Top Chinese chip companies are facing dire straits

Changjiang Storage (CJS), which was blacklisted by the U.S. Department of Commerce in 2022, is a leading Chinese storage-chip manufacturer that receives funding from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). CEO Chen Nanxiang stated at the 2023 SEMICON CHINA exhibition in Shanghai that the Chinese chip industry is facing unprecedented difficulties. He said, “Even purchasing components has become a problem in China, and equipment is nearly impossible to repair, as if it has turned into a kind of display of deformity.” This statement sheds light on the fact that the 1.9 billion US dollars in aid provided by Beijing earlier this year to YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technologies Corporation) did not achieve its goal of rescuing the Chinese semiconductor industry.

The CCP’s propaganda narrative has consistently avoided acknowledging the crisis and has exaggerated its own scientific research capabilities. Faced with the dire situation of the chip industry due to U.S. sanctions, there have been continuous false reports claiming that Changjiang Storage has overcome technological challenges and that U.S. technology restrictions cannot stop China’s technological progress. However, all relevant reports regarding Chen Nanxiang’s speech have been completely censored in domestic Chinese media.

 Zhejiang Cremation Data

On July 17th, China Caixin reported statistics from the Zhejiang Provincial Civil Affairs Department for the first quarter of 2023, which listed the number of cremated remains at 171,000 bodies. This figure represents a staggering 72.7% increase compared to the same period in 2022, when there were 99,000 bodies. However, both the data from the Zhejiang Civil Affairs Department’s official website and this specific report have disappeared. Furthermore, the nationwide cremation figures for the fourth quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year are still missing.

Netizens believe that the first quarter of 2023 marked the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the number of cremated remains in the fourth quarter of last year should have been at its peak. Even if the situation was similar in both quarters, this would mean that the death toll from COVID-19 in Zhejiang alone would be around 150,000, with Zhejiang’s population accounting for 4% of China’s total and without factoring in its relatively good medical conditions. Extrapolating this, the nationwide death toll from COVID-19 would be around four million. These observations also validate the analyses made by the UK health data analysis company Airfinity and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in the United States at the end of 2022, both of which predicted that the true death toll from COVID-19 in China exceeded one million.

Mystery and opacity have always been deeply ingrained cultural habits of the CCP’s rule.

           

In early July, Wu Guohua, the Deputy Commander of the Rocket Force, who was considered to be the one who would lead the offensive in a future war in the Taiwan Straits, was officially reported to have died from a sudden cerebral hemorrhage on the evening of July 6 in Beijing. However, there were rumors that Wu had actually hanged himself on the door frame that day. At the same time, China’s State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Qin Gang, was rumored to have a child through an extramarital affair, and his whereabouts remain unknown. The two spokespersons of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have repeatedly avoided answering questions from reporters about Qin Gang’s whereabouts.

In addition, Mr. Feng Yanghe, acclaimed as the “genius scientist” of the People’s Liberation Army and responsible for developing AI combat-command systems, passed away in a car accident in Beijing at the beginning of the month at the age of 38.

The Chinese government is currently facing a surge of negative rumors, and the unfolding events are so intense that it has become overwhelming to keep up with them.