Chip flow interrupted

A stable global supply chain of chips had been maintained before disruptive moves by the US.

Two of the US’ top chipmakers—NVIDIA and AMD-were ordered to stop exports of two high-end chips to China on Aug 31. The ban     1     sophisticated (精密的) chips for graphics processing units (GPUs); which have been widely used in applications including AI and creative production.

This came after US President Joe Biden signed an order to pass the $52.7 billion (about 369.5 billion yuan) semiconductor chip manufacturing subsidy (补贴) and research law on Aug 25.

It aims to     2     efforts to “make the United States more competitive with China’s science and technology efforts”, Reuters noted.

Biden also signed the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 into law on Aug 9. According to the act, chip makers that shift their factories to the US can receive subsidies and tax benefits with     3     conditions that restrict US companies from increasing investments in China for 10 years.

“The US and its allies,” Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and a financier for the Bill Clinton, Obama and Biden presidential campaigns, said in March, “should utilize targeted export controls on high-end semiconductor manufacturing equipment... to protect     4     technical advantages and slow the advancement of China’s semiconductor industry”.

In     5     to the US latest act, Woo Jin-hoon, a guest professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, wrote for China Daily, this is “a move that can be profitable for the US in the short term, but harmful in the long run”.

The design, manufacturing and even raw materials of a complete and complex product like semiconductors (especially chips) are usually     6     across many different countries and regions, forming a huge trade network.

No matter how hard countries or regions try to support their own manufacturing bases and     7     their production, a certain degree of interdependence among countries and regions is unavoidable, China Daily commented.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Sept 1 at a press     8     that the US move is typical “sci-tech hegemony (霸权)”.

“With its technological advantages, the US has abused the concept of national security and its state power to     9     down on the development of     10     economies and developing countries,” said Wang. “The move violates market economy principles, harms international economic and trade orders and disrupts the stability of global industrial and supply chains.”

Jenny Carter an NHS coordinator is an “extreme night owl,” one of an estimated 8.2% of the population whose natural inclination(倾向)is to fall asleep well after midnight. Left to her own devices, she’d prefer to go to bed around 3 a.m. and wake up about noon.

Why do night owls exist? There is no single     1     accepted theory, but evolutionary biologists think that communities with more variation in chronotypes(睡眠类型)may have been more likely to survive.

Another theory is that variation is     2     how genetics works. Right from birth, our personal biological clocks are already     3    . Genetics establishes a person’s chronotype. Colin Espie, professor of sleep medicine at the University of Oxford, says this     4     differences in hair eye and skin color or height.

Natural night owls are     5     different from insomniacs or people who stay up until the early hours because of family or work circumstances. Being a night owl isn’t a problem.

But this isn’t always well understood. Jessica Batchelor is a medical writer who feels most productive at 11 p.m. “I can’t tell anyone when I went to sleep, woke up, showered or ate a meal without being     6    ,” she says “I struggle with feelings of guilt and shame.”

This mentality is rooted in our agrarian(耕地的)past when farm work had to begin at dawn.

Our culture mistakenly associates sleeping little and rising early with     7    . It is often extolled(颂扬)as a habit of successful people: for instance in the     8     with Margaret Thatcher’s four-hour rest, or articles about “sleepless-elite” CEOs who start their days with a 4 a.m. jog.

Actually, there is nothing wrong with staying up late as long as you’re getting a good amount of sleep every night;     9    , early risers have no special biological advantage. What research has not disproved, however, is that morning people tend to get more done.

The productivity expert Laura Vanderkam     10     that people should consider switching their schedule not because it’s necessarily better but because it’s practical.

Waking up earlier to work out, make headway on a creative project or enjoy a stress-free cup of coffee can help make it easier to accomplish more without sacrificing time for yourself.

By some measures, South Korea is the most educated country in the world.Observers，however，have described Korean society as having an“almost cult（邪教）-like devotion to learning". Studying long hours at hagwons（辅导机构）has become so ubiquitous（普遍存在的）and excessive that Korean authorities in the 2000's deemed（认为）it necessary to impose curfews（宵禁令），usually at10 p.m.，and patrol prep schools in areas like Seoul's Gangnam district，where many of these schools are     1     .However，that only drives nighttime cram classes underground behind closed doors.

This extreme competitiveness has created a number of social problems：Suicide，for instance，is the leading cause of death among teens in Korea，which has the highest suicide rate     2     in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development（OECD）.Student surveys has shown that poor grades and fears of defeat are major reasons for suicidal thoughts，while Korea simultaneously has a growing teenage drinking problem.

Social pressures to succeed in the labor market，meanwhile，have given rise to a phenomenon called “employment cosmetics'"--one of the driving factors behind Korea's boom in cosmetic surgery，since job applicants are commonly required to submit an ID photo，and many employers     3     physical attractiveness into their hiring decisions. In another sign of competition at any cost,private household debt in Korea is soaring，driven in part by surging expenditures on education and private tutoring.

Social pressures are further amplified by Korea's relatively high youth unemployment rate，which     4    at 11.2 percent in 2016--a record number not seen since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. Despite all the time，finances，and emotional resources     5     in their education，Korean youth find it increasingly difficult to     6     desired quality，socially prestigious jobs.The country's obsession with higher education continues to sustain a “college education inflation（贬值），"     7     the Korean labor market with a supply of university graduates that hold degrees of deflated value whose earnings     8     are decreasing.

While a university degree used to be a solid foundation for social success in Korea，observers have noted that many current graduates lack the skills needed for employability in a modern information society，and that the education system is too     9     focused on university education，while under-emphasizing vocational training. Korea's Confucian-influenced system has also been criticized for relying too much on rote memorization and university entrance prep at the       10     of creativity and independent thought.