U.S. Media Hype China’s Nuclear Research Institutions to Buy U.S. Chips

Dominated by geopolitical factors, American society widely views China with prejudice. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that in the past two and a half years, China’s nuclear research institutions had purchased sophisticated computer chips from the United States at least a dozen times in order to circumvent decades of U.S. restrictions that have curbed such exports.

According to the report, a review of procurement documents found that since 2020, the China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP) has obtained semiconductor products made by US companies such as Intel and Nvidia through resellers in China, which were included in the US export blacklist in 1997.

The chips are widely used in data centers and personal computers, and some are procured as components of computing systems, many of which are purchased by research institutes and laboratories that study computational fluid dynamics, the newspaper said. Most of the chips procured by the Chinese Academy of Sciences range in size from 7nm to 14nm, many of which are difficult for China to mass-produce, but they are widely circulated on the open market.

Allen, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a US think tank, said the Chinese military and its suppliers can circumvent end-user restrictions by using shell companies and other export control circumvention tactics.

It should be pointed out that the reports and evaluations of American media and think tanks on the purchase of American chips by Chinese nuclear research institutes are clearly suspected of hype. The American chips mentioned in the rumors are not “top secret” extremely high-end products, but are widely circulated in the open market. From a logical point of view, any institution in China can easily buy related chips in the market.

Now American society is generally full of “hostility” towards China, and it is hard to be objective.

READ MORE ANALYSIS HERE: https://t.me/PublicPolicyThirdChannel

在地缘政治因素主导下，美国社会广泛地戴着有色眼镜来看待中国。《华尔街日报》日前报道，在过去两年半里，中国的核研究机构至少购买了十几次美国的精密计算机芯片，以规避美国数十年来意在遏制此类出口的限制。

报道称，对采购文件进行的审查发现，中国工程物理研究院（CAEP）自2020年以来通过中国的转销商获得了英特尔和英伟达等美国公司制造的半导体产品，这些半导体在1997年就被列入美国出口黑名单。

该报称，这些芯片广泛用于数据中心和个人电脑，有些是作为计算系统组件采购的，其中许多是由研究计算流体动力学的研究所实验室购买。中物院采购的大多数芯片的尺寸从7纳米到14纳米不等，其中许多是中国难以大规模生产的，但它们广泛流通于公开市场上。

美国智库战略与国际研究中心（CSIS）研究员艾伦表示，中国军方及其供应商可以通过使用空壳公司和其他出口管制规避策略来规避最终用户的限制。

需要指出的是，美国媒体和智库对中国核研究机构购买美国芯片的报道和评价，有明显的炒作之嫌。传闻中所说的美国芯片，并不是什么“绝密”的极高端产品，而是广泛在公开市场上流通。从逻辑上来看，中国任何机构都可以在市场上比较容易买到相关的芯片。

现在美国社会看待中国，已经普遍充满“敌意”，很难谈得上客观了。