The iPhone's desire to install a "Chinese core" has attracted backlash experts to criticize it as a "betrayal of the United States":

Washington — Critics say Apple's subscription partnership plan with Chinese chipmaker Yangtze Memory Technologies will disrupt the chip market and increase sales of electronic devices such as iPhones, even as the U.S. government imposes a series of tougher investment and technology export controls on China. The security concern is a "betrayal of the United States".The passage and signing of the "Chip and Science Act", which aims to revitalize the research and development and manufacturing of semiconductor chips in the United States, is expected to encourage more semiconductor companies to build factories in the United States. President Biden signed the bill on the same day Micron announced plans to invest $40 billion over a decade to build a "leading memory manufacturing operation" in the U.S. in multiple phases, expected to create as many as 40,000 memory chips. new job opportunities.

But semiconductor companies like Micron's memory chip business will face challenges from China's Yangtze River Storage. The analysis pointed out that Apple has played a role in enhancing the status of Chinese companies.South Korean media BusinessKorea reported this month that Apple has added China's Yangtze Memory to its list of NAND flash memory suppliers for the iPhone 14. As early as March this year, the cooperation between the two may have been seen in the media. Technology news site LightReading reported at the time that a Credit Suisse Group report disclosed that Apple was evaluating the use of YMTC's chip products for iPhone manufacturing.U.S. Attorney Charles Flint, former chief of staff to Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), a Republican, described Apple's move as a "betrayal" "(betrayal)."It undercuts what we're trying to do right now because we just passed the chip bill with $52.7 billion in funding," Flint told VOA.Flint currently heads a consulting firm focused on technology, telecommunications and geopolitics. He said: "Apple is actually funding their (China) efforts to fight the United States. I hate to describe it like that, but it is a betrayal." He said: "The competitiveness of the United States in this market is the current key strategic goals. Apple is undercutting our efforts.”

Accused of cooperating with the People's Liberation Army Yangtze River Storage may threaten the security of the supply chain:

NAND flash memory is a commonly used low-capacity storage device, and one of its characteristics is that it can save data even when the device is powered off. Apple's current supply of NAND flash memory mainly comes from South Korea's Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Japan's Kioxia.Roslyn Layton, co-founder of the website China Tech Threat and senior vice president of Strand Consult, a Danish telecommunications industry consultancy, said the function of memory chips is important, so it is necessary to safeguard the economy in the supply chain Safety."There's an economic security issue here, and we want to make sure our very sensitive high-tech suppliers, if they're not from the US, are at least from countries that are friendly to us like South Korea, the Netherlands or Japan," Leiden said."That's why we reject Huawei," she told VOA. "We don't want to use Huawei networks in the U.S. because of the backdoor channels and intrusions that the Chinese government can initiate."According to public information, YMTC was established in July 2016 by Tsinghua Unigroup, China National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, Hubei Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, and Hubei Science and Technology Investment on the basis of Wuhan Xinxin. According to statistics, the total investment of YMTC is about 160 billion yuan (23.1 billion US dollars).According to Nikkei, according to industry analysis estimates, YMTC captured nearly 5% of the global market share last year, making it the world's sixth-largest NAND flash memory maker, behind Samsung, SK Hynix, Kioxia, Western Digital and Micron. .A 2020 report by James Mulvenon, a U.S. military expert who studies Chinese military and intelligence, said the Yangtze River storage has close ties to the Chinese military. Some YMTC executives and board members also serve in the PLA's modernization efforts, the report said.

YMTC's low-price competition for Apple fell into the CCP's trap?

Experts say that it is Apple's consistent practice to provoke price wars among suppliers, but this strategy lacks the CCP's intentions, making Chinese companies that started out with unfair competition the winners in the battle.By subsidizing its low-price strategy, YMTC has weakened the market power of memory chip suppliers in democracies, Layton said."It (Apple) now buys chips from Kioxia, Western Digital, and South Korea's SK Hynix, and if it strikes a deal with YMTC, it can lower the price of memory chips," she said. Over the past 10 years, the memory market has actually been Stable. Now when YMTC comes, they can disrupt the market because they can price at a lower cost because they are subsidized by the Chinese government. So they can get to the No. 1 position illegally."Apple is doing what the Communist Party wants American companies to do. They're hooked," he said.The U.S. government has previously imposed a series of export control measures on China's chip industry, but they are mainly concentrated in the field of high-end logic chips, which are used in cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. There have been recent signs that the Biden administration is considering restricting the export of chip-making equipment to Chinese memory chip makers.LAM Research and Applied Materials are the main suppliers of chip production tools in the United States, and their export business to China may be affected.How does the U.S. government fight back?Zach Edwards, an independent cybersecurity researcher, said Apple is not currently directly violating any U.S. laws. "But it's also clear that Congress did a poor job of supporting and regulating the semiconductor industry until the $50 billion Chip Act was finally passed a few weeks ago -- This is a critical step in the right direction."

AEI senior researcher Klon Kitchen listed in an article the countermeasures the U.S. government could take against a possible partnership agreement between Apple and YMTC. He said in the article that YMTC could first be added to the U.S. Entity List, through Presidential Executive Order 13873, which restricts the importation of Apple products containing YMTC chips, or through the creation of a "foreign direct product rule" for this purpose, which would ban it entirely Apple gets chips from Yangtze Memory.

He said the actions were justified given YMTC's direct ties to the Chinese government and military, alleged violations of sanctions on Huawei's chip sales, and a series of anti-competitive business practices.Apple's partnership with YMTC has come under more scrutiny, including from members of the U.S. Congress. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a Republican, told the media a few days ago: "If it (Apple) continues like this, it will be subject to unprecedented federal scrutiny."