AMD covers up notice on CPU packaging for China’s sake

China sees Taiwan as part of its own territory and is sensitive to other opinions on this matter. In order not to anger the government in Beijing, AMD has used a trick to make the packaging of a new processor ‘China-compatible’.

AMD covers text on packaging

The user MEGAsizeGPU had posted a photo of the packaging of the new AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D on X, which has recently become available in Germany, completely unexpectedly, and is also due to go on sale in China on September 20th. There is nothing unusual about the photo so far. However, you can see that parts of the text on the back of the box have been covered with a black sticker.

To find out what AMD is trying to hide underneath, the owner started to peel off the sticker, but this turned out to be extremely difficult. Fortunately, other users rushed to help and posted a picture of the packaging without the sticker. This shows that the hidden text passage is a reference to the country of manufacture of the chip. In addition to the USA, Germany, Singapore, China and Malaysia, “Taiwan” is also listed.

For China’s sake

Although AMD has not made an official statement on the sticker, Tom’s Hardware speculates that the company is most likely trying to make the packaging suitable for the sale of the CPU in China. China is known for banning the mention of “Taiwan” as a country of manufacture on product packaging. This is because the government in Beijing claims the country for itself and does not grant it independence. AMD therefore probably does not want to risk angering China and losing the market because of the label.

Despite the sanctions imposed by the US government, which prohibit AMD and other American chip manufacturers such as Intel from selling parts of their products to China, the most populous country in the world is still a huge sales market for the company. AMD packaging that is specially made for the Chinese market therefore says “Chinese Taiwan”. It would not be the first time that AMD has removed the mention of Taiwan from its products. The Ryzen 7000 CPUs already removed a corresponding lettering from the processor. Here, too, the intention was probably to please China.