Day: October 14, 2022

For 50 years, Maung Maung has been a horse-and-buggy driver in the ancient city of Bagan, ferrying tourists around to its soaring spires and iconic Buddhist pagodas and temples. 

But tourists have dwindled to a trickle, thanks to the combination of the Covid-19 pandemic that reached Myanmar in March 2020 and military coup the next February.

“Recently, a few tourists came back but not as many as before,” said Maung Maung, who’s 70. “Now there are very few. Some days, I don’t make a single dime (what word did he use?). Others, I make only a little money.”

Making matters worse, rising inflation has eroded his spending power. 

When business was good, he typically made 20,000-30,000 kyats (U.S. $6-10) a day, but that’s dropped sharply. He said he charges 1,300 kyats (about U.S. $0.40) per hour for pleasure rides around Bagan and dedicated prices to specific temples pilgrims want to visit.

Since the junta took power, a year-and-a-half ago, Myanmar’s economy has tumbled. Last year, its GDP contracted by 18 percent, and the International Monetary Fund estimates that 1.6 million jobs were lost in 2022, or around 7% of the workforce. 

Economic growth estimates for 2022, including the World Bank’s forecast of 3% growth, seem overly optimistic now that about 40 percent of the population is living under the poverty line.

Soaring Inflation, Plunging Currency

Inflation was 14 percent in mid-2022 and accelerated to more than 18 percent by mid-September, with rice prices up 35-50% and gas prices spiking amid shortages. That‘s impacted all kinds of businesses, as many rely on generators due to frequent electricity shortages. 

Myanmar’s currency, the kyat, lost 60 percent of its value against the dollar in 2022. The kyat briefly traded at a record low, below 4,000 kyat to the U.S. dollar, while the official conversion rate is 2,100.

The son of farmers, Maung Maung’s father bought him a buggy when he was just 20 years old. He told RFA Burmese that the vehicle had provided him with a steady stream of income for many years behind a mare named Mi Chaw.

Bagan, in Myanmar’s central Mandalay region, has long been a cultural capital and a major tourist hub that’s home to the remains of more than 2,200 Buddhist temples and pagodas, mostly dating from between the 11th and 13th centuries. The former capital of the Bagan kingdom that would unify the regions that collectively became known as Myanmar, the city was officially recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2019. 

Despite dwindling income and few visitors, Maung Maung continues running his business because driving horse-drawn buggies is what he knows, and is one of the few jobs he can do at his age.

When he was younger, Maung Maung would farm during the tourism off-season, but he no longer has the strength for agricultural labor.

Kyi Kyi Swe, Maung Maung’s daughter, told RFA that he cares deeply about the horses he has bred and taken care of their whole lives, and would never think of abandoning them.

“Before, he asked his son to drive the buggy while he worked on the farms,” she said. “As he has grown old, he can’t do farm work and is back in buggy driving.”

“He takes good care of [Mi Chaw]. He doesn’t want to see her lean. He feeds her all the time. Even at night, he gets up to feed her,” she said. “The horse also knows him well. She whinnies for more food at night. My dad leaves home around 5:30 a.m. every morning to drive to the buggy station and wait for his turn to drive.”

Dwindling tradition

Other buggy drivers in Bagan told RFA that the city council has granted licenses to around 300 people to operate horse-drawn carts, but only around 100 of them are actively working due to the decrease in tourism.

One driver, named Soe Tint, said horse drawn buggies are as much a symbol of Bagan as the landscape and temples, and are often seen together in promotional material for tourists.

But even prior to the pandemic and the coup, the number of buggies in Bagan had declined as they were replaced with modern vehicles.

“I want to sell my horse since I have farm work. I paid around 1,500,000 kyats for them, but now they are worth only 700,000-800,000 kyats. I would even sell them for 600,000 kyats only, he said.

“If things get better and the visitors return, the buggy business would grow again. Touring Bagan is most enjoyable by horse-drawn buggy. But they won’t come back if the good times don’t return.”

Maung Maung acknowledged that if business conditions don’t improve, he will have to give up his business and depend on his family.

“My business is so bad that I have been struggling to make ends meet. I just want to make enough for food and other necessities, like rice, cooking oil or salt,” he said.

“If I get just a few more visitors [than average], I can make just enough to cover necessities. If I don’t have any, I have to buy them on credit. If the business doesn’t improve, I will have to sell my horses and live on my children’s income.”

Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Ten students drowned and another remains missing after a boat ferrying them home from school sank Thursday in the Khouk River in Cambodia’s southern Kandal province, sources in the country told RFA.

The Kandal police confirmed Friday that authorities rescued four students from the Khouk, a tributary of the Mekong River, and are still searching for the missing student. They found the bodies of the other 10 students who drowned and estimated that they were all about 10 years old.

Kandal Provincial Police Commissioner Chhoeun Socheat told RFA’s Khmer Service that the boat was very small and that it sank at around 7 p.m. on October 13. According to preliminary conclusions, the boat likely sank due to overcrowding, he said.

Prime Minister Hun Sen expressed his condolences over the incident on Facebook, but stopped short of calling for an investigation.

“The relevant authorities must continue to search for the victims and help with the victims’ funerals and offer services needed,” he said.  “To those who live along the rivers, please be vigilant, especially during flooding.”

Cambodia is in the final weeks of its rainy season, which lasts from May to October.

Kandal Provincial Governor Kong Sophoan told RFA that as of Friday night, the missing victim has not yet been found. He blamed the boat operators for their carelessness and said the boat was very old.

“The boat operators lack experience, he said. “Authorities are investigating the incident.”

Though authorities must ensure a boat is in good condition in order for owners to legally operate it, he acknowledged that loopholes exist.

The 10 students were kind, smart and diligent, and were working hard to learn both in Khmer and English, Rong Chhun, the former president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association and president of the Cambodian Trade Union Confederation, told RFA. 

“Those were active children who really paid attention to their studies. They had to cross the river from their houses to study on the other side,” he said. “They were dedicated hard-working kids. I am deeply saddened.”

UNICEF wrote a message of condolence on Facebook that also called on the public to refrain from sharing pictures and video of the incident on social media because it could cause distress for friends and family.

Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Canada has deported 242 North Korean escapees since 2018, and is in the process of sending home 512 more, after finding that many had gained South Korean citizenship before coming to Canada, RFA has learned from two Canadian government agencies.

Most of the deportees are sent back to South Korea, where they initially landed after escaping from the North – usually a harrowing journey through China where they must avoid capture and forced repatriation. And because Seoul claims sovereignty over the entire Korean peninsula, escapees are granted citizenship upon arrival.

But some then go on to Canada, after having a hard time adjusting to life in the South – and that’s where the problem arises in obtaining refugee status. 

Typically, to be granted refugee status, an asylum seeker must present evidence of being persecuted in their home country. But because the North Korean escapees found refuge in the South, and were granted citizenship there, they could be excluded from refugee protection, the government agency that provides protection to refugees, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), told RFA.

Essentially, if the asylum-seekers had gone directly to Canada, they would have a better chance of gaining refugee status and be allowed to stay in the country.

The IRCC said that while there may still be instances in which a North Korean requires protection, many asylum petitions have been turned down due to applicants’ South Korean citizenship. 

The statistics on deported North Korean escapees were compiled by the Canada Border Services Agency, which is responsible for border control, immigration enforcement and customs services. 

“The Canada Border Services Agency places the highest priority on removal cases involving national security, organized crime, crimes against humanity, and criminals – regardless of country of origin,” the agency told RFA’s Korean Service.

“Removals of failed refugees and individuals with other immigration violations are also necessary to maintain the integrity of Canada’s immigration system,” it said.

Difficult Adjustment

More than 33,000 North Koreans have found their way to the South and resettled over the years, most of them having arrived after the 1994-1998 North Korean famine that killed as many as 2 million people by some estimates,  and pushed the country to the brink of collapse.

They risked their lives to escape, usually traveled more than 3,000 miles through China, avoiding capture and forced repatriation, dealing with shady brokers and traffickers and navigated through several southeast Asian countries, in the hope of one day boarding a plane headed for Incheon International Airport which serves Seoul. 

The South welcomes such escapees. They are sent to government-funded orientation programs and given startup money and a living stipend as they settle into their new lives. 

But for many escapees, the South is not the land of milk and honey they expected. 

The fast-paced life of South Korea seems too hectic, and the people speak Korean peppered with unfamiliar loan words from the English language. Job skills the escapees may have had in the North might not translate into an equivalent position in the South Korean workforce. 

And while they may physically blend in, many are made to feel that they are on the lower end of the social hierarchy in the South, due to discrimination and a resulting lack of opportunity to make their situation better.

Almost half of all North Korean refugees that settle in the South said they experienced discrimination in a 2017 poll by the South Korean government-backed National Human Rights Commission of Korea.

“Discrimination against North Korean defectors [in South Korea] is a very serious problem,” Ethan Hee-Seok Shin, a legal Analyst at the Seoul-based Transitional Justice Working Group, told RFA’s Korean Service.

Shin used the politically charged colloquial term “defector” which describes both defectors, who were part of the military or government at the time of their escape, and refugees, civilians who flee starvation or North Korea’s depressed economic situation. The term can, in some contexts carry a negative connotation. 

International Rights groups prefer to differentiate between defectors and refugees, depending on the circumstances of their escape.   

“Of course, going abroad does not mean that there is no discrimination, but there is no such thing as being branded as a defector [outside of South Korea],” he said.

Hundreds therefore made the decision to move on from South Korea to Canada, where under the Resettlement Assistance Program they can get benefits that may include a household startup allowance and monthly income support.

Hiding immigration history

Since having a Republic of Korea passport is grounds to immediately reject an asylum application, many of the North Korean asylum-seekers in Canada try to hide evidence that they ever naturalized in South Korea.

According to a Canadian federal court document published Sept. 16, a North Korean refugee surnamed Kim, her husband with the family name Shin and their children were deprived of their refugee status in 2018 for concealing their South Korean citizenship. The document said deportation proceedings were to start. 

Another refugee, surnamed Kang, was on the verge of being deported after it was discovered that he resided in South Korea in 2019.

Once the deportation order goes out, the refugees have a few options if they wish to remain in Canada.

According to a 2019 RFA report, over an 18-month period starting in January 2018, some 352 North Korean refugees in Canada lost their refugee status as the government at that time began revoking it in cases where they had lived in South Korea in 2013 or later.

The Canada Border Services Agency explained that a removal decision by an immigration officer can be subject to judicial and administrative review, during which the individuals involved in the case may seek leave to remain in the country.

Additionally, many of the refugees can apply for the Humanitarian and compassionate considerations program, said Sean Chung, the executive director of HanVoice, a Toronto-based nonprofit organization that assists North Koreans with settling in Canada.

Successful applicants to the program can obtain permanent residency in Canada if they are an exceptional case, such as when they have lived in Canada for a long period of time, or if there are special reasons that prevent someone from returning to their home country, he told RFA.

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

China’s rollout of thousands of 5G base stations throughout its far-western Xinjiang region has raised suspicions that the technology will not be used for economic development but for enhanced digital surveillance of Uyghurs and other Muslims, experts say.

The build-out in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is part of a nationwide expansion of the fifth-generation, or 5G, technology standard for broadband cellular networks that mobile phone companies began deploying worldwide in 2019. China is rolling out 5G to further digitize its economy and society. 

With an area of 642,800 square kilometers (248,200 square miles), Xinjiang has the largest land area of all the provinces and autonomous regions in China, though most of the vast region consists of uninhabited deserts and mountains.

Xinjiang’s regional capital Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) was one of China’s first cities to adopt 5G technology in October 2019, followed by a network rollout that covered other urban areas in prefecture-level cities.

The 5G network rollout across the entire region will augment an existing pervasive digitized system that monitors the movement of residents through surveillance drones, facial recognition cameras, mobile phone scans as part of China’s efforts to control the predominantly Muslim population, experts said.

China has built more than 30,000 5G base stations in Xinjiang, adding another roughly 10,000 this year at a cost of 1.65 billion yuan (U.S. $230 million), according to an Oct. 10 report by state-run Tianshan Net-Xinjiang Daily, the official news website of Xinjiang.

There are nearly a dozen 5G base stations for every 10,000 people in the region with a total population of roughly 12 million, the report said. All prefecture-level urban areas and county urban areas, and 90.5 percent of townships and towns, now have 5G network coverage. 

“The 5G network will further deepen the coverage of counties and townships, and ‘county and county access to 5G’ will further consolidate the foundation of digital Xinjiang,” the report said.

5G applications are “injecting strong impetus into enabling the digital transformation of the manufacturing industry and promoting high-quality economic development,” the state-run report said. Xinjiang already employs technology in more than 70 5G applications, primarily in manufacturing, agriculture, medical care, education and cultural tourism.

But experts on surveillance in Xinjiang say that the new 5G infrastructure is helping authorities keep a closer eye on the Uyghur population, already subject to tight digital scrutiny for years.  

“It’s definitely an interesting development. I have to imagine it will only make surveillance that much more pervasive and efficient,” said Josh Chin, a journalist with The Wall Street Journal and co-author of Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control. 

‘See everything, know everything’

China has used digital technology to monitor and censor Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in Xinjiang, amassing huge amounts of data from cell phones, personal computers, and security cameras to impose political and social control of the Muslim groups.

For years, Chinese authorities have subjected Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang to arbitrary arrests and restrictions on their religious practice and culture. 

Geoffrey Cain, a U.S. journalist who wrote the book The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China’s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future, said the rollout of 5G base stations across the vast, sparsely populated region is “overkill.”

“It’s very extreme, and it also strikes me as very suspicious,” he told RFA.

Any technology deployed in Xinjiang will be used for surveillance, Cain said. 

“The government of China has made it clear that the purpose of technology is first to develop the region, but that’s the optimistic version,” he said. “The second reason is to control the people of the region, to control the Uyghur people, and the goal is to create a total security state. The government of Beijing wants to be able to see everything and know everything.”

This year, China introduced a fleet of 20 driverless electric patrol vehicles in Karamay (Kelemayi), an oil-rich city in the northern part of Xinjiang as a new method of surveillance. The self-driving cars are equipped with eight surveillance cameras that can rotate 360 degrees and equipped with facial recognition and tracking technology to collect data on suspicious incidents to send to the Integrated Joint Operation Platform, the main system for mass surveillance in Xinjiang.

As part of the repression, it is believed that as many as 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslims have been held in a vast network of internment camps purportedly set up to prevent “religious extremism” and “terrorism” in the region. Beijing has insisted that the camps were vocational training facilities and that they are now closed.

“One of the reasons the government is closing camps and releasing the Uyghurs people is because they’ve turned the whole region into one concentration camp,” Cain said. “They have the tools they need to monitor everyone to control them, and they don’t need to spend all this money on camps to make it happen.” 

The predominantly Muslim groups have also been subjected to torture, forced sterilizations and forced labor, as well as the eradication of their linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, in what the United States and several Western parliaments have called genocide and crimes against humanity. 

A report issued by the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in late August documented widespread human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including torture, arbitrary arrests, forced abortions, and violations of religious freedom, and said the repression there “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”

“This is a very extreme form of surveillance because a data network is the easiest way to spy on people,” Cain said. “More than any other technology that we have for the population, installing a data network all over the region will guarantee that everybody is constantly being monitored.”

“Their data is on the network,” he said. “They cannot escape the network no matter where they go.” 

Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

A protester who hung two protest banners–one of which called for the removal of Chinese leader Xi Jinping — on a Beijing overpass on the eve of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s 20th National Congress is being hailed as a hero on social media, as authorities blocked two rock songs being used overseas to sing his praises.

The protester, seen in a video being  loaded into a police car Thursday, has been named as Peng Lifa, who used the handle Peng Zaizhou on social media, in a reference to an ancient essay describing the people as the water that holds up the boat of government, and might overturn it if they are unhappy with its rule.

While RFA has been unable to confirm the identity of the protester independently, content posted earlier to Peng’s social media accounts was consistent with the tone of his banners, which were displayed from the Sitong flyover on Beijing’s Third Ring Road on Thursday.

“Remove the traitor-dictator Xi Jinping!” read one banner, video and photos of which were quickly posted to social media, only to be deleted. A post linked from the account called for strikes and class boycotts to remove Xi.

“Food, not PCR tests. Freedom, not lockdowns. Reforms, not the Cultural Revolution. Elections not leaders,” read the second, adding: “Dignity, not lies. Citizens, not slaves.”

Peng’s whereabouts remained unclear, and keywords and accounts linked to the protest were rapidly deleted from China’s tightly controlled social media platforms, as the ruling party’s well-oiled censorship machine swung into action.

Searches for “Haidian,” the district where the banners appeared, and “hero” were all blocked by Friday, amid reports that social media users who talked about the incident were getting their accounts shut down.

Government filters were also blocking access to a rock ballad by Hong Kong pop star Eason Chan titled “Warrior of the Darkness,” the theme to animated series Arcane: League of Legends, which includes the lyric “I love that you walk the dark alleys, love that you don’t kneel to anyone, love that you look despair in the face but never cry.”

Traces of a song released a few years ago titled Sitong Bridge by Mr. Graceless were also rapidly removed from China’s tightly controlled internet. The Baidu search engine page for the song carried only the message: “Oops. The page you were visiting does not exist” when accessed on Friday.

Deleted and blocked

WeChat users in mainland China said the platform was abuzz after the protest, but that many comments and posts on the topic were being deleted, and their senders blocked from group chats.

Comments seen by RFA on the Peng Zaizhou accounts read: “You are a hero. I respect you,” and “I hope you get home safe!”

The Peng Zaizhou Twitter account on Thursday commented on a tweet from the U.S.-based China Digital Times, before the banners appeared: “We are all on the same path. We are about to take action. I hope you can retweet this.”

“Tell dictator Xi Jinping that there are still some men left in China who walk the path to freedom,” the comment said.

The Twitter account was still visible on Friday, but content relating to the banner had been taken down.

Prominent 1989 student protest leader Wang Dan said the protester was “the new Tank Man,” in a reference to the lone shopper who faced down a column of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) tanks during the military crackdown on weeks of mass protests in Tiananmen Square.

The fact that Xi will be re-elected for another term has made countless people feel desperate, he said in a comment on his Facebook page.

“Only underneath that despair will there be resistance,” Wang wrote. “This isn’t the first time someone has come forward, and it won’t be the last … Xi Jinping’s rebellious actions are sure to spark more political agitation.”

An officer who answered the phone at the Dazhongsi police station, in the vicinity of the Sitong flyover, and an officer who answered the phone at the Haidian district police department both declined to comment when contacted by RFA on Friday, saying they didn’t know about the situation.

Calls to the cell phone of a 2021 scientific journal article author using the name Peng Zaizhou rang unanswered on Friday.

‘I saw it’

A Chinese social media user who gave only the pseudonym Hu said posts and photos linked to the flyover protest were being blocked very fast on WeChat.

“I didn’t know the entire story of what happened … but I couldn’t enquire too closely in the WeChat group, and nobody dared to explain it to me in detail,” Hu told RFA.

“The moment anyone mentions the specifics, the entire group and account get blocked by WeChat. We will find out about it through external channels,” Hu said, in a reference to circumventing the Great Firewall to read uncensored news on overseas sites.

Hu said Peng’s banner had expressed what many in China are thinking, but have no way to express under widespread censorship and intimidation.

Another social media user who gave the pseudonym Tang said people refer to the incident by saying simply: “I saw it.”

Tang said he didn’t think the protest was carried out by a lone activist.

“The person who hung the banner posted a link to a website,” he said. “Everything he did was within the scope of the constitution of the People’s Republic of China.”

“He asked for the recall of the CCP general secretary [Xi Jinping] and also put forward his own views on how to elect [a new leader,” Tang said.

“This is all legal and in accordance with the party constitution, so I think he is someone within the [party or government],” he said.

‘Bridge-watchers’ wanted

The protest sparked an instant tightening of security from authorities in Beijing, with dozens of police officers going door-to-door in nearby buildings to check IDs.

The Beijing city government dispatched militia personnel to direct traffic and guard all overpasses and pedestrian bridges round the clock to prevent any similar incidents.

District governments across the city posted recruitment ads seeking “bridge-watchers” — fully vaccinated males aged 18-55, taller than 1.68 meters — to guard potential protest sites round the clock for 320 yuan a day over 15 days, more than the duration of the party congress.

Political commentator Si Ling said government censors are now able to filter people’s messages in real time.

“We know that the Chinese government has developed a powerful keyword filtering system, and that sensitive words [like Sitong bridge or 20th National Congress] are deleted in seconds,” Si told RFA.

“At least some people are now a bit more awake than they were before.”

In Hong Kong, where no Great Firewall yet limits what internet users can do or see online, the city’s mainstream media didn’t report on the protest.

A full report from pro-democracy site HK01.com was taken down a few hours after being posted.

“This is similar to mainland China when it comes to news about [the Tiananmen massacre of] June 4 [1989],” independent journalist Lam Yin-bong told RFA.

“Nobody talks about it, nobody mentions it, and nobody writes about it,” he said. “They just act like it never happened, and gradually, it starts to feel like it never happened.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

It could take five years for manufacturing facilities subsidized under the Biden administration’s $280 billion CHIPS Act to come online, with tens of thousands of new specialist engineers needed before the U.S. domestic semiconductor industry catches up with Asia, experts and officials say.

The CHIPS Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law on Aug. 9, aims to coax American computer chip producers like Intel, Micron and AMD into moving more production back to the U.S., as concerns grow about the national security risks of relying on China to supply the goods.

It earmarks $52.7 billion in subsidies for companies to carry out research and manufacture the chips domestically. Beijing has said it is “firmly opposed” to the legislation, which it said reflects a “Cold War mentality.”

Yet even with the new subsidies, “it will be years before these manufacturing facilities go fully online,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said at a Washington Post virtual event about the CHIPS Act on Thursday. 

“It will take three to five years to even build these out — in some cases even longer,” said Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee and whose state is home to key chipmakers. But he said the subsidies were needed to help shore-up America’s production capabilities.

“If we hadn’t done this legislation, if this was not the law of the land, the one thing I could say unequivocally: None of these facilities would be in America, because it is cheaper to build in Asia,” he said.

The global share of chips manufactured in the U.S. has fallen to just 12% today, from 37% in 1990, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. The bulk is now produced in Asia, with lawmakers like Warner expressing concerns about the potential impacts on the U.S. military and broader economy if supply was cut.

Engineer shortage

But the efforts to revive U.S. chipmaking capabilities are not meant to decouple American and Chinese industries, experts say.

“Self-sufficiency in semiconductors isn’t viable for any country, including the U.S. and China,” said Scott Kennedy, an expert in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“I don’t think that’s the purpose of the U.S. government’s efforts,” he told RFA. “Instead, it is looking to reduce its over-dependence on overseas production and other parts of the supply chain. That means some modification of global supply chains, but not an elimination.”

Carol Handwerker, a professor of materials engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, who teaches students that go on to work in the industry, said the CHIPS Act was about ensuring the United States builds back the capability to produce world-class chips.

Part of that, she told RFA, would come down to training more engineers.

“We don’t have enough people going through our programs right now to meet the needs,” Handwerker said. “The estimate is about 80,000 new engineers in five years. That’s a lot of people in a short period of time.”

Even within firms, she noted, training workers could be an arduous and yearslong task, with orders for manufacturing equipment themselves taking more than two years to even arrive. To circumvent the wait, firms are sending workers to Taiwan “to train them so that when the facility here is in operation, they’ll be able to operate the equipment.” 

Gap in knowledge

But Handwerker said the industry’s “top schools” — the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California-Berkeley, Stanford and Purdue — also likely need to do more to train the labor force. 

“I’m from Purdue, and we’re training engineers at the undergraduate, master’s and PhD level, and I think we’re providing an excellent education,” she said. “What we’re hearing, though, is that even for all of us at the top tier, when companies are putting out job descriptions, there’s a gap between what the students know and what the companies need.”

To help keep talent in America the Biden administration on Oct. 7 also unveiled export controls that ban U.S. citizens and permanent residents from supporting the “development or production” of chips in China.

Chinese firms have said the restrictions will introduce instability, and the China Semiconductor Industry Association slammed the United States for “abruptly disturbing international trade in such an arbitrary way.”

“Not only will such unilateral measures further harm the global supply chains of the semiconductor industry, more importantly it will create an atmosphere of uncertainty,” the trade association said on Oct. 7.

The rules are expected to affect hundreds of Chinese Americans, according to Nikkei Asia, including executives of some of China’s biggest chipmakers, many of whom worked for decades in the United States before returning to China under its “Thousand Talents” program.

But bringing more outsiders into the industry over coming years will also be needed to fill the tens of thousands of estimated job vacancies.

Speaking at the same event as Warner on Thursday, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, noted that the bipartisan push to revive the U.S. chip industry could face limits due to its extensive labor requirements amid what he described as “peak private sector employment” levels.

“Fortunately, for the state of Indiana, our population is growing,” Holcomb said. “We’re going deep into the bench, into the ‘farm team’ if you will, into high schools, and actually building programs, pathways and pipelines.”

The chipmaking industry’s ability to attract top high school and college talent could make or break the successes of the CHIPS Act, he said.

“We have to have world-class research and development. Universities like Purdue and Notre Dame and Indiana University, and our community colleges — all these pieces snap together to form talent pipelines that will be necessary on Day One, which was yesterday,” Holcomb said.

“We have slipped, we have fallen behind, and we have a lot of ground to make up. This has to do equally with our national security and with our economic security. They go hand-in-glove.”