Chip War |
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7 February 2024 - Adetswil
The first part of Chris Miller's Chip War goes over history in California that is quite familiar to me as Silicon Valley's foundation story. The later history of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China is mostly new to me. Europe seems to be a bit of an afterthought, but vignettes from the KGB's fumbling to the growth of ASML do get some mention. Miller, having established this history from a very America-centric perspective, then turns on China. Readers of this blog will know that I am not the biggest fan of the Chinese Communist Party, but Miller's sharp turn from history to polemic mars what could have otherwise been a balanced book. When chapter 51, "The Assault on Huawei", started of with the sentence "After former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden defected to Russia in 2013..." I realized that Miller is a just shill for the US military-industrial complex. Parroting the official US intelligence community position that Snowden's exposure of their nefarious spying on American citizens as "defection to Russia" is something one must either be an idiot or dishonest to defend. Maybe the "War" in the title should have clued me in, but I supposed it was sensationalization to enhance sales. Industrial drama is often written in military terms even though it is nonviolent competition. So read this book with a huge grain of salt.
