2024年9月4日星期三

台湾要求中国向俄罗斯收回土地 Taiwan Asks China to Take Land Back from Russia

湾总统赖清德表示,如果中国对台湾的主权主张是基于领土完整,那么中华人民共和国也应该收回 19 世纪根据 1858 年《瑷珲条约》割让给俄罗斯的地区。《瑷珲条约》被认为是所谓的不平等条约之一,当时最强大的国家使用军事力量向弱小的国家强加条件。根据《瑷珲条约》,中国将现在俄罗斯远东地区的大片土地割让给俄罗斯帝国。两年后,根据 1860 年《北京条约》,中国再次将现在的滨海边疆区割让给俄罗斯。

外,满族赋名海参崴满语名「ᡥᠠᡳᡧᡝᠨᠸᡝᡳ」和汉语名「海参崴」。 「海参崴」作为其最早的中文叫法,亦被华人沿用至今。 1860年,《北京条约》签订前三月,俄国侵占了此地区,更名为「符拉迪沃斯托克」(Владивосток;Vladivostok),意为「东方统治者」或「征服东方」,也译「鎭东府」「东方的王后」。2020年7月2日,俄罗斯符拉迪沃斯托克市举行建市160周年庆祝活动。中国国际电视台(CGTN)记者沈世伟表示,庆祝符拉迪沃斯托克建市日让中国人想起了“1860年那段屈辱的日子”。

领土完整而言,中国从英国手中收回了香港。但赖清德说:“为什么中国不收回《瑷珲条约》中被俄国占领的土地?俄国现在弱了,对吧?《瑷珲条约》是清朝签订的——你可以要求俄国归还土地,但你没有。所以很明显,中国不想因为领土问题而入侵台湾。”



Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te stated that if China's claims to Taiwan are based on territorial integrity, the People’s Republic of China should also take back regions ceded to Russia in the nineteenth century, under the 1858 Treaty of Aigun. The Treaty of Aigun is considered one of the so-called unequal treaties, where the then-greatest powers used military force to dictate terms to less powerful countries. Under the Treaty of Aigun, China ceded a huge swathe of land to the Russian Empire in what is now the Far East of Russia. Two years later, under the 1860 Beijing Treaty, China again ceded the region of what is now the Primorsky Krai to Russia. (Ukrainska Pravda, 09/03/2024)

Further, the Manchus named Vladivostok "ᡥᠠᡳᡧᡝᠨᠸᡝᡳ" in Manchu and "Vladivostok (Haishenwei)" in Chinese. "Vladivostok" is its earliest Chinese name and is still used by the Chinese today. In 1860, three months before the signing of the Treaty of Beijing, Russia invaded the area and renamed it "Vladivostok" (Владивосток; Vladivostok), which means "ruler of the East" or "conquer the East", also translated as "The Office Managing East" or "Queen of the East". (海參崴 - 維基百科,自由的百科全書 (wikipedia.org)On July 2 of 2020, the Russian city of Vladivostok was celebrating 160th anniversary of its founding day. Shen Shiwei, a reporter for the state-owned broadcaster CGTN said that the celebration of the founding day of Vladivostok reminded the Chinese of "those humiliated days in the 1860. (Financial Express. 07/07/2020)

Regarding territorial integrity, China reclaimed Hong Kong from UK. But "why doesn’t China reclaim the lands occupied by Russia that were ceded in the Treaty of Aigun? Russia is weaker now, right? The Treaty of Aigun was signed during the Qing dynasty - you can ask the Russians to return the land, but you don't. So it's clear that China does not wish to invade Taiwan for territorial reasons," said Lai Ching-te. (Essanews.com, 09/02/2024)








The Nvidia Selloff - September 03, 2024

 

  • Nvidia has started this September in an inauspicious way — with its a huge daily selloff since April. The stock is now off about 20% from its all-time closing high of $135.58, as its recent earnings report made investors jittery about its future margin performance and whether it can keep up its big beats. (MarketWatch 09/04/2024)
  • Nvidia CEO and co-founder Jensen Huang's fortune shrank by nearly $10 billion after the chipmaker’s share price fell amid a wider selloff of major tech stocks on September 03, 2024. (Forbes, 09/04/2024)
  • Justice Department takes a major step toward an antitrust lawsuit against Nvidia. Officials are investigating whether Nvidia's dominance has made it difficult for buyers to use other suppliers, some complained that Nvidia threatens clients that use chips from both Nvidia and its competitors. (Business Insider, 09/04/2024)
  • [Factcheck] Nvidia dictates how chips are allocated to stop companies from stockpiling them amid limited supply. Installing the chips the way Nvidia wanted would have reportedly hindered. Microsoft's ability to switch to different AI chips. Microsoft eventually won out when Nvidia backed down and agreed to let the Big Tech company design its own custom racks. (Business Insider, 06/20/2024)
  • [Factcheck] Intel’s Xeon processors are capable of more complex data crunching, but they have fewer cores and are much slower for processing information typically used to train AI software. AMD announced an updated version of its MI300 AI processor would go on sale in Q4. But Nvidia’s advantage isn’t just in the performance of its hardware. Its CUDA, a language for its graphics chips that allows them to be programmed for the type of work that underpins AI programs.(QuickTake, 06/07/2024)

The AMD MI300X and Nvidia Blackwell are both cutting-edge AI processors, each with unique strengths and features. Here’s a comparison based on the latest information (prepared by an AI):

AMD MI300X

  • Architecture: Built on AMD’s CDNA 3 architectures
  • Compute Units: 304 compute units.
  • Memory: 192 GB of HBM3 memory with a peak bandwidth of 5.3 TB/s.
  • Performance: Known for its strong performance in FP8 floating point calculations and HPC-centric double precision workloads. It boasts impressive cache bandwidth and latency, outperforming Nvidia’s H100 in several benchmarks.
  • Power Consumption: 750W.

Nvidia Blackwell

  • Architecture: Successor to the H100, designed to leapfrog AMD in performance.
  • Compute Units: Details on compute units are less specific, but it integrates compute and IO into each chip.
  • Memory: 192 GB of high bandwidth memory, with a memory bandwidth of 2.8 TB/s.
  • Performance: Excels in sparse performance, delivering 45 teraFLOPS of FP64 tensor core performance. It is optimized for AI inferencing and lower precision tasks.
  • Power Consumption: 700W.

Key Differences

  • Memory Bandwidth: MI300X has a higher memory bandwidth (5.3 TB/s) compared to Blackwell (2.8 TB/s), which can be crucial for AI performance.
  • Compute Performance: MI300X shows a significant advantage in double precision performance, while Blackwell excels in sparse performance and lower precision tasks.
  • Power Efficiency: Blackwell is slightly more power-efficient with a 700W consumption compared to MI300X’s 750W.
  • Both processors are designed to handle demanding AI workloads, but their strengths lie in different areas. The choice between them would depend on the specific requirements of the tasks at hand.
References





2024年8月26日星期一

俄罗斯进行大规模空袭 Moscow Rains Fire on Ukraine

2024年8月26日,俄军向乌克兰发射了百余枚火箭弹和无人机。乌克兰总统泽连斯基呼吁西方盟友允许基辅使用西方提供的远程自卫武器打击俄罗斯境内的军事目标。值得注意的是,美国禁止乌克兰使用远程ATACMS导弹袭击俄罗斯领土。

俄罗斯的这次袭击再次以关键民用基础设施为目标。关键基础设施包括能源部门和铁路。这次袭击至少造成 7 人死亡,47 人受伤。47 名伤者中有 4 名是儿童。

截至目前,俄羅斯自2022年2月起入侵烏克蘭,已造成數十萬軍人傷亡和數萬烏克蘭平民傷亡。具體而言,自入侵開始以來,俄羅斯軍隊已損失超過 606,000 名士兵。此外,聯合國人權事務高級專員辦事處已核實共有 35,160 名平民傷亡和 23,640 人報告受傷。衝突仍在繼續,俄羅斯軍隊目前佔領了烏克蘭約 20% 的領土。對平民的影響是巨大的,數百萬人流離失所,難民危機堪比二戰。

2022 年 8 月 8 日,皇家联合服务研究所 (RUSI) 发布了一份报告,称大多数明显的西方组件都是由美国公司制造的。这可能是因为俄罗斯的战争机器严重依赖进口复杂的微电子产品才能有效运行。 而 2023 年 10 月 3 日,PBS 新闻的 Simon Ostrovsky 报道称,俄罗斯坦克的一个机器部件是由一家位于纽约的公司制造的。 

根据 Julia Monn 和 Katrin Büchenbacher 的报道,一些国家向俄罗斯提供机器和零部件,例如电子产品、可用于制造武器的建筑材料或无人机/导弹。 而印度刚刚在 2024 年 7 月超过中国,成为俄罗斯石油全球最大进口国。这就是泽连斯基敦促印度停止进口俄罗斯石油的原因。泽连斯基也点名中国在俄罗斯对乌克兰战争中扮演的角色。



Russian forces launched over a hundred rockets and drones at Ukraine on August 26, 2024. Ukrainian defenders managed to destroy 102 enemy rockets and 99 drones. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Western allies to allow Kyiv to strike military targets inside Russia using Western-supplied longer-range weapons in self-defense. It is worth noting that the US prohibits Ukraine from using its long-range ATACMS missiles for strikes on Russian territory. (RBC Ukraine, 08/26/2024)

This Russian strike again targeted critical civilian infrastructure. The critical infrastructure includes the energy sector and railroads. At least seven people were killed and at least 47 others injured from this strike. Out of the 47 people injured, four were children. (abcNews, 08/26/2024)

Up to now, Russia's invasion of Ukraine since February 2022 has caused hundreds of thousands of military casualties and tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties. Specifically, the Russian military has lost over 606,000 soldiers since the invasion began1. Additionally, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has verified a total of 35,160 civilian casualties and 23,640 reported injured2. The conflict continues, with Russian forces currently occupying approximately 20% of Ukraine’s territory3. The impact on civilians is huge, with millions displaced and a refugee crisis comparable to World War II. (1-4)

On August 08, 2022, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) released a report that the majority of the apparent Western components were manufactured by U.S. companies. It is probably because the Russia's war machine is heavily reliant on imports of sophisticated microelectronics to operate effectively. (RUSI, 08/08/2024) While on October 03, 2023, Simon Ostrovsky at PBS News reported that a machine part of the Russian tanks was made by a company based in New York. (PBS News, 10/03/2023) \

According to Julia Monn and Katrin Büchenbacher's report, one Russia's ally supplies Russia with machines and components such as electronics, building materials that can be used to build weapons. (NZZ, 05/23/2024) While two others provide drones and/or missiles. (Financial Times, 01/13/2024) On the other hand, India has just overtaken China as the world's largest importer of Russian oil in July 2024. (The Kyiv Independent, 08/23/2024) This is why Zelenskyy urges India to halt Russian oil imports. (The New Voice of Ukraine, 08/25/2024) Zelenskyy also calls out China's role in Russia's War on Ukraine. (The Diplomat, 06/04/2024)


References

1. Ukraine civilian war casualties 2024 | Statista

2. Russian invasion of Ukraine - Wikipedia

3. Russia Launches 'One Of The Heaviest Strikes' On Ukraine In Over 30 Months Of War: Zelensky - Benzinga

4. Casualties of the Russo-Ukrainian War - Wikipedia