Parts 5–8

Chip War - 3rd session (Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8)

Participants: Jayu, Born to Run, mori, S, G

Date: Thursday, 2026.3.12, 21:00

Location: Online

The overall discussion focused on how South Korea should respond to the enormous variable of China amid the whirlwind of the global semiconductor hegemony war.

1. The Start of the Debate: Free Market Economy vs. National Security

*Core question: “Should China be recognized as a partner in the liberal market economy and engaged in cooperation, or should it be defined as a systemic threat and checked?”

2. The Case for Containing China: “China’s Objective Has Not Changed”

*Perspective of unrestricted warfare: China’s reform and opening-up was revealed not as an abandonment of communism, but as a means of taoguang yanghui—hiding its capabilities and biding its time—in order to build strength.

*Exploiting the system in reverse: Concern that China is actually using the vulnerabilities of the liberal democratic system in order to undermine it.

*Practical measures: The assessment that blocking exports to China of core strategic assets such as ASML’s EUV lithography equipment is both justified and essential.

3. Realism and the Case for Cooperation

*Practical limits: Completely excluding China from the global supply chain is physically impossible and would inflict major economic damage.

*Ideological consistency: The view that, in keeping with market economy principles, the focus should be on cooperation rather than scrutinizing a state’s hidden intentions. (A warning that if mutual distrust spreads, the global division-of-labor system itself could collapse.)

4. Overall Reflections and Insight: “Why Did the Communist Bloc Lose?”

*Foundation of innovation: The semiconductor industry requires a global cooperative network, and this can flourish only under a liberal democratic system that respects openness and diversity.

*Historical missteps:

*The Soviet Union: Rather than pursuing independent technological innovation, it relied only on copying Western technology through reverse engineering and ultimately failed to overcome the widening technology gap.

*China: Its anti-intellectual conduct during the Cultural Revolution, when engineers were persecuted, caused a break in the pipeline of technical talent and has hindered long-term growth.

*Conclusion: The closedness and anti-intellectualism characteristic of communist systems are fundamentally incompatible with the nature of the semiconductor industry, which requires extreme precision and global collaboration. This is the root cause of why they missed the opportunity for a decisive leap forward.

5. Key Point to Watch Going Forward: Huawei and TSMC

*Attention was drawn to the formidable growth and technological capabilities of Huawei as a latecomer.

*Continued tension over where technological dominance will flow amid geopolitical risks, including a possible invasion of Taiwan and pressure on TSMC.

*

The Kakao Open Chat or Band group for the “Liberalism Book Club” is a communication space operated by book club members.

Please note that this is not a channel operated by the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE), and keep this in mind when joining and participating.

▶Join the Liberalism Book Club:

https://open.kakao.com/o/g4Nn1uud

---

Original title: <칩워(CHIP WAR)> Part 5, 6, 7, 8

Author: Ja-yujuui Ipmun Dokseo Toron Moim

Date: 2026-03-16

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=reading01&pn=1&idx=28699