【Text/Science and Engineering Strength Columnist Yu Pengkun】
Since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Western countries led by the United States have introduced endless sanctions against Russia, including economic, sports, and artistic measures, and even Russia's pet cats have not escaped the disaster. These absurd sanctions once again show how rich the imagination of Western countries is when they encircle and smear other countries, and also show that US hegemonism is worthy of being the biggest destroyer of the international order.
Although Western countries have adopted sanctions in various forms and with sharp angles, their effectiveness is questionable. Taking financial sanctions as an example, the United States has successively adopted tactics such as prohibiting the use of dollars, euros, pounds, and yen for financial transactions and business activities, eliminating the SWIFT network, and freezing the assets of Russian countries in the United States and Europe.
The "financial nuclear bomb" was thrown down, and Russia was also greatly impacted, but Putin's will to war has not been significantly weakened, and the military momentum of the Russian army is still as strong as ever. Coupled with the fact that Europe and even the United States are very dependent on Russian energy, how can such sanctions not be out of line?
In fact, although the Senate legislative panels of both parties in the United States insist on sanctions on Russian oil exports, the Biden administration delayed until the 8th to announce in a televised speech that it would impose an energy import ban on Russia.
As for other bizarre sanctions, boldness is more important than practical, and at best it is a cheerleader in international politics. Like sanctioning Russia's cats, what will happen except to add laughter to the people of the world and create a large number of memes.
Based on historical photos of Lenin with cats, a satirical meme was made
NATO's eastward expansion has been contained, unilateralist arrangements have been challenged, the United States has a bitter hatred for Russia, and under the premise of not personally participating in the war, American politicians will play all cards, including the science and technology card. Compared with Russia, American technology companies are in a state of crushing in terms of volume and quality.
According to the 2019 data of the Prospective Industry Research Institute, among the top 2500 companies in the global R&D investment, the R&D investment of AMERICAN companies accounted for 38.45%, which was 84% higher than the 20.89% of EU companies. According to the report released by Zhiyan Consulting, the global unicorn companies are mainly distributed in China and the United States, and the United States occupies half of the world.
The investment amount of the top 2,000 companies in the global R&D investment is distributed, and the source of the figure is shown in the watermark
In contrast, Russia's tech companies are simply not worth mentioning, and they seriously lack world influence. Chairman Mao pointed out long ago: "The US imperialists are very arrogant, and wherever they can be unreasonable, they must be unreasonable." Occupying such a big advantage, the United States does not want to be reasonable. Represented by Apple, Intel, AMD, and Google, at least 25 technology companies have participated in sanctions against Russia.
Western tech companies vs. Russia
The power of sanctions against technology companies should not be underestimated
In the era of economic globalization, enterprises are the vanguard of industrial competition, and their importance is self-evident. Some people believe that in the face of national industrial policy and international games, even strong high-tech enterprises are insignificant, which is harmful. The involvement of U.S. technology companies in sanctions has played a role that other ways have not played, and it can even be said that it immediately made Russia feel pain.
At present, most of the US enterprises participating in the sanctions against Russia are information enterprises, which can be roughly divided into Internet and software service enterprises and hardware design and production enterprises. Among them, Internet and software service companies play the most direct role, and after the service of Apple and Google was stopped, it immediately had a great impact on the Russian-related business.
Like many countries, Russia has entered the era of mobile payment, but its local mobile payment companies are not as strong as Chinese companies. On February 28, due to the large-scale suspension of Apple Pay and Google Pay in Russia, it brought certain inconvenience to the Russian people.
In the information age, Internet and software service companies not only improve people's living experience, but also create a window to observe the world. Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Roku, Meta, Tiktok all control a huge amount of media resources, that is, Google, Amazon, Microsoft also control the heavyweight traffic entrance.
When these media collectively attacked, the image of the Russian state among Western netizens quickly plummeted. Since the intensification of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Russia's voice has been rapidly marginalized on the Western Internet. We've all seen how American Internet companies banned former President Trump, and Russia is currently facing the same situation. The voice representing the will of the country cannot be heard, and only the farce of russian "well-known" people taking to the streets to oppose the war has been repeatedly emphasized.
In addition, Russia's information security has encountered unprecedented challenges. The windows series of the desktop operating system with the highest proportion is developed by Microsoft, the Android series of mobile operating systems with the highest proportion is developed by Google, and Oracle's database has a huge impact on the financial postal system.
Through third-party and pirated copies, users in Russia may still be able to use these software and systems. But now that sanctions have been imposed and service relationships within the legal framework have been lifted, it seems beyond reproach that these companies will no longer push the latest security patches to the users involved, which is a risk in itself. A little darker imagine that in some case, if these companies find vulnerabilities in their products, will they intentionally or unintentionally provide them to third-party hacking agencies to attack Russia's key organs?
Although "the Internet does not involve secrets, and the secrets do not go online" is already an integral part of the professionalism of relevant departments around the world, under the objective reality that it is always inconvenient to use The products of American enterprises, some people may still use them beyond the line, leaving traces of sensitive information. What's more, the western related products have a near monopoly position, and such a large user base is enough to analyze a lot of things from non-sensitive information.
The participation of hardware design and production enterprises in sanctions is less obvious, but the impact is more far-reaching. "Imagine a country that needs to import some kind of precious commodity from a country with which there is a war conflict and trade instability, without which the whole society will be forced to pause, and imagine that the two countries are China and the United States, and the commodity is the CPU." The 2009 wired article in wired magazine called "The People's CPU" was chilling.
Someone asked: Is the lack of CPU really so serious? Longxin President Hu Weiwu's answer in 2018 was: "Yes." Russia's dependence on Western chips is much more serious than China's current one.
Russia can design and produce its own chips, but its design capabilities are significantly two steps worse than those of the United States, and they are also much worse than China's Loongson and Shenwei. The production capacity is even worse, TSMC has clearly stated that it will stop shipping to Russia, and other foundry companies may also have to measure the risk of OEM for Russia in the future, and there is a risk of chip shortage in Russia in the long run.
Russia's domestic chip Baikal TC-1
In the worst case, the operating rate of many Russian companies that rely on Western chips will be affected, which in turn will affect the efficiency of Russia's entire industrial production. After all, there is a performance gap of more than an order of magnitude between Russia's autonomous chips and the part of the Western monopoly, in which case either the efficiency of end users will inevitably be affected, or Russian programmers will have to do a lot of optimization work.
And compared with those that provide software services, the enterprises that provide hardware have a heavier monopoly and have a stronger appeal to the industrial chain, which is not very easy to avoid. In 2006, AMD, the second largest general-purpose CPU design company, filed an antitrust lawsuit to punish Intel for unfair competition. Although Intel was not justified at the time and in hindsight, most PC companies refused to testify on AMD's behalf.
Intel's influence alone is so great that AMD refuses to supply Russia this time. At present, Apple, Dell, Lenovo and other related companies have been coerced and have stopped their related business with Russia. In the future, AMD and Intel, which have mastered the vast majority of the general high-performance CPU market, if they really seriously encircle Russia, it will not be easy for the Russian people to obtain cheap and easy-to-use PCs, and the cost of informatization in the whole of Russia will increase.
The threat of sanctions by tech companies should not be exaggerated
So with the help of technology companies, can the United States, which likes to engage in unilateralism, be one-way advantageous in sanctions?
We may wish to analyze it theoretically, because Russia's military operations in Ukraine are a continuation of politics and a core national interest. As long as there is power politics and hegemonism in the world, it is impossible to put an end to war. After the Second World War, the unprecedented nuclear threshold did not prevent the war from happening, and the threshold of sanctions was even more ridiculous. A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs solemnly pointed out that "sanctions have never been a fundamental and effective way to solve the problem", which is not only out of goodwill, but also a scientific refinement of diplomatic laws.
Nor did the terrible nuclear threat of the Cold War achieve peace
In addition to not wavering the determination to fight, the short- and medium-term effects of any sanctions are limited. As Biden said in an interview with the American podcast, "You have two options, start World War III, go to war with Russia; and second, make sure a country that is so violating international law pays the price." The fact that the US president has chosen sanctions itself shows that he does not dare to go to war, and also shows that the national contradictions between the United States and Russia have not yet become irreconcilable, and that sanctions as a means of punishment have innate deficiencies.
Technically speaking, hegemonism is keen on sanctions because sanctions can engulf other non-hegemonic forces to participate, thus reaching the purpose of some politicians borrowing other people's pots to cook their own meals. Therefore, since the Napoleonic era, the uneven heat and cold, favoring one over the other, has always been an endogenous contradiction that is difficult to resolve by international sanctions. In announcing a new round of sanctions, US President Joe Biden said: "Defending freedom and democracy has never come without a price," but some countries are clearly more costly. Some of the Third World countries that the United States tried to encircle this time expressed strong dissatisfaction.
After the U.S. announced its condemnation, Pakistan reached a large import order with Russia. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan stressed: "The Crisis in Ukraine has nothing to do with us. We have bilateral relations with Russia, and we sincerely hope to strengthen them. We don't want to be part of any group. ”
On Feb. 25, Serbian President Vucic delivered a national speech in which he acknowledged the enormous pressure exerted by Western countries, but said Serbia would not follow the EU in imposing sanctions on Russia. On February 27, Brazilian President Bolsonaro argued that any form of sanctions against Russia could have a negative impact on Brazil, and that Russian-produced fertilizer is critical to Brazil's massive agricultural production.
On March 1, both Mexico and Argentina refused to impose any economic sanctions on Russia for its military actions against Ukraine. Even in Europe, there are Belarus, Serbia, Georgia, and Turkey that explicitly reject sanctions against Russia. Hungary, which had to impose sanctions on Russia, is bitterly complaining about the costs it has incurred and demanding that it continue to buy Russian energy: "If we cancel our energy cooperation with the Russians, the relevant expenditure of all Hungarian households will triple in one month." Therefore, I do not support this move and will not make Hungarian families pay for this war. ”
As for North Korea, Iran, and Syria, which have suffered from the United States, the irony of sanctions against Russia is even more poignant.
This means that the wall of U.S. sanctions leaks from the start, and if U.S. tech companies and their allies cannot impose the same sanctions on these countries at the same time, then at best they can only prevent high-end customized goods from flowing into Russia.
As early as 2014, many of Microsoft's software, including Windows systems, were banned in Russia, but Russian state-owned institutions still normally purchased Microsoft software such as Windows systems, and it was not difficult to buy genuine Windows on the shelves of Russian supermarkets.
Genuine Windows on Russian shelves in sanctions
With so many countries and organizations sympathetic to Russia, the near-proliferation of smuggling has not even led to a significant increase in the prices of the products involved. Since 2011, the United States has imposed more than 100 sanctions on Russia, and technology companies have participated in them many times, as long as we look at it from an objective point of view, it is not difficult to find that the effect of these sanctions is extremely limited.
In the face of sanctions, Russia has long been prepared
Russia's ability to resist in response to sanctions is also gradually increasing. In 2013, Putin officially approved the "Russian Federation Information Technology Industry Development Strategy for 2014-2020 and the Long-term Strategy for the Period Before 2025". After nearly ten years of arduous construction, the problem has been basically solved, and the independent software and hardware system has initially taken shape.
In terms of CPU, in addition to the baikal mentioned above, mcst has a greater emphasis on autonomy and a greater focus on high-performance computing. Baikal has both a highly autonomous product line and an emergency product that uses third-party IP integration. At present, the CPU designed by the two companies can already meet the needs of military use and can meet the needs of most government businesses.
The only thing to worry about is that Russia's independent CPUs are still relatively dependent on advanced processes abroad, so the impact of TSMC's suspension of supply is not small. Semiconductor production investment is very large, and the risk is not small, but in the face of Western blackmail, Russia is painful. Prior to military action against Ukraine, Russia had reached cooperation with Belarus to jointly produce electronic components. Russia has also tried in recent years to share some of its information technology with friendly CIS countries.
It is worth mentioning that Russia's domestic operating system has started late and developed slowly for a long time, but in recent years, it has taken on a new look. In recent years, Russia, especially the Russian military, has spent a lot of effort to develop and promote Astra Linux, although its interface is still relatively primitive, but because the Russian military uses while developing, implementing tasks and equipment, its practicality and compatibility have allowed the Russian military to get rid of the Windows office.
Mobile operating system, Russia has a Linux-based kernel Aurora, the system is not yet fully compatible with Android, but has made up for the weakest link in Russia's information security. Russia has spent at least 100 billion rubles on Aurora and deployed the system to 8 million mobile devices.
Desktop and mobile operating systems in Russia
In terms of Internet services that are close to daily life, Russia has also seen a large number of local providers emerge in recent years. Sputnik's search engine, Wildberries' e-commerce platform, Yandex's geographic information business, and more. This time, Google Pay is discontinued, hitting Russia, but it will also certainly boost the mobile payment business in Russia. All this, as the great man put it: "Blockade it for ten years and eight years", "all problems solved".
Moreover, an important reason why hegemonism has been happy to impose sanctions is that they are profitable. But trade is inherently within your means, as you please, and is governed by the laws of the economy. Russia not only reveals this in theory, but also in reality seeks to make all entities involved in sanctions suffer losses and injuries, both in terms of total business and profits.
In 2016, Putin's Internet advisers said that Google, Apple, and Microsoft, which "eat and smash the pot", must pay more taxes, which once made the above-mentioned companies take a low-key position on sanctions. This time, Putin has already said that he wants to "pull the list", and how the big stick will be beaten down, we may as well wait and see.
In summary, strategically speaking, sanctions for technology companies are not enough to be afraid of. But from a tactical point of view, the sanctions of technology companies are so favored by hegemonists that they must attract enough attention. As an imaginary enemy of the United States, China cannot take an encouraging attitude towards scientific and technological sanctions, and we will allow us to allow US technology companies to coerce NATO's science and technology enterprises to join the sanctions against Russia, and we must not allow these technology companies to unscrupulously attract enterprises that threaten other countries and even China to join the sanctions. If sanctions are too much for Russia to bear, sanctions on technology companies will become a real and serious threat to world peace.
At the same time, we must learn from Russia, which regards autonomous controllability and security indicators as much more important than economic indicators and technologically advanced indicators. The lack of a medium-advanced semiconductor process production line that is not afraid of sanctions, the lack of a secure mobile operating system, and the insufficient penetration rate of a controllable desktop operating system are the three major hidden dangers of information security on the mainland, which can be solved as soon as possible by drawing on Russia's approach and with the courage to seize the day.
Hegemonists who try to use the comparative advantages of science and technology enterprises to influence the decision-making of sovereign states are bound to fail, but when they fail depend entirely on when such sanctions will do more harm than good. This enlightens us that in the face of such sanctions, we must adopt a reciprocal counterattack, or even a super-reciprocal counterattack strategy. There is no way out of concessions and compromises.
This article is the exclusive manuscript of the observer network, the content of the article is purely the author's personal views, does not represent the platform views, unauthorized, may not be reproduced, otherwise will be investigated for legal responsibility. Pay attention to the observer network WeChat guanchacn, read interesting articles every day.