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| In the weeks before the House and the Senate ended 13 months of arguments and passed the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act, China’s main, state-supported chip maker cleared a major technological hurdle that delivered a bit of a shock to the world. |
| 就在参众两院结束13个月的辩论、通过2800亿美元的《CHIPS与科学法案》几周前，中国主要的由政府支持的芯片制造商刚刚实现了一个重大技术突破，让世界吃了一惊。 |
| Experts are still assessing how China apparently leapfrogged ahead in its effort to manufacture a semiconductor whose circuits are of such tiny dimensions — about 10,000 times thinner than a human hair — that they rival those made in Taiwan, which supplies both China and the West. The Biden administration has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep the highly specialized equipment to make those chips out of Chinese hands, because progress in chip manufacturing is now scrutinized as a way to define national power — much the same way nuclear tests or precision-guided missiles were during a previous cold war. |
| 专家仍在评估中国是如何在半导体生产上实现这一显然十分惊人的跃进的，该国一直在试图生产出具备极其微小的电路——约为人类毛发直径的10000分之一——的半导体，可以与向中国和西方供货的台湾出品相媲美。拜登政府采取了许多特殊措施确保中国无法获取生产此类芯片所需的特种设备，因为芯片生产中的进步如今已经作为一种衡量国力的方式，受到密切的审视——和上一次冷战中核试验或精确制导导弹的待遇差不多。 |
| No one yet knows whether China can exploit the breakthrough on a large scale; that may take years. But one lesson seemed clear: While Congress debated and amended and argued over whether and how to support American chip makers and a broad range of research in other technologies — from advanced batteries to robotics and quantum computing — China was surging ahead, betting it would take Washington years to get its act together. |
| 没人知道中国是否能将这一突破应用于大规模生产上，可能仍需要数年时间。但有一个教训是显然的：国会在辩论、修订和争吵，决定要不要支持美国芯片制造商以及在更大范围内的其他技术研究——从先进的电池到机器人到量子计算——与此同时中国正快速向前，他们赌的是华盛顿得再用上几年才能把事情办成。 |
| “Our Congress is working at political speed,” said Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive who went on to lead the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, which warned last year of the huge dangers of falling far behind in a “foundational” technology like advanced semiconductor manufacturing in a world of vulnerable supply chains. “The Chinese government is working at commercial speed.” |
| “我们的国会是用政治速度工作，”前谷歌首席执行官、现任人工智能国家安全委员会主席的埃里克·施密特说，他在去年曾警告说，在一个脆弱供应链的世界里，如果在先进半导体生产等“基础”技术上大幅落后，会面临巨大的危险。“中国政府是用商业速度工作。” |
| In China, the drive to catch up and manufacture the most advanced chips is part of the “Made in China 2025” program. That effort began in 2015. While few in Congress want to concede the point, the technologies that the United States will be funding when President Biden signs the bill, as he promised to do on Thursday, largely replicate the Chinese list. |
| 在中国，弥补差距、生产出最先进的芯片的努力属于“中国制造2025”计划的一部分。该行动始于2015年。国会很少有人会承认这一点，但等到拜登总统如他承诺的那样在周四签署法案后，美国将开始出资支持的技术，很大程度上复制了中国的清单。 |
| It is classic industrial policy, though leaders in both parties are avoiding the term. The words convey a sense of state-controlled planning that is antithetical to most Republicans and showers direct support and tax credits on some of America’s largest companies, which makes some Democrats shake with anger. |
| 这是经典的产业政策，然而两党领导人都不愿意提及这个词。它代表着一种政府控制的规划，有违多数共和党人的立场，并且将向美国数一数二的一些大公司直接提供资金支持和税收优惠，这是会让一些民主党人气得发抖的。 |
| But 2025 isn’t very far away, meaning the money will just get flowing while Chinese and other competitors move on to their next set of goals. Meanwhile, the American semiconductor industry has withered, to the point where none of the most advanced chips are made in the United States, even though the fundamental technology was born here and gave Silicon Valley its name. |
| 然而离2025已经没多久了，这意味着等钱开始流动时，中国和其它竞争对手已经在着手下一组目标。与此同时，美国半导体产业凋敝已久，最先进的芯片全都不是在美国生产的，尽管其基础技术是在这里诞生，也是“硅谷”这个名字的由来。 |
| None of this means American competitiveness is doomed. Just as Japan once seemed as if it was the 10-foot-tall technological giant in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but then missed some of the biggest breakthroughs in mobile computing and Windows operating systems and even chip-making, China is discovering that money alone does not guarantee technological dominance. But it helps. |
| 这些都不等于美国的竞争力已经完了。1980年代末、90年代初的日本俨然是技术领域的十尺巨人，但此后错失了移动计算、Windows操作系统甚至芯片生产的几个重大突破，同理，中国也发现光是有钱并不能保证得到技术优势。但钱是有帮助的。 |
| It has taken Congress far longer to come to the same conclusion. Still, China has turned out to be one of the few issues on which Republicans and Democrats can come together — the bill passed the House 243 to 187, with one abstention, on Thursday. Twenty-four Republicans voted in favor, notable because G.O.P. leaders were urging their members to oppose the bill after the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, and Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia announced a surprise deal on climate, energy and taxes on Wednesday. |
| 国会花了更长的时间才得出同样的结论。尽管如此，中国已成为几个两党可以走在一起的少数几个问题之一——周四，该法案在众议院以243票同意、187票反对、一票弃权获得通过。24名共和党人投了赞成票，这值得注意，因为在参议院多数党领袖、纽约州参议员查克·舒默和西弗吉尼亚州参议员乔·曼钦三世出人意料地于周三宣布了一项有关气候、能源和税收的交易后，共和党领导人敦促其成员反对该法案。 |
| China immediately denounced the bill as an isolationist move by Americans intent on freeing themselves from dependence on foreign technology — a strategy called “decoupling” that China itself is trying to replicate. |
| 中国立即谴责该法案是美国人试图摆脱对外国技术依赖的孤立主义举动——中国自己也在试图复制这种被称为“脱钩”的战略。 |
| The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, told reporters in Beijing that “no restriction or suppression will hold back” Chinese progress, a clear reference to the American and European efforts to deny China the technology that would speed its technological independence. |
| 中国外交部发言人赵立坚在北京告诉记者，“任何限制打压都阻挡不了”中国的进步，这明显指的是美国和欧洲试图阻止中国获得加速其技术独立的技术。 |
| But the big question is whether Congress’s slowness to wake up to America’s competitive shortcomings has doomed the effort. While Mr. Biden and lawmakers tried to build support for the bill by describing the chips found in everything from refrigerators to thermostats to cars as the “oil” of the 21st century, the phrase was already hackneyed three decades ago. |
| 但最大的问题是，国会未能及时认识到美国的竞争缺陷。这一点是否意味着其努力的注定失败。尽管拜登和议员们将冰箱、恒温器和汽车等各种产品中的芯片描述为21世纪的“石油”，以求为该法案赢得支持，但这句话在30年前就已经过时了。 |
| In the late 1980s, Andrew S. Grove, one of the pioneers of Silicon Valley and an early leader of Intel Corporation, warned of the danger of the United States becoming a “techno-colony” of Japan. |
| 在1980年代末，硅谷先驱之一、英特尔公司的早期领导人安德鲁·格鲁夫警告，美国有可能成为日本的“技术殖民地”。 |
| The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company produces roughly 90 percent of the most advanced semiconductors. It sells them to both China and the United States. |
| 台湾半导体制造公司生产大约90%的最先进半导体，同时出售给中国和美国。 |
| And while Taiwan Semiconductor and Samsung are building new manufacturing facilities in the United States, responding to political pressure to address American supply-chain worries, the net result will be that only a single-digit percentage of its production will be on American soil. |
| 尽管台积电和三星出于政治压力都已经在美国新建生产设施，以解决美国对供应链的担忧，但最终结果将是，它们在美国本土生产的产品不到10%。 |
| “Our dependence on Taiwan for the sophisticated chips is untenable and unsafe,” the commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, noted last week at the Aspen Security Forum. With demand for more sophisticated chips growing — every new generation of cars requires more and more semiconductors — “we don’t have enough domestic supply.” |
| “我们对台湾先进芯片的依赖是脆弱的，也是不安全的，”商务部长吉娜·雷蒙多上周在阿斯彭安全论坛上指出。随着对更复杂芯片的需求不断增长——每一代新汽车都需要越来越多的半导体——“我们的国内供应不足”。 |
| The bill’s $52 billion in federal subsidies, she argued, would be bolstered by private money and turn into “hundreds of billions” in investments. She was essentially using the argument that the federal government has long used to justify incentives to defense contractors. Politicians knew that underwriting risky new spy satellite technology, or stealthy drones, was an easier sell in Congress if described as critical defense spending instead of industrial policy. |
| 她指出，该法案中520亿美元的联邦补贴将得到私人资金的巩固，转化为“数千亿”的投资。她本质上是在使用联邦政府长期以来为激励国防承包商的政策辩护的论点。政界人士知道，把有风险的新间谍卫星技术或隐形无人机描述为关键的国防开支而不是工业政策，会更容易说服国会议员。 |
| But now the logic is turned on its head. What the defense contractors need is the most advanced commercial chips — not only for F-35s, but for artificial intelligence systems that one day may change the nature of the battlefield. The old distinctions between military and commercial technology have largely eroded. That is why, to get the bill through, the administration even brought Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III into the pressure campaign, arguing that he couldn’t rely on foreign suppliers for the weapons of the future. |
| 但现在，逻辑完全颠倒了。国防承包商需要的是最先进的商业芯片——不仅用于F-35战斗机，还用于有朝一日可能改变战场性质的人工智能系统。过去军事技术和商业技术之间的区别已经在很大程度上消失了。正因如此，为了让该法案获得通过，政府甚至让国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀三世加入施压行动，他声称自己不能依赖外国供应商提供未来的武器。 |
| The bill’s authors say that while they are late to the task of rebuilding the industry, starting today is better than continuing to watch the American lead erode. Senator Todd Young of Indiana said that while China’s recent advance was “sobering,” he didn’t think there was “anyone that can out-innovate the United States of America if we mobilize our many resources.” |
| 该法案的起草者声称，虽然重整行业的行动已经迟人一步，但立刻开始总好于眼睁睁看美国的领先地位被蚕食。印第安纳州参议员托德·杨说，虽然中国近来的进步值得“警醒”，但他认为，“如果把我们的大量资源调动起来，无人能在创新能力上超越美利坚合众国。” |
| America’s other advantage is “our relationships, economic and geopolitical, with other countries,” Mr. Young said. “China has no friends; they have vassal states.” |
| 美国的另一优势在于“我们与其他国家的经济和地缘政治关系”，杨说。“中国没有朋友；他们只有附属国。” |
| Innovation has been an American strong suit; the microprocessor was invented here. But time and again, the American vulnerability is in manufacturing. And China isn’t the only competitor. To extract cash out of Congress, Intel and others noted that Germany and other allies were trying to lure it to build “fabs” — the airtight, spotless manufacturing centers for chips — on their own territory. |
| 创新一直是美国的强项；微处理器就是于此诞生。但一个个案例证明，美国的弱点在于制造。中国并不是唯一的竞争者。为了从国会牟利，英特尔和其他企业指出，德国等盟友正试图劝诱它们在其国内建造“加工厂”，也就是密闭、无尘的芯片制造中心。 |
| But in the end it was China that drove the votes. |
| 但最终推动表决通过的还是中国。 |
| One of the first assessments of the new Chinese chip, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, came from researchers at a firm called TechInsights. |
| TechInsights的研究人员对中芯国际制造的芯片做出的评估是业内对中国新型芯片的首批评估之一。 |
| After reverse-engineering the Chinese-made chip, they concluded that it used circuitry that was only seven nanometers wide. As recently as 2020, Chinese manufacturers had struggled to get below 40 nanometers. |
| 在对这款中国制造的芯片进行逆向分析后，他们得出结论称，该芯片使用的电路仅有7纳米宽。就在2020年，中国制造商还难以将这一数值降到40纳米以下。 |
| Experts say the chip, made for mining cryptocurrency, may have been based on, or stolen from, Taiwan Semiconductor. For now, Taiwan Semiconductor remains the most important single manufacturer in the world, and its sprawling facilities near Taipei may be the island’s greatest protection against invasion. China can’t afford to risk its destruction. And the United States can’t afford for it to be destroyed. |
| 专家表示，这种用于挖掘加密货币的芯片可能是以台积电芯片为模版，或是直接窃取了台积电的技术。目前，台积电仍是全球最重要的芯片制造商，其在台北附近的庞大工厂可能是这一岛屿抵御入侵的最大保障。中国不能冒上将其毁灭的风险。而美国也不能承担其被摧毁的代价。 |
| But that delicate balance won’t last forever. So China has both a commercial and a geopolitical motive to make the world’s fastest chips, and the United States has a competitive motive to keep Beijing from getting the technology to do so. It is the ultimate 21st-century arms race. |
| 但这种微妙的平衡不会永远持续下去。因此，中国有商业上也有地缘政治上的动机，要制造出速度最快的芯片，而美国则有竞争上的动机，去阻止中国获得技术达成这一目的。这就是21世纪的终极军备竞赛。 |
| In the old Cold War, the one against the Soviet Union a generation ago, “the government could afford to sit on the sidelines” and hope private industry would invest, Mr. Schumer said on Wednesday. Now, he said, “we can’t afford to sit on the sidelines.” |
| 舒默周三表示，此前的“冷战”——也就是上一代人与苏联的冷战中，“政府可以袖手旁观，”以盼私营部门进行投资。但这一次，“我们不能坐视不理了，”他说。 |
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