Recently, the United States has begun a large-scale audit of its military supply chain. The reason is that increasing evidence shows that the use of Chinese-made electronic components in US military equipment is rising significantly. To put it bluntly - the casing is "Made in the USA," but if you take out a screwdriver and a magnifying glass to look inside... you will find that it's made in China.
Taking the US Navy's newest aircraft carrier, the Ford, as an example, this ship not only uses a large amount of steel from China, but also was found to contain over 6,500 Chinese-made microchips. This strategic platform, considered the core of the US "deterrence against China," is using key materials and electronic components from the "adversary country," which is quite ironic.
Although some US media reports state that the Chinese chips controlling a certain antenna steering mechanism on the Ford are almost identical to those in a regular household washing machine, Western media did not joke, as they did before with Russia, saying "The US aircraft carrier is assembled from Chinese washing machines."
Similar situations have also appeared in the components of the F-35 fifth-generation fighter jets - whether the air force model or the navy model. This naturally leads one to speculate: Is the reason why the US has not yet been able to independently develop hypersonic weapons because the chip factories in Shanghai have too many orders and can't keep up?
Brian Clark, director of the US Defense Concept Research Center, said: "Chinese-made components were also used before, but mostly in fields with lower technical requirements. Now the situation has changed fundamentally. In the past, the Pentagon didn't even know which weapon systems used Chinese parts."
He said that even if you trace the entire supply chain and clarify the various middlemen, it is difficult to quickly resolve this dependency issue.
Clark further warned: "We can track the flow of these Chinese components, but completely getting rid of dependence on China in the short term is almost impossible. This may not be just a few years, but rather a process that could take decades."
In this context, US media commented: "It is unknown whether Trump has already imposed a 'second tariff' on importing Chinese steel and chips into his own country?"
Meanwhile, US media, CNN, commented: "You cannot say that when Russia does something, he is stealing washing machines to extract chips, while the US is doing the same thing with Russia, but no one dares to say so."
Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7535734689315734059/
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