globalisation. One American firm has 16,000 suppliers, over half of them abroad. China is a huge market for many firms. Qualcomm makes two-thirds of its sales there. Trying to cleave the industry into two would hurt producers and consumers in America. And it would be a bluntly antagonistic act, which would make no distinction between unfair and genuine competition.
大问题是美国应该走多远。毋庸置疑，美国保护主义者想将半导体供应链转移至美国。祝其好运。芯片业是全球化的颂歌。一家美国公司有16000家供应商，其中一半以上在国外。而对于很多公司而言，中国是一个很大的市场。高通三分之二的销售额来自中国。试图将这个产业一分为二将会伤害美国的供应商和消费者。这会是一种直截了当的敌对行为，将会使不公平竞争和真正的竞争界限模糊。
In the long run it may be futile, too. Today America has the edge over China in designing and making high-end chips. It can undoubtedly slow its rival. But China’s progress will be hard to stop. Just as Silicon Valley’s rise rested on the support of the American government, so China blends state and corporate resources in pursuit of its goals. It has incentive programmes to attract engineering talent from elsewhere. Firms like Huawei have a proven ability to innovate; blocking the flow of Intel chips in 2015 only spurred China on to develop its domestic supercomputing industry.
从长远来看，也有可能是徒劳的。今天，美国在设计和制造高端芯片方面比中国有优势。毫无疑问这可以延缓中国的发展速度。但中国的发展不会停止。正如硅谷的崛起依赖美国政府的支持，因此中国为实现芯片发展目标，已将国家和企业资源整合。中国推出激励计划，以从其他地方吸引工程人才。像华为这样的公司已被证实有创新能力；美国2015年阻止英特尔芯片进入中国只会激发中国自己的超级计算机行业变得更强。
Moreover, China’s bid to become a global semiconductor powerhouse is propitiously timed. For decades the chip industry has been driven forward by Moore’s law, under which the capabilities of a chip of a given size double every two years. But Moore’s law is reaching its physical limits. As everyone jumps to new technologies, from quantum computing to specialised AI chips, China has a rare chance to catch up.
此外，中国成为全球半导体强国的努力可谓恰逢其时。几十年来，芯片业都被摩尔定律主导，按照此定律，给定尺寸的芯片的性能每两年翻一番。但摩尔定律已经达到物理极限。随着所有人都转向新技术，从量子计算到专门的人工智能芯片，中国有一个难得的机会弯道超车。
The right approach for America, therefore, has three strands. The first is to work with its allies in Europe and Asia to keep pushing back against unfair Chinese practices (such as forced tech transfer and intellectual-property theft) at the World Trade Organisation, and to screen out inward Chinese investments when security justifies it. The second is to foster domestic innovation. More government funding is already going into chip research; greater openness to talent is needed. And the third is to prepare for a world in which Chinese chips are more powerful and pervasive. That means, among other things, developing proper testing procedures to ensure the security of Chinese-made products; and tightening up on data-handling standards so that information is not being sprayed about so carelessly. Measures such as these will not make the headlines at the G20. But they will do more to shape the world in the years ahead.
因此，对美国来说，有三个正确做法。第一，和欧洲以及亚洲的盟友合作，在世界贸易组织反击中国不公平的做法（比如强制技术转让和知识产权盗窃），并在有安全保障的情况下，筛选出中国的投资。第二，培养国内创新。芯片研究已经投入了更多政府资金；还需要更多人才开放。第三，准备迎接一个中国芯片更强大、更普遍的世界。这意味着，除其他事项外，要制定适当的检测程序，以确保中国制造产品的安全性；加强数据管理标准，以保证信息不会被随意泄露。虽然这些措施不会成为20国集团会议的头条新闻，但将来，会更有益于塑造这个世界。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
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