The government of France has opened an investigation into several fashion giants suspected of profiting off of Muslim Uyghur labor in China's Xinjiang region, including specific efforts of concealing "crimes against humanity."

French prosecutors are probing four companies, identified by French media website Mediapart as Uniqlo France, a unit of Japan's Fast Retailing, Zara owner Inditex, France's SMCP and Skechers.

Suddenly they care so much. No, they don't care about labor in Bangladesh or anywhere else that is exploited to death, nope.

China is laying siege to the USA by slowing down production and delivery of goods. It doesn't take much to hang up US production, just one missing item can do it. So much stuff is sourced through China they can affect all supply chains. Semiconductors are just the canary--because the chains are so long and complex, and specialized materials are required, etc. But it is happening everywhere.

I have a little manufacturing company and I am seeing this in supply lines. I sent an order to China for printed circuit boards (US prices are astronomical because of various factors). They don't get back for a week, then they quote, then I send money, then they sit on it, then I call and they say they are having problems with some process... etc. But all the suppliers are like this, it is not an isolated incident. They are sandbagging.

So just as in laying siege, the attackers have the food outside the castle and wait for the people inside to starve.

As prices rise the Chinese manufacturers take bigger profits so the slowdown effects on that end are mitigated. For products they do not have a monopoly on, like PC boards, they slow down. for things like LCD displays and NFeB magnets, the items become unavailable (try buying magnets on Amazon).

I have to say this is a brilliant idea on China's part, and no one on this side has realized the situation yet. This plan is straight out of Sun-Tzu. implications? inflation and shortages will continue for a long time... maybe forever. The only long-term solution is repatriation of manufacturing to the US. But it is going to cause some serious hurt, vastly more than the sanctioning of Chinese tech companies.

I just sent a request for quote for some radio chips I use to Alibaba. they are $1 each and there are many vendors. I sent notes to 2 vendors i used before and after 4 or 5 days got a ping back that my requests were cancelled. i wound up getting the parts--for 2x the price-- from Hong Kong, which at the moment seems to be something of a channel to the mainland. But I expect they will close that leak pretty soon.

Well, isn't it US who started Huawei blockade and they started stockpiling stuff?

Apple is widening usage of Chinese companies

Rumors are that it had been forced to do this in exchange to stay on Chinese market.

Nikkei research shows that Chinese companies control over 30% of the market for smart speakers, smartphones, CCTV cameras, personal computers, air conditioners and washing machines. In a group of 15 goods and services, Chinese companies occupy the leading positions in the world market in 13 cases.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/China-tightens-grip-on-key-components-of-tech-economy

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo made the revelation on Tuesday, according to Reuters, stating that Chinese airlines were being prevented from buying "tens of billions of dollars" in U.S. made airplanes.

Raimondo also pointed out that China wasn't living up to its promises made in 2020 to buy U.S. goods.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-says-chinese-government-blocking-airplane-purchases-2021-09-28/

Situation with Huawei:

US President Joe Biden signed legislation to combat human rights abuses in Xinjiang, China. It imposes a ban on imports from the region and sanctions against Chinese officials responsible for the forced labor and mistreatment of Uighurs in the region, CNBC reports.

Earlier in December, the Senate passed the human rights law in Xinjiang unanimously, and the House of Representatives passed an overwhelming majority from both parliamentary parties. Beijing denies mistreatment of religious and ethnic minorities; the US describes it as forced labor and massive repression.

The Biden administration has already warned companies with supply chains and investment ties in Xinjiang that they may face legal repercussions from such activities. The White House has announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, citing "ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights violations."

Slowly but surely going in the same direction.

US and EU officials are discussing the possibility of introducing export restrictions against China.

This is reported by Bloomberg, citing sources.

"The Allies are cooperating to restrict exports to Moscow, and the Biden administration is exploring the possibility of using some of the same information-sharing and enforcement coordination techniques to enforce its own bilateral restrictions on exports to China," the statement said.

It is noted that a number of EU members have proposed to review the unification policy towards China, as Beijing "becomes less of a partner or competitor and more of a rival."

The U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday to regulate certain U.S. investments in China in the three areas of, semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and artificial intelligence, or AI.

The Biden administration said it was committed to taking narrowly targeted actions to protect national security while maintaining its longstanding commitment to open investment.

"This program will seek to prevent foreign countries of concern from exploiting U.S. investment in this narrow set of technologies that are critical to support their development of military, intelligence, surveillance, and cyber-enabled capabilities that risk U.S. national security," said a press release from the White House.

The President identified the People’s Republic of China, or PRC, including the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong and the Special Administrative Region of Macau, as a country of concern.

Materialism rules!

The US will make every effort to prevent China from gaining access to American technologies in semiconductors and artificial intelligence (AI), as Bloomberg writes.

"We cannot afford to let China use our most advanced technologies, including semiconductors and AI, to develop its military-industrial complex. We will do everything we can to protect our people, including expanding export controls on the PRC," said U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

I don’t slay all Chinese studies and papers with amazing physics and properties but all thesis’s are under big brother umbrella, until china doesn’t own the scientific community they will never get first, that is owned by the west world.