I am neither a US nor a Chinese citizen, so I have no stake in either side. But are you truly certain that blocking China’s access to the most advanced gpus is a sound long-term strategy? "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." (Puzo/Coppola)
[−]O3marchnative · 2026-11-15 Sun 16:05 UTC ·
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I think that in this case it's about the "rules for thee, but not for me" aspect. If the average U.S. citizen attempted to do what Lutnick allegedly did, the consequences would likely be unpleasant, at best.
And the average US citizen re-elected the poster child president for "rules for thee, but not for me." And IMO if he hadn't started the Iran War, imposed tariffs, and driven inflation through the roof, his approval rating would still be 47%+ like at the beginning of his second term.
He betrayed his coalition. Never do that.
[−]kevin_thibedeau · 2026-11-15 Sun 16:31 UTC ·
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It was 32% of the voting eligible population. The knuckle-draggers are a minority.
Should we sell them F-35s to "keep them closer"? Sell them our most advanced defense technology to "keep them closer"?
[−]JumpCrisscross · 2026-11-15 Sun 16:44 UTC ·
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> are you truly certain that blocking China’s access to the most advanced gpus is a sound long-term strategy?
There is a reasonable debate to be had around the level of limits. But I think it’s clear there need to be some. The idea that China won’t develop a local supplier if we sell to them is a ship that sailed a decade ago. And we’re still unclear on the AI’s future development curve—if it looks like what some proponents believe, it would make sense to preserve every advantage we have.
Keeping Chinese AI firms dependent on CUDA is good for NVDA, but not for USA. If these were toys for video games then this would be true. But these are strategic assets powering the most consequential technology development of all time. The second these machines started to have national security implications, the strategy changed. The CCP has a long history of aggressively blocking Western entrants to their market. This is maybe a bit heavy handed for taxis and search engines, but it is totally justified and highly advisable for defense tech. It would be foolish for the CCP to not develop their own domestic production for defense technology. Similarly the US would be foolish to not restrict their access to such technologies. Criticizing either side for acting in their obvious interests is a bit unfair, so hence we have the current stand off.
As someone who is frustrated by how ITAR keeps fancy toys away from my hands as a civ foreigner, no, export control is never the longterm solution, and it's stupid as Clipper Chips that US keeps trying to make it work, in turn corrupting its own industrial base, though at the same time to blatantly ignore it or its tactical usefulness is also not clever at all.
[−]onetimeusename · 2026-11-15 Sun 18:19 UTC ·
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I am not sure if we have an answer to this. On one hand it gives China more capabilities. On the other, China could develop their own compute chips which would give them an even bigger capability, they have ways of getting the chips anyway and it's difficult to stop that meaningfully, and it benefits the US marginally to sell them. It benefits Nvidia a lot so Jensen's advocacy on this topic is self serving. But I don't think there's a correct answer here.
That said, easing restrictions happened earlier this year and was announced publicly and suddenly now everyone has become a China hawk.
If you want my personal opinion, Jensen might be right here.
[−]austin-cheney · 2026-11-15 Sun 18:45 UTC ·
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It doesn’t matter. Soon China will have equivalent capabilities from their own chips.
He betrayed his coalition. Never do that.
There is a reasonable debate to be had around the level of limits. But I think it’s clear there need to be some. The idea that China won’t develop a local supplier if we sell to them is a ship that sailed a decade ago. And we’re still unclear on the AI’s future development curve—if it looks like what some proponents believe, it would make sense to preserve every advantage we have.
https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2026-...
Rethinking Export Controls as a Tool in Modern Technology Competition, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Why not just give them everything that gets invented?
That said, easing restrictions happened earlier this year and was announced publicly and suddenly now everyone has become a China hawk.
If you want my personal opinion, Jensen might be right here.