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Apparently, AMD has placed a long black sticker on the lower left corner, seemingly to remove mentions of Taiwan. That appears to be convenient timing as the new 7600X3D chips are slated for release in China on September 20, and the country has a history of forbidding mentions of Taiwan on product packaging.
The hidden text shows the origin of the Ryzen processor: “AMD processors are diffused and/or made in one or more of the following countries and/or regions: USA, Germany, Singapore, China, Malaysia, or Taiwan.”
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We can surmise that the company is doing this to soothe Beijing’s ruffled feathers, which claims Taiwan is part of China and has previously slapped import restrictions on products mentioning Taiwan as the place of manufacture.
It isn’t the first time that AMD has seemingly acquiesced to the demands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In January, it removed the ‘Diffused in Taiwan’ silkscreen from the Ryzen 7000 chips. Although the company says it did this to standardize production with the products from its Xilinx acquisition, it does have the convenient side effect of keeping Beijing happy.
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This recent change — adding a sticker that covers ‘Taiwan’ on the box — doesn’t seem to have any other reason except to address the CCP’s likely complaints.
And it’s a way of saying “this is stupid” via malicious compliance. I’m not assuming that AMD is doing it, but I’m willing to think that there are a few employees who are.
I was thinking something similar, but AMD being a company, this is likely just cheaper and easier.
I mean AMD heavily relies on Taiwan being independent to even be the company they are. If China takes over most people in power and all the shareholders are fucked - so in this instance it actually makes sense even from a company standpoint to do malicious compliance