Talk:Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment

Deletion of other types of products info
Hi Imcdc, I saw your recent edit (20 March 2024). I'm OK with the deletion of all citations to the company's product website as it can be construed as commercial promotion; however, the complete removal of all mention of other types of products made by SMEE in the text itself seem a bridge too far since lithogrpahy machines/steppers for logic ICs is not the company's only focus. I woud think as an encyclopedic entry (rather than a mere current events article) there should at least be some passing general references to these other types of machines. As the Wiki stands now, it's largly the same as it was in January 2024, except for the company history that you added recently, and seems to suggest that the company manufactures mainly the SSA800 and SSA600.

Also, you appear to believe that SMEE is a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE); I have to say that I've seen little evidence of this. The Chinese market economy is different from a Western market economy; there are still traditional large SOEs in China which are left over from the command-economy era (in heavy industries and the Chinese military-industrial complex), there are also many completely private enterprises, and then again there are many "hybird" enterprises which start out using both pure-private-equity funds as well as government-backed venture capital funds. This mixed situation has existed ever since the late 1980s when China decided to eschew both the Soviet-style command economy as well as the Western-recommended economic "shock therapy" and opted for what many economic historians call the "dual-track" economic reforms.

It seems to me that hybrid-companies are particularly plentiful in sectors that the Chinese government has designated as "strategic", such as the semi-con sector. SMEE seems to be one of these hybrids. It is my understanding that "hybrid" companies generally are run by private (i.e. non-governmental) leadership with a free-hand in employment/strategic deciions and a focus on sales and profit margins (thus keeping them nimble and responsive to fast-changing economic conditions as compared to the more ponderous SOEs), while at the same time being able to work closely with government and public research institutes to enable technology transfers that would hasten product development (thus furthering the overall governmental goals for such strategic sectors). If the Chinese government did not enable these largely private hybid companies and simply created a bunch of SOEs, it would just be replicating the failed Soviet and pre-1980s Chinese economies; the rapid advancement of Chinese tech sectors over the last 30 years contradicts the notion that most Chinese tech companies are SOEs and to designate SMEE as a "State-owned enterprise" seem to belie its true nature.

I think a better description of SMEE would be a "private" company that retain both private and governmental venture capital companies as major shareholders. Cheers, Spotty&#39;s Friend (talk) 01:03, 21 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi @Spotty's Friend,
 * I am ok mentioning a general overview of what products SMEE does as long as it doesn't start going into promotional territory. Please make sure they have proper independent references that support the statements.
 * As for what company it is, it a bit difficult to accurately word what it is. It is a private company but at the same time, we can't deny it has significant government influence in both its creation and its present shareholding. In SOE's own page, it admits the definition is a bit murky and broad. However its largest shareholder is SASAC per Reuters so it would be at least a partially state-owned enterprise. I guess hybrid organization would sort of describe it, but it doesn't commonly used formal term. We need to come up with a way to properly describe the company using formal terms that isn't too long and something the average layman would get instantly upon reading. - Imcdc  Contact  13:11, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * To Imcdc: regarding the characterization of SMEE in the infobox, how about the following: "Private (part govt-backed)"
 * Cheers, Spotty&#39;s Friend (talk) 23:31, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Spotty's Friend
 * I would personally put it as Private (part government-backed) just to be clear.
 * - Imcdc  Contact  01:38, 22 March 2024 (UTC)