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Chip wars

The trade disputes the American President Donald Trump relishes have an old-fashioned feel.
Tariffs are the principal weapons.
Old-economy markets, from cars to steel, are the main battlefields.
Trade conflict that matters most: 21st-century fight over technology
It covers everything from artificial intelligence (AI) to network equipment.
The fundamental battleground is in semiconductors.
The chip industry is where America’s industrial leadership and China’s superpower ambitions clash most directly.
That is because computer chips are the foundations of the digital economy and national security. Cars have become computers on wheels.

Ø Banks are computers that move money.
Ø Armies fight with silicon as well as steel.

Firms from America and its allies, such as South Korea and Taiwan, dominate the most advanced areas of the industry.
China, by contrast, remains reliant on the outside world for supplies of high-end chips.
In 2014, the government in Beijing announced a 1 trillion yuan ($150 billion) investment fund to improve its domestic industry.
Semiconductors feature prominently in “Made in China 2025”, a national development plan issued in 2015.
China’s ambitions to create a cutting-edge industry worried Mr Trump’s predecessor.
Barack Obama blocked Intel from selling some of its whizziest chips to China in 2015, and stymied the acquisition of a German chipmaker by a Chinese firm in 2016.
Taiwan and South Korea have policies to stop purchases of domestic chip firms by Chinese ones and to dam flows of intellectual property.
Although the chip battle may have pre-dated Mr Trump, his presidency has intensified it.
America has realised that its edge in technology gives it power over China.
China’s incentives to become self-reliant in semiconductors have rocketed.
Alibaba, Baidu and Huawei are ploughing money into making chips.
America has legitimate concerns about the national-security implications of being dependent on Chinese chips and vulnerable to Chinese hacking.
China’s pretensions to being a superpower will look hollow as long as America can throttle its firms at will.
China is destined to try to catch up; America is determined to stay ahead.
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.
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 technology transfer and intellectual-property theft) at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), 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.
– Danger lurks Fishermen at work close to the shore near the natural rock formations of Thotlakonda in Visakhapatnam on Saturday. Cyclone Phethai is likely to cross the Andhra Pradesh coast between Ongole and Kakinada on Monday.

Rain forecast in Odisha, farmers alerted
With the deep depression over the Bay of Bengal likely to intensify into a severe cyclonic storm, the Odisha government on Saturday alerted all District Collectors on the adverse impact of heavy rain on harvested crop.
Collectors of six southern districts

— Malkangiri, Gajapati, Koraput, Rayagada, Nabarangpur and Ganjam
— have been directed to send field functionaries to villages to disseminate agriculture advisories on possible crop damage.

“According to the latest information, the deep depression over the southeast bay of Bay of Bengal lies centred about 440 km southeast of Chennai and 890 km southeast of Machlipatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
It is very likely to intensify into a severe cyclonic storm. It is likely to cross the Andhra Pradesh coast between Ongole and Kakinada on December 17 afternoon,” P. R. Mohapatra, Joint Relief Commissioner, said here. Central assistance for cyclone Titli-hit areas soon: Naveen

7 civilians killed in Pulwama

Seven people, including a Class VIII student, died and around 37 were injured on Saturday during intense clashes with security forces in Pulwama following the killing of three militants in an encounter.
One soldier was also killed and another injured in the operation.
The death of seven civilians in protests, “mostly due to bullet injuries on the upper body” as per hospital records from Pulwama and Srinagar, is the highest so far this year. Earlier in October, six civilians died in a blast at an encounter site in Kulgam.
Director-General of Police Dilbagh Singh said an FIR had been lodged.

Poachers kill rhino in Kaziranga

The carcass of an adult male rhino, its horn missing, was spotted by a tourist group at National Park in upper Assam on Saturday, a senior forest department official said.
Following the recovery, the number of rhinos killed this year rose to six.
Gunshots were heard on Friday night but were thought to be sound of firecrackers from a marriage nearby, Mr. Saikia said.
On March 3, a female adult rhino was killed outside the Kaziranga National Park area at Lohore Chapori in the State’s Majuli district.

India, Nepal and Bhutan plan task force to protect wildlife

The governments of India, Nepal and Bhutan are actively considering having a joint task force for allowing free movement of wildlife across political boundaries and checking smuggling of wildlife across the Kanchenjunga Landscape, a trans-boundary region spread across Nepal, India and Bhutan.
The development comes after forest officials and representatives of non-governmental organisation of the three countries visited parts of the landscape and later held a meeting at Siliguri in north Bengal earlier this month.
The landscape stretches along the southern side of Mount Kanchenjunga and covers an area of 25,080 sq km spread across parts of eastern Nepal (21%), Sikkim and West Bengal (56%) and western and southwestern parts of Bhutan (23%).
According to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development ( ICIMOD), a regional knowledge development and learning centre, 1,118 sq km of riverine grassland and tree cover were lost in the landscape between 2000 and 2010.
Around 74% of the area was converted into rangeland and 26% to agricultural land. Other than seven million people, the Kanchenjunga Landscape is also home to 169 species of mammals and 713 species of birds.
Studies by ICIMOD suggest that between 1986 and 2015, as many as 425 people were killed by elephants (an average of 14 human deaths every year) and 144 elephants were killed between 1958 and 2013 (an average of three elephants every year).

France, India focus on energy sector

India and France are moving fast towards operationalising the nuclear power project at Jaitapur, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Saturday.
“Both countries are working to start the Jaitapur nuclear energy project as soon as possible. We are glad that NPCIL and EDF have have made progress based on the Industrial Way Forward Agreement. Today we have adopted the Status of Progress for Implementation of Industrial Way Forward Agreement,” Ms. Swaraj announced after holding talks with visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
The French Minister said the project, which involved building six EPR reactors, would also help the ‘Make in India’ project of the Government of India as it will include transfer of technology.
“…We have decided to launch projects together in Africa, particularly in the area of sustainable development in connection with the International Solar Alliance. Our respective Joint Secretaries for Africa, who held operational consultations earlier this week, will soon submit a progress report on these joint projects,” Mr. Le Drian said.

Nations inch towards climate deal at UN summit

Nations on Saturday inched towards a deal to implement the Paris climate goals, after all-night negotiations over a plan to limit global temperature rises exposed a range of conflicts.
Speaking to AFP at the COP24 summit in Poland, a senior negotiator said delegates from nearly 200 nations had reached a “landing zone” of agreement.
But sources close to the talks said differences remained stark on the issues of ambition, how the climate fight is funded and how best to measure and ensure the fairness of each nation’s efforts to reduce emissions.
Delegates at the UN summit, held this year in the Polish mining city of Katowice, must agree on a common rule book to put the pledges made at the landmark 2015 Paris talks into practice.

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