The Vietnamese Communists’ Dream of Semiconductor has dissipated!
Vietnamese version: Giấc mơ bán dẫn của Cộng Sản Việt Nam thành mây khói!
In 2006, Intel, the America’s leading semiconductor company started to build the electronic hubs in Saigon for assembling, packaging, and testing chips. The initial investment of 300 million USD had increased to 1 billion. In 2010, the hubs started their operations and sold electronics products throughout Southeast Asian market while created 6,500 jobs in the area. Between 2010 and 2023, Intel sold 82 billion USD of electronic goods; and it was believed that Saigon was accounted for 60% of the electronic value of Vietnam.
Through Joe Biden’s visit in September 2023, the US signed the highest diplomatic “comprehensive strategic partnership” promising that the Vietnamese communists will replace Taiwan and China in producing semiconductor chips. Since then, the loudspeakers of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) are no longer local, but international loudspeakers with maximum power while the SRV keeps bragging itself to be the “navel of the universe” of the 21st century semiconductors. Using Intel as an apparel, the SRV continues with self-promotion as the great leader in semiconductor.
However, the SRV only shouts loudly without knowing what has been said! The reality is that the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, a developing country, is still on its path to eradicate hunger and decrease poverty. Not until October 2023 that Vietnam started to pay attention to building a FAB [Semiconductor Fabrication Plant] (1).
Despite the fleeting ideation, there has been no single company to make small and simple semiconductor chips in Vietnam. University students only know vaguely about semiconductor from textbooks, and have zero chances to practice in that field. On the other hand, the Communist Party of Vietnam did not open its eyes widely to look at its masters in Beijing with a spacecraft landed on the moon, and an atomic bomb for decades: but Beijing has to bow its head when the US banned semiconductor chip technology which forced Hoa Vi Company to go into darkness after Hoa Vi failed to secure advanced semiconductor for phone use to compete in telecommunications.
Recently, Reuter reported that Intel had cancelled a planned investment aiming at doubling the growth (2) of chips manufactured in Vietnam. Intel’s decision is a slap at the face of Vietnam communist government’s growing ambition, and at Joe Biden’s promise.
A few days later, The Diplomat Magazine reaffirmed: “Intel withdraws from its chip expansion plan in Vietnam” (Intel Backs Out of Planned Vietnam Chip Expansion) (3)
The Diplomat offered two reasons for Intel’s decision to end its investment in Vietnam:
1) First, the excessive “bureaucracy” among Vietnamese officials: The word “bureaucracy” usually means the rigid compliance with laws, rules, standards, and so on; and the passive executive procedures. Acts of bureaucracy may include the delay in processing papers, or the requirements of upper decisions … In fact, the foreign press does not know the root of problems is corruption at all levels in Vietnam. Foreign medias and newspapers need to know that “bureaucracy” in Vietnam is not simply “fresh money;” but the larger the “money under table,” the faster the “bureaucracy” disappears.
2) Second, the lack of electric supply to factories: A developing country like Vietnam does not have the full source of supply of electricity. Manufacturing companies often suffer from frequent electricity shortage which force them to temporarily suspend the productions. Despite the instability in energy capacity which results in the very instability in manufacturing; the SRV keeps lying to investors that Vietnam is “very stable.”
By cancelling its expansion in Vietnam, Intel has turned toward Europe. The company homepage announced that an initial investment of $33 billion USD or more than 33 billion Euros was planned for building a FAB, the leading semiconductor in Germany; establishing a research and development (R&D) center in France; and more expansions in the field of R&D, production, service, and support in Ireland, Italy, Poland, and Spain (4). Thus, everything is gone! and Intel, the head of the semiconductor chip has flapped its wings and flew off for Europe without coming back! There are rumors that the current Intel in Saigon would be repositioned to Malaysia.
Intel experiences and decisions to leave Vietnam must have been passed to and learned by several US businessmen and experts, especially the semiconductor companies such as Amkor, Synopsys, and Marvell…that followed Joe Biden in September 2023
Other factors being considered:
Lies and betrayals by the Communist party:
The nature of Communism since the day it was introduced and led by Ho Chi Minh until now is a never-ending lies and betrayals. From the early days, the Communist Party of Vietnam condemned and killed Mrs. Nguyễn Thị Năm (5), who had the merit of nurturing leading cadres of the Vietnam Communist Party during the war war against France for independence. She donated her assets and contributed nearly 20,000 Indochina piasters (equivalent to 700 taels of gold at that time). She donated 100 taels of gold (during the “Golden Week”) to the Viet Minh Communists. However, she was one of the first women killed by Hanoi Communists during the denunciation of “Land Reform” in early 1950’s. After conquering South Vietnam, the infamy left by the Communist Party of Vietnam turned into countless sourly folk poems and rhymes. The most “unique” is that the Communist Party has turned Vietnamese into the attributes of “The Vietnamese Communists know they are lying, but keep telling lies, the Vietnamese people know that Communists lie, but still listen to them”. Within that content, people become insensitive and indifferent to the happennings, conditions, and deterioration of the society and the whole country; and it is dangerous to the future of Vietnam.
The recruitment has many pitfalls:
Suddenly, Hanoi must face the current “semiconductor dream” which the Party never prepares for because it (the Party) has been preoccupied with Marxism, Leninism, and Ho chi Minh’s ideology for almost a century. As a result, Vietnamese have been pushed to the bottom of applied sciences, learning, knowledge, and so on. Vietnam has become the barren place for gray matters in the field of semiconductors. Following the recent agreement with Joe Biden, the SRV quickly reached out to the “thousand miles of intestines” abroad.
On November 10, 2023, Trần Lưu Quang, Deputy Prime Minister of the Communist Party of Vietnam signed the Decision “The party’s approved project to promote the capacity of Vietnamese people abroad to serve the country’s development in the new situation.”
The community of Vietnamese refugees includes those previously being tortured physically, mentally, and psychologically by the Communists; those who had to sacrifice their lives to cross deadly borders or seas to look for freedom. In the new and free countries, Vietnamese refugees were able to rebuilt their lives and granted opportunities to go to school, study, and work in various fields including semiconductor or electronics companies.
One of the recent strategies exploited by Hanoi is baiting those with knowledge of semiconductor to go back to the country.
The severe violations of human rights in Vietnam:
It happened in Vietnam recently that Lưu Bình Nhưỡng, a member of the National Assembly, was arrested after the Vietnamese Communist Party falsely accused him of an unrelated crime.
To Vietnamese engineers and scientists: In the past, once you left your fatherland, you were separated from your parents, siblings, loved ones, and friends. You risked your life for freedom and to escape the dictatorship imposed by the Vietnamese Communists. Please do not listen to the enticement of the Communist Party of Vietnam to return to help them to continue ruling Vietnam
Vietnamese are very smart. Those living abroad are extremely excellent and hold important roles in companies and organizations. Please ask yourself why millions of people in Vietnam have fallen to backwardness? When asked, we must have an answer: “Because of the dictatorship imposed by the so-called Vietnamese Communist Party”. All communist regimes have one common denominator when you compare and figure out the differences and consequences of communist regimes on the lives of peoples of South and North Korea; or of Taiwan and Communist China; or of Republic of South Vietnam and the Communist North Vietnam before 1975.
The countries you live; the companies or organizations you serve create the conditions for you to live and develop freely and to your highest potential; whereas in Vietnam you must obey the directions of the Vietnamese Communist Party. Your future becomes uncertain. If you try or were not to please the Vietnamese communists, they would/will try to incarcerate you on fake or vague charges.
Speaking of this, I recall Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner, group used by Putin to conquer the most difficult battlefields in Bakhmut, Ukraine. After a while, Prigozhin and the Wagner soldiers were treated cruelly. When Prigozhin protested the injustice, he was killed by Putin on August 2023.
The above are lessons to realize the true face of the Vietnamese Communist Party.
From The United States on December 02, 2023
Lê Thành Nhân
Note:
(1) Vietnam eyes first semiconductor plant
(3) https://thediplomat.com/2023/11/intel-backs-out-of-planned-vietnam-chip-expansion-report-claims/
(4) https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/resources/eu-news-2022-press-kit.html