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The government has called on industry to create technological standards for more than 30 important automotive semiconductors by 2025 and more than 70 types by 2030, according to guidelines issued this month by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The guidelines, which were issued to trade groups on Jan. 8, seek to ensure safety and reliability by providing for performance tests of semiconductors used in finished vehicles and core systems.

An auto industry source said the government "will probably use the standard-setting process to instruct automakers to use domestically made semiconductors."

China aims to build a a homegrown semiconductor supply chain that is safe from the threat of U.S. sanctions. Semiconductors are a weak link in China's drive to become an automotive superpower by using its head start in the shift from gasoline-fueled cars to EVs.

Sales of new autos in China grew 12% in 2023 to 30.09 million vehicles, and exports reached nearly 5 million vehicles, putting China ahead of Japan as the world's top auto exporter, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. China led global growth in EVs and other new-energy vehicles last year, with a 38% increase in sales to 9.49 million vehicles. New-energy vehicles, a Chinese term, includes plug-in hybrids and fuel cell vehicles.

EVs and self-driving cars require more semiconductors than conventional autos. According to a major Chinese automaker, EVs are loaded with about 1,300 semiconductors each, compared with a little under 500 in gasoline-powered cars.

Level 4 autonomous cars, which can operate without driver input under certain conditions, have more than 3,000 semiconductors, Chinese auto industry data provider Gasgoo reports.

Germany's Infineon Technologies is the leading supplier of automotive semiconductors by market share, according to Chinese news source Jiwei. Next is NXP Semiconductors of the Netherlands, followed by Japan's Renesas Electronics.

With government encouragement, Chinese automakers are developing their own semiconductors. Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, the parent of Volvo Cars, puts proprietary semiconductors into its sport utility vehicles. Automotive semiconductor development is also a priority for leading Chinese contract chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), according to a senior executive.

But China is still a long way from self-sufficiency. In power semiconductors, which regulate electric current and are vital to EV performance, domestic production meets only about 15% of China's needs, according to Gasgoo. In advanced chips -- the kind needed for autonomous driving -- Chinese production is below 5%.

China's overall self-sufficiency in automotive semiconductors is estimated at around 10%, compared with about 20% for semiconductors in general.

The number of Chinese companies developing automotive semiconductors has reached about 300, but domestic technology has not kept pace with the auto industry's needs, and China remains dependent on imports. Worldwide, the industry is led by Infineon Technologies of Germany, NXP Semiconductors of the Netherlands, Japan's Renesas Electronics and U.S. chipmaker Texas Instruments.

Many automotive semiconductors are not subject to U.S.-led export controls because they are less advanced than chips used for artificial intelligence and other high-tech defense-related applications. But China's access to foreign supplies of semiconductors for cars may yet be restricted depending on how relations with the U.S. play out.

"With the rise of trade protectionism, automotive semiconductors have become a focus of global competition," Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, told a December 2023 conference on semiconductors hosted by the trade group in Wuxi.

"We can create a new automotive semiconductor industry," Fu said.

More than a year earlier, in November 2022, Miao Wei, a former industry ministry with powerful connections to the auto industry, had urged industry leaders at a meeting in Shanghai to switch all of their semiconductor procurement to domestic sources.

Chinese media have quoted Gao Xiang, a researcher involved in automobile policy, as saying that government support and other measures can make it possible to replace even extremely technically difficult semiconductors with domestic production in five to 10 years.

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(Photo credit: SPA)

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait reaffirmed their exclusive ownership of the Arash-Durra gas field in the Persian Gulf on 31 January, following a visit by Kuwait’s Emir Mishal al-Ahmad al-Jaber Al-Sabah to the kingdom.

“The entire Durra field is located in the marine areas of the State of Kuwait, and ownership of the natural resources in the divided submerged area, including the entire Durra field, is jointly owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the State of Kuwait only, and they alone have full rights to exploit the wealth in that region,” the joint statement reads.

The statement also extends an invitation to Iran – with whom the field is disputed – "to negotiate the eastern border of the divided submerged area with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, as one negotiating party, and Iran as another party, in accordance with the provisions of international law."

The Durra-Arash field is located in the waters of the Persian Gulf off the coast of Kuwait and holds an estimated 20 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves.

Iran has long claimed the right to exploit part of the gas field’s wealth. In July last year, the two Gulf state’s announced exclusive ownership of the field, exacerbating longstanding tensions.

Tehran previously proposed plans for drilling and exploiting the disputed field, which Riyadh and Kuwait City rejected.

In 2022, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement to exclusively develop the gas field.

At the time, Iran referred to this agreement as “illegal,” claiming it violated procedures and previously held discussions on the matter.

Iran continued to assert its right to exploit the gas field and benefit from it, affirming that the boundaries of the field shared by the three countries have yet to be determined.

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When the General Staff have been discussing with President Vladimir Putin the timing of the Russian offensive to force the Kiev regime into capitulation, it has been agreed, understood, and repeated that the strategic reserves of the Ukrainian forces should be destroyed first, together with the supply lines for the weapons and ammunition crossing the border from the US and the NATO allies.

This process, they also agreed, should take as long as required with least casualties on the Russian side, as determined by military intelligence. Also agreed and pre-conditional, there should be no repeat of the political intelligence failures of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) which precipitated the failed special forces operation known as the Battle of Antonov (Hostomel) Airport from February 24 to April 2, 2022.

Taking account of the mistakes made then by the SVR director, Sergei Naryshkin, and the subsequent mistakes of military officers around Yevgeny Prigozhin, the General Staff has also accepted that their tactical operations must run least risk of Russian casualties through March 17, the final day of the presidential election.

Reinforcing these preconditions for the timing of the Russian offensive, General Winter and General Patience have joined the Stavka meetings.

This week military sources believe there has been a turning point – on the Ukrainian battlefield, and on the Russian clock.

The daily Defense Ministry briefing and bulletin from Moscow reported last Thursday, before the Friday weekly summary, that the Ukrainian KIA (killed in action) for the previous twenty-four hours totaled 795, with the ratio of offensive tactics to defence, 3 to 3. On Monday, the KIA total was 680, the ratio 4 to 3. On Tuesday, KIA came to 885, the ratio 5 to 1. The casualty rate is unusually high; the shift to offence is recognizably new, if not announced.

The “Stavka Project”, a military briefing which is broadcast by Vladimir Soloviev, confirms the positional breakthroughs this week on several of the fronts or “directions”, as the Defense Ministry calls them, along the Donbass line; click to watch (in Russian).

In Boris Rozhin’s summary of the Defense Ministry briefing materials, published before dawn on Wednesday morning, the leading Russian military blogger (Colonel Cassad) identifies “small advances”, “slight movements”, some positional “successes”, other positional “counter-fighting”, and “no significant progress yet”. The adverb is military talk for timing.

According to a military source outside Russia, “the Russian breakthrough is beginning to happen now. It’s being coordinated with strikes and raids along the northern border. The commitment of the ‘crack’ Ukrainian brigades at the expense of other sectors shows how desperate [General Valery] Zaluzhny is to plug the holes. He knows that the target is the isolation of Kharkov, the establishment of a demilitarized ‘buffer zone’, as well as the development of a situation whereby all Ukrainian forces east of the Dnieper are threatened with being cut off… and he’s quickly running out of ammunition, not to mention cannon fodder.”

“By the end of the winter,” the source has added overnight, “the Ukrainians will barely be able to move along the roads they use to feed the front due to the Russian drone, missile, conventional air, and artillery strikes. Once they can no longer plug the gaps with mechanized units acting as fire-fighting brigades, it’s just a matter of time before the big breakthroughs and encirclements begin. At the current burn rate of Ukrainian forces, I imagine we’ll start seeing Russian tanks with fuel tanks fitted for extended range appearing and Russian airborne troops making air assaults in the Ukrainian rear within weeks.”

In yesterday’s edition of the Moscow security analysis platform Vzglyad, Yevgeny Krutikov, a leading Russian military analyst with GRU service himself and GRU sources for his reporting since, published a report entitled “What does the offensive of Russian troops in the Kharkov region mean?” “Russia is creating a new strategic situation in the Kharkov region,” Krutikov concluded, “threatening to dismember the Ukrainian defence up to the Donetsk agglomeration.” A verbatim English translation of this piece follows.

Source: [https://vz.ru/](https://web.archive.org/web/20240131115403/https://vz.ru/society/2024/1/29/1250838.html)

January 29, 2024 – 19:10.

What does the offensive of Russian troops in the Kharkov region mean?
By Yevgeny Krutikov

“The settlement of Tabayevka in the Kharkov region has been liberated,” the Russian Defense Ministry says. We are not just facing the capture of a village: Russian troops are now hacking into the contact lines, which have not budged for a year. Russia is creating a new strategic situation in the Kharkov region, threatening to dismember the Ukrainian defence up to the Donetsk agglomeration.

First, Krakhmalnoye, then Tabayevka – Russian troops have advanced in the Svatovo direction (Kharkov region), pushing the enemy to a new line of defence (to the village of Peschanoye). Slightly to the north, already close to Kupyansk, the enemy’s positions are also gradually moving to the west and southwest.

Along the way, forests are being cleared, which the VSU [Ukrainian Armed Forces] is turning into fortified areas, even giving them names (“Alligator” and “Woodpecker”). The enemy is losing the old lines of trenches, the first line of contact has been destroyed. Something similar is happening directly near Kupyansk, but there the advanced fortified lines in Sinkovka are being held still by the VSU, though the positions on the flanks have gradually begun to sink.

At first glance, we are looking at isolated episodes of positional warfare, since the big, iconic and recognizable geographical names do not appear in the information releases. But this is not quite true.

Firstly, even in this scenario as published so far, strategic threats arise for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, for example, in the possible drive of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to the Oskol River which has far-reaching prospects. Notwithstanding, it is still impossible to predict when this will become possible in practice.

Secondly, the enemy has been demonstrating a systemic defence crisis in the Kupyansk direction during the past week. The defence of Kupyansk has been under construction by the Armed Forces of Ukraine since the spring of last year, when the decision was made in Kiev on a ‘counteroffensive’ in the southern direction. New brigades with western armoured vehicles were sent to the southern section of the contact line, and Kupyansk and the area around it were designated for defence with the rest of their forces.