What goes around...

Post Reply New Topic

For many months on and off I've been chasing a server product for a project at work. I can see the product announcement, it's listing, but couldn't find where to buy it, it's made with chips from Intel and assembled by their industry partner in China. I kept emailing distributors and never hearing back, so I finally started investigating what's going on. The parent company of Intel's partner handling the assembly is a state-owned Chinese electronics conglomerate, and are now under a new round of US trade sanctions (which began during the Trump era) because they supply technology products to the Chinese military. So now I can't get hardware for my project at work because the set of codecs on the silicon is one of a kind, and this sanctioned partner was the exclusive producer of the finished product.

So in the end I got bit by the very sanctions I supported.

Well... our country has pretty much sold its soul to China. As they say "Don't bite the hand that feeds you".

Trade sanctions are always a double edged sword that hurts both sides. If you're lucky sanctions hurt the target nation more than they hurt, you -the wielder of the sanctions- for a long time before the pendulum swings the other way and you get more hurt than theyre getting. But sanctions are better than just ...going to war at the drop of a hat...just to make a statement.

So thems the breaks!

So I've been told to abandon my project.

It was literally the only fun thing I've worked on recently. I have a working prototype but can't get production hardware.

I had my political loyalty similarly tested when I was due to fly to the USA back in September. The UK rail strikes came within a hair of scuppering my plan (train to Heathrow). It'd have cost me the price of the plane ticket at the very least. I support the railway staff in their struggle against the attacks on their terms and conditions, but it did make me wonder how much I was prepared to pay for my political principles. It was only a matter of luck that strikes, COVID travel restrictions, and Green Card holders' requirement to be in the USA for at least 6 months a year never converged together to give me a horrendous mess to clean up.

Still, whatever we'd supported or blamed, as individuals we'd have made negligible difference to the outcomes inflicted on us by the powers that be.