Convenience Big Store: Why China worries more about bytes than barrels

15 October, 2022

Books

An artist's impression of a computer chip with a Chinese flag. Getty

Why China worries more about bytes than barrels

Armchair strategists like to pontificate about China's "Malacca Dilemma", says Chris Miller in his book Chip War. In a crisis, the theory goes, China might not be able to get vital oil through the Strait of Malacca, the main shipping channel between the Pacific and Indian oceans. "Beijing, however, is more worried about a blockade measured in bytes rather than barrels." It spends more money each year importing computer chips than it does on oil.

Pretty much all new tech, from washing machines to missile systems, requires these chips, and a tiny number of companies – and countries – control production. Chips from Taiwan provide 37% of the world's new computing power each year. Two Korean firms produce 44% of the world's memory chips. The Netherlands builds all the models of a specialised machine essential to chip production. The Opec oil cartel's 40% market share "looks unimpressive by comparison".

To get round this "chip choke", China is devoting its best minds and billions of dollars to developing its own semiconductor technology. America is already squaring up: in 2020, it barred Huawei from using US chips, which made the Chinese tech company's global expansion grind to a halt. But even more important is the fate of Taiwan, the leader in advanced chipmaking. "To a frightening degree," the balance of global economic and military power is now dependent "on a small island that Beijing considers a renegade province and America has committed to defend by force".

The great escape

Sex, death and aristocracy on a private Italian island

The Italian island of Zannone is famed for more something rather spicier than just its stunning landscape, says Silvia Marchetti in CNN: orgies. In the 1960s, the Marquis Casati Stampa and his wife, former actress Anna Fallarino (pictured), rented the island to host "lavish sex parties". Dozens of yachts would ferry aristocrats and billionaires to the erotic isle, where the Marquis would watch and photograph his starlet wife with her handsome young lovers.

The X-rated exploits took place in a colonial villa fitted with a "hidden mirror room", so voyeurs could "spy on heavy sex sessions". But in 1970, "the erotic games ended in bloodshed": Anna fell in love with one of her lovers, and in a jealous rage, the Marquis killed the pair and then himself. It was only afterwards that Italian tabloids discovered his secret "green velvet diary" detailing the antics on the island, along with 1,500 lewd photos.

Heroes and villains

Jamie Oliver outside Downing Street in May. Dan Kitwood/Getty

Hero

Jamie Oliver, says Carol Midgley in The Times. I used to slate the TV chef's "messianic zeal" and "mediocre food", but "I take it all back". On Radio 4 this week, he talked more sense in three minutes "than the entire Cabinet, to my knowledge, ever has", calmly explaining that making sure enough children have free school meals will lead to a healthier, more productive population and a "more profitable country".

Hero

Ukrainian Railways, which is maintaining a decent service despite Vladimir Putin's invasion. On Monday, railway boss Oleksandr Kamyshin apologised for 42 trains being delayed amid a bombardment of Russian cruise missiles. His attitude is "humbling", says Gillian Tett in the FT. In Britain, services are scuppered by "leaves on the line".

Villain

Strasbourg, which is imposing very un-festive requirements on its 500-year-old Christmas market. The city's Green-run council has decreed that crucifixes must be made in Europe and can only be sold as "JC crosses". Champagne is also banned, in favour of local sparkling wine, as are popcorn, umbrellas, ponchos, and Christmas costumes for pets.

Hero

The Economist – if you're a party animal. The magazine has come out in favour of legalising cocaine to break the grip of the criminal gangs which produce the drug in Latin America. Legalisation helps users too, it argues: regulated cocaine would contain fewer dangerous additives, and money saved from scrapping the war on drugs could be used for treating addiction.

Property

THE PENTHOUSE This two-bedroom flat sits in a converted Victorian school in the heart of Stepney Green, east London. It has exposed brick walls, soaring double-height ceilings, and original mullion windows which let swathes of natural light pour in. Doors lead out to a large private terrace offering uninterrupted views of the city skyline. Whitechapel station is a 10-minute walk away, with Elizabeth line trains running into central London. £975,000.

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Inside politics

The Bank of England, Threadneedle Street. Getty

Don't just blame the Chancellor

I wonder how future historians will remember the "fiasco of 2022", says Iain Martin in The Times. Perhaps as "the year of the four chancellors". It may turn out to be the "the year of three prime ministers too". One person who doesn't seem to be on the chopping block is Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England. Any chancellor who tried to sack Bailey would be "eviscerated" by investors, who see him as the last line of defence against any more "Westminster craziness".

This is ridiculous. The seriousness of this crisis is down, in part, to "poor decision-making on Threadneedle Street". Bailey was too slow to act on inflation, and his interest rate rises, when they finally came, were too small. Instead of giving UK pension funds the unambiguous message that "the era of cheap money was over", Bailey's half measures hinted that the adjustment would be gradual. He also failed to notice an obscure but now-infamous bit of financial jiggery-pokery deep in the plumbing of the pension system, called LDI (liability-driven investment). It was a malfunction in these complex derivatives – regulated by the Bank – that meant Bailey had to spend billions propping up the pension funds. Yes, it was Kwarteng who started the fire, but the Bank looked on approvingly at the LDI farce as pension managers "built a pyre and covered it in petrol".

Life

A pampered poodle having its hair dried. Getty

The hottest hangout for hounds

Pooch pampering is getting more and more excessive, says The Daily Telegraph. Pups belonging to globe-trotting billionaires can undergo a £5,000 "private jet training course" run by The Dog House, where they're placed in the back of a rapidly moving Jeep while being blasted with gas fumes and an audio track of jet engines. For wellness-inclined dogs, there are yoga, sound healing and meditation classes: Le Wag's dog-plus-owner sessions in Fulham, west London are ideal "because they soothe animal and human anxiety at the same time". And the hottest hangout for hounds is Chelsea's Love My Human, where pets are served beef Wellington before popping upstairs for some acupuncture or a Thai "dogassage".

Tomorrow's world

Driverless cars are a big fat lie, says Max Chafkin in Bloomberg. After $100bn and nearly 20 years of bluster, the long list of obstacles robot-cars can't handle still includes construction work, animals and traffic cones, not to mention turning left across oncoming traffic. Mistakes are so common there's an "entire social media genre" featuring self-driving cars getting confused. In one, a Waymo vehicle is so "flummoxed" by a bollard that it drives away from the engineer who comes to rescue it. In another, "an entire fleet of modified Chevrolet Bolts" stop simultaneously, wholly blocking a busy intersection. In a third, a Tesla drives, at very slow speed, straight into a private jet. Experts now say that autonomous cars have one or two promising uses – things like trucks lugging ore out of mines, and big lorries staying in lane on long motorway trips. But for anything else we'll have to wait decades. Perhaps, "an eternity".

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