U.S. to open program to replace Huawei equipment in U.S. networks

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-open-program-replace-huawei-equipment-us-networks-2021-09-27/

by DocFeind • 5 years ago

348 316 5 years ago

reuters.com

sschueller• 5 years ago

So a $1.9 billion gift to cisco from the feds?

anonymouswacker• 5 years ago

We can call it a stimulus, or paying them to fix a broken window.

jaywalk• 5 years ago

Nokia and Ericsson, not Cisco.

Although, the Huawei stuff definitely needs to go, so your characterization is still off.

philprx• 5 years ago

Cisco too actually.

Huawei did sell plenty of pure Ethernet / IP switches and firewalls in the US.

Cisco does have plenty of Carrier-grade, Telco-grade and ISP-grade equipment that are used by operators (4G core, Network Functions, BRAS, GGSN/PGW...).

est4• 5 years ago

Funny how an American CEO bankrupted Nokia's handset business now it's time to makeup its telecom business.

1cvmask3• 5 years ago

They will surely return it to management as bonuses and stock buybacks for shareholders.

The Intel model of stimulus. Now TSMC runs the show in high end semiconductors.

908B64B1972• 5 years ago

This is great.

The next question will be how much trust can we place in the networks of our allies that still use compromised equipment from Huawei?

Ekaros• 5 years ago

And real question how much trust the "allies" can place in any equipment from USA...

WarOnPrivacy• 5 years ago

The last clear report we had was from 2013 and the answer then was "Trust. LOL!"

sct202• 5 years ago

Shouldn't be too much of a worry since the next 2 largest vendors of telecom equipment are European (Nokia and Ericsson). Although, Nokia owns the remnants of a bunch of US companies like Lucent and Motorola Networks so they may be more connected to the US.

PontifexMinimus• 5 years ago

Any country that doesn't want others to read its communications is going to have to produce its own telecoms equipment, because the temptation of a country to put backdoors in it is just too high.

dleslie18• 5 years ago

Let's imagine this as personal relationships.

On the one hand, your trusted and long-term partner shares a credit card and bank account with you, so you're aware that they know how and where you're spending money. You spend a lot of time together at home, so it's likely they're listening into your phone calls.

On the other hand, a malicious individual has infiltrated your bank account and installed surveillance equipment in your home.

These two situations are not the same.

kube-system2• 5 years ago

If you have an agreement with [country A] to work together in pursuit of the same goals, and you don't have an agreement with [country B] to work together in pursuit of the same goals. Which one would you trust more?

Building alliances is nearly synonymous with building trust.

nonethewiser2• 5 years ago

It's not simply a matter of trust. You should assume it's all insecure. It's a matter of whose interests align with yours the most.

echelon• 5 years ago

The next question will be how much trust can we place in the networks of our allies that still use compromised equipment from Huawei?

Start a similar program to replace their equipment, too.

Dah00n5• 5 years ago

Not very likely IMO. Even if they US paid for the hardware many (most?) users of Huawei tele equipment would not want to touch it (especially not US made). Huawei had a much better reputation (and in my experience they still do with people that actually touch the hardware) for listening to requests from users/buyers than pretty much any other manufacture. There's a reason their equipment is widespread and unlike what most seem to believe price is at best on par with them being better. The difference in what I have heard and read from people that work with this and the mainstream-media etc. is mindbogglingly different. Only in a few articles in mainstream-media have I seen those people even asked their opinion and then the picture is much, much less one-sided.

jpgvm3• 5 years ago

Do people already need a reminder of the Juniper JunOS situation?

I don't think this is a good thing.

On one had we have Huawei which is untrusted by default, everyone assumes it has a backdoor but yet there are no reports of said backdoor and no evidence that networks using the hardware have suffered from exfiltration or infiltration.

On the other hand Juniper was very publicly compromised and networks running their hardware were most definitely subject to attack.

That said; this is probably primarily focused on wireless networks and if they are replacing Huawei it will be with Ericson or Nokia gear which I think we can have some manner of trust in.

EDIT: My point is I think the Huawei equipment being assumed untrusted is a better model than assumed "trusted" suppliers that can easily be back doored because no-one is looking as hard.

sebow• 5 years ago

I don't know what you're talking about with "allegedly".

Bloomberg "allegedly" found HW backdoors in huawei, Vodafone also "allegedly" found backdoors in their equipment from huawei back in the day(i think about a decade ago).

When you go talk to your red-team pentester friends, you quickly find out that the black market is full of 0days or full-blown backdoors for huawei equipment, from routers to consumer-grade mobile phones.They're not the only ones, but there's a clear discrepancy.

While in the consumer space Huawei might not be ever fully-banned (imo even though they should, because people are f*cking stupid and it's already too late), in gov & military(especially NATO) infrastructure, i'm guaranteeing they're already(US,AUS,JP,PL,RO) or soon to be banned.

Now the what-about argument is gonna follow here, saying "how about western companies that also engage in privacy-violating and espionage policies?".Yes that's also obviously true, but to a much lesser degree, and those companies/corporations main concern is money&profit,unlike Huawei.They might collude with governments and institutions, but they're not fully controlled by one, like in the fascistic China at the moment.And i say fascistic because chinese companies conveniently use 'free'-markets inside China and Western countries up to the point where their gov. notices and dictates their every move.

marcan_422• 5 years ago

I don't know if Huawei firmware has backdoors, but I can tell you I've looked at it (when evaluating their network switches) and it's a humongous mess of NIH. They even wrote their own SSH server and userspace IP stack (but still use the Linux one internally). It's rather buggy; simply scp'ing a file off of the switch leaked memory leading to a crash and reboot. It's just very poor quality.

Backdoors or not, I have very little doubt their equipment is full of exploitable security issues.

Veserv• 5 years ago

This is meaningless.

Even if we assume that all Huawei products are currently backdoored, the security of commercial IT products is so bad that they pose no impediment to any organization more talented than a group of script kiddies. A complete replacement of all Huawei equipment does not in any way materially improve security of the network against a competent nation state attacker. At most it might cause their operational budget to increase by 0.1% to fund exploit development of the replacement equipment on the off chance that they are utterly incompetent and do not already have a hoard of hundreds of exploits in all existing systems like the CIA did as revealed in the Vault 7 hack.

A material increase in security would require switching from Huawei to systems around 1000x better than prevailing systems otherwise you should have exactly zero trust that the security of the network can even minimally impede an adversary like China.

kube-system2• 5 years ago

Even if we assume that all Huawei products are currently backdoored, the security of commercial IT products is so bad that they pose no impediment to any organization more talented than a group of script kiddies.

The primary issue that the USG has with Huawei equipment is not technical security. It’s trust and governance.

I’ll give you a really simplistic hypothetical example: Let’s say a Cisco and a Huawei box have the same exact vulnerability, and the US and China engage in an all-out cyber war. China can simply block Huawei’s support staff with sanctions. They don’t need a back door. Meanwhile the Cisco tech is already patching the Cisco box. Equal technology, unequal results.

Not all issues regarding technology are about purely technical issues. Technology has to be implemented, maintained, patched, supported, etc. Those are primarily concerns of trust.

ClumsyPilot2• 5 years ago

"how much trust can we place"

If we really cared about trust, we would mandate that all national infrustructure be open source and, at a minimum, independantly security reviwed, and written in a safe language.

This comes across just political posturing as usual.

nimbius• 5 years ago

id go so far as to say this is more a one-time 1.9 billion dollar bailout for the telecom industry.

the bitter truth is nobody in the USA made it to market as fast as Huawei with 5G for a number of reasons. AT&T and others rested on their laurels, content with a monopoly market where they defined what 4g speeds were and werent. They became convinced they could extend this monopoly assertion to the rest of the world either through sheer hubris or through blind ignorance. Once the global market called their bluff, they scrambled for protectionism from the US government in the form of unsubstantiated sinophobic rhetoric, and stoked an elderly congress still rife with bubbling anticommunist sentiment. Trump gave them their trade war and it wasnt until Canadian bourgeoise faced chinese prisons that they were forced to acquiesce. Huawei's CFO signed off on largely symbolic US charges, and resumed her life.

Now the only damage control can come from US taxpayers, forced to pay twice for inferior 5G.

jpgvm3• 5 years ago

It's simpler than that. The Chinese Development Bank offered very generous credit to Huawei in a time where the West was letting some of it's most innovative companies collapse or languish (the 2008 financial crisis). Nortel was the main reason this all happened. They were the ones that were doing all the cutting edge wireless network research and when they collapsed Huawei was the one that executed the best in the wake of said collapse.

Say what you will about Chinese companies but damn some of them execute well.

mr_luc• 5 years ago

    Nortel was the main reason this all happened. 
    They were the ones that were doing all the cutting 
    edge wireless network research and when they 
    collapsed Huawei was the one that executed the 
    best in the wake of said collapse.

Err ... not sure if you're aware, but it's common knowledge that Nortel's sensitive IP was hacked by the Chinese.

In fact it went on over almost a full decade, from the late 1990's to 2009 when it was brought widely to light. [1]

    Say what you will about Chinese companies but 
    damn some of them execute well.

Well, I mean, especially the ones benefiting from nation-state level corporate espionage.

Of course empires stealing tech from each other has happened many times historically; we don't have to all act shocked that it can happen.

But neither is it irrelevant that it did, in fact, happen, and specifically in the case that you mention of Nortel and Huawei.

It's definitely not just a simple case of "generous credit", though the wider point about Western governments not supporting their core digital infrastructure companies in strategic ways during those years is certainly correct.

---

[1] https://mindmatters.ai/2021/04/why-do-huaweis-inventions-loo... -- well-sourced article referencing much of the earlier reporting on the matter

yyyk• 5 years ago

Huawei's CFO signed off on largely symbolic US charges, and resumed her life.

She resumed her life in return for selling out Huawei. Huawei was put in such a position as to make their further operations in the US very difficult.

https://twitter.com/freekorea_us/status/1441822007897690115

The replacement program is really a bailout for US telecom operations, now that Huawei can barely support them.

guilhas3• 5 years ago

Free trade, only good when you're on top.

Also these equipments have been produced in China for decades, even western branded ones, and there is still no proof that they pose any security risk. As opposed to USA companies well documented to spy USA allies, and their own population, for government agencies

dleslie18• 5 years ago

Yes, Huawei has never done anything untoward. /s

There's a whole section[0], and another entire page[1] on Wikipedia detailing accusations against them. China, too, has quite the detailed presence[2]. So let's not pretend they're trustworthy.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Controversies

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_intelligence_activity_...

Dah00n5• 5 years ago

I'm sorry but this is a very low effort post that a quick look at any article about Snowden's revelations would crush. Wikipedia simply cannot be used like this. You might as well count words on pro and against articles. Especially not useful as most facts in this area are at best poisoned facts -knowledge that has a biased source that cannot be trusted like the US intelligence community- and you are using a mainly US English site which in itself will have a bias against China.

If you really do want to compare you could compare proven backdoors (which would destroy Cisco but not Huawei) instead of looking at accusations, which is pointless.

encryptluks25• 5 years ago

I would mention that you can find an equal amount of controversies, if not vast amounts more, about the US government, and that there are entire agencies that manipulate media and Wikipedia articles. An accusation is far from a finding of fact and a discovered peer-reviewed exploit.

Also, the US could seem to care less if the home routers, modems, phones, and other equipment made in China are backdoored that these business employees are still using.

guilhas3• 5 years ago

So many allegations and accusations, solid case right there

Also for most points, you could just replace Huawei with any big USA technology company

tw043• 5 years ago

I'm curious which US manufacturer directly stole source code from a Chinese manufacturer to create a competing product. China has never been interested in free trade. They've been interested in free flow of trade secrets into China and free flow out of competing products at a reduced price built off those trade secrets.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110915023155/http://www.busine...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10485560675556000

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/06/business/t-mobile-accuses...

All of that is ignoring Nortel...

guilhas3• 5 years ago

Uh they stole scraps here and there... they are years ahead on 5G technology

DiogenesKynikos12• 5 years ago

Nortel collapsed long before Huawei even began expanding out of China. The recent attempts to blame China for Nortel's collapse don't even make basic chronological sense.

Dah00n5• 5 years ago

This is, of course, pure politics with no meat or foundation in reality. If they are exchanged with equipment like Cisco or other US made (well, designed) products it is a big step backwards. Not only do they have a much worse proven track-record (especially Cisco) but no US manufacture (and really no EU either that I have heard of) can match Huawei in getting your own custom stuff pushed through to release. I have never heard someone from the industry acknowledge anyone beating Huawei in R&D and time to deliver custom requests to code or hardware. They are light-years ahead of most other manufactures in those areas IMO and if they were a US company everyone would praise them (they still do but not too loudly). They are like Ubiquiti - before they started to suck.

markus_zhang2• 5 years ago

Well you started to support local suppliers with real dough, which is a start. The real question is, is Nokia or whoever can grab the opportunity and put down more cash on RnD?

encryptluks25• 5 years ago

Not only that, but Cisco has acquired so many Chinese companies that they are practically Chinese at this point. Working in one of their US government cloud environments, we were constantly talking internally about the odd changes coming from their China-based employees but superiors didn't seem to care.

tw043• 5 years ago

You would have to be far, far more specific in what areas they are "light-years ahead". Huawei are nothing approaching light-years ahead in the areas this programs is targeting, they're just cheaper. The primary complaint from small ISPs wasn't that Cisco or Arista or Calix or insert vendor don't have competing or even better products, it's that they are "too expensive".

Dah00n5• 5 years ago

Maybe in a small deployment, yes, but in bigger deployments the price is not the main point. If you need a specific software fix pushed through quickly, good luck if you have US made equipment. Even when (if) you succeed it is often fixed by Chinese or other Asian coders anyway. It is insanity.

cletus5• 5 years ago

I view this as inevitable. Networking infrastructure has a valid national security interest.

Companies in China are extensions of the state and tools of foreign policy. Sure these companies are notionally private but the people who own them exist because the CCP allows them to and the price for that is loyalty.

I believe this will continue and I fully expect that at some point the United States will deem those born in mainland China, regardless of current citizenship, to be a security risk and they won't be allowed to work in areas of national security or national interest.

This goes beyond classified material and extends to China cheating on trade including, but not limited to, the wholesale theft of intellectual property through "partnerships" and other means as the price Western companies pay for "access" to the Chinese market.

Western companies won't "win" in China because the CCP won't allow it to happen. They're literally giving away their secret sauce chasing a phantom. There's a reason why there are Chinese versions of every Western company you can think of that's dominant in China.

Why the issue with those born in mainland China? Because China doesn't allow dual-citizenship. Those that become naturalized in the United States, for example, lose their Chinese citizenship. This then becomes a carrot the CCP can dangle in front of those wishing to return: restoration of citizenship. That is, of course, if you happen to have a particular set of knowledge or skills deemed important to China.

What I believe is most needed immediately is reciprocity in trade. That is, if Western companies aren't given fair access to the Chinese market (for the record, it's China's right to restrict this for whatever national interest they wish) then Chinese companies should be similarly restricted in the West.

finikytou• 5 years ago

why only companies in china? we know for a fact that apple or microsoft have backdoors that US government (and Israeli looking at this year events) can leverage to enact pretty much what they deem as natitonal interest

cletus5• 5 years ago

You're going to have to clarify what you're talking about. These claims I've tended to find actually confuse several issues and misconstrue reality, intentionally or unintentionally.

For example, the US has the FISA courts with all that entails (eg National Security Letters, pen registers). There is a legal framework for this whether you like it or not. My personal view is that the whole FISA system is overreach open to abuse that lacks transparency. But at least Federal judges are still involved in the process.

Or are you talking about something else? Something extrajudicial perhaps?

For example, countries (including the US) use allied intelligence agencies as an end run around their own laws. The NSA has certain restrictions on spying on US citizens that, say, Germany or Israel do not. So the NSA can get counterparts to do their dirty work and in turn the NSA does their dirty work.

Is that what you mean? If so, what's the relevance here? If not, then what?

fvdessen• 5 years ago

Seems like if you are neither in China or the US you are now some kind of third world citizen and must choose which of the above can monitor your communications

Dah00n5• 5 years ago

China cheating on trade including, but not limited to, the wholesale theft of intellectual property through "partnerships"

This sounds almost like it was taken from a political sound-bite. In reality the US have forced the hand of other countries through diplomacy, sanctions, war, etc. to a far higher degree than China (at least so far) if nothing else than because of a longer history of being in a position to do so. It is pure politics and have little or no base in actual reality of the hardware made by the companies mentioned in the articles or Chinese behaviour towards Western businesses.

This is just Us Versus Them. The US have no high road to take here at all and I'm surprised HN seems to believe this has anything to do with China cheating, stealing IPs or whatever they newest accusation is when in reality it should be clear as day to anyone that it is simply the US trying to remain top-dog and force its way on others and nothing else. If China didn't do as they do it would just be some other accusations.

enkid• 5 years ago

The US wants IP laws so it can protect it's innovation. The rest of the Western world agrees. The US is also more likely to maintain human rights, which China absolutely does not care about. I would much rather the US be top dog than China, even though it has plenty of issues and has made mistakes.

ineedasername3• 5 years ago

"The US does bad things" is not a justification for living with the bad things done by another country.

If you want to have a conversation on US economic coercion, that's probably a valid topic. But it doesn't dismiss the issue of yet another government, with values much less compatible with most of the developed world, also doing those things at an every increasing pace.

fouric7• 5 years ago

This is whataboutism. "The US does bad thing x, therefore you can't complain about China doing bad thing y." Not valid.

Moreover, IP theft is not remotely comparable to diplomacy or sanctions. The latter are normal ways of doing politics and negotiations. The former is theft, and is immoral under most moral systems (hopefully including the mainstream Chinese one itself). Category error.

It is pure politics and have little or no base in actual reality of the hardware made by the companies mentioned in the articles or Chinese behaviour towards Western businesses.

Just less than a week ago, there was a frontpage HN post about how Xiaomi phones came with censorship code on them that enforced the CCP's policies[1]. That's the "reality of the hardware made by the companies mentioned in the articles".

Moreover, the "Chinese behaviour towards Western businesses" is characterized by persistent IP theft. Remember Operation Aurora[2], where big names like Raytheon and Google, who has some of the best security in the world, got pwned? Or the aerospace companies that their intelligence agents tried to solicit secrets from[3]? Or the guy who helped the PLA to steal C-17-related material from Boeing[4]? Or when ARM China just "stole" ARM's IP just a month ago[5]? Or when Chinese firms cloned the designs of maglev trains when their European+Japanese developers tried to sell them in China[6]? Or you could look at this wikipedia page with more instances, including theft of nuclear technology[8].

This isn't new, either - they tried to clone a Boeing 707 all the way back in 1980[7], four decades ago.

Moreover, you can't actually claim that this is US politics, because other countries are also reporting this happening to them[6][9][10], and because the US isn't going around and accusing every single country that stands to rival them economically (e.g. India) of IP theft.

I'm surprised HN seems to believe

Meanwhile, you make baseless claims like "In reality the US have forced the hand of other countries through diplomacy, sanctions, war, etc. to a far higher degree than China" that are backed up by nothing whatsoever, and then drop emotionally-manipulative statements like the above, in lieu of providing a good supporting argument or avoiding using whataboutisms.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/lithuania-say...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora

[3] https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/article/21118569/ho...

[4] https://www.osi.af.mil/News/Features/Display/Article/2350807...

[5] https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/the-semiconductor-heist-...

[6] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704814204575507...

[7] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/05/09/c...

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_espionage_in_the_Unite...

[9] https://www.ft.com/content/0d48a5dc-9362-11ea-899a-f62a20d54...

[10] https://www.aninews.in/news/world/europe/canada-alberta-prov...

DiogenesKynikos12• 5 years ago

There's a huge amount of false "conventional wisdom" here.

Sure these companies are notionally private but the people who own them exist because the CCP allows them to and the price for that is loyalty.

The government does not by any means micromanage or control even a tiny fraction of companies in China in the way you're implying. The government could theoretically exert pressure on companies for various reasons, but that's not at all unique to China. How tightly connected is Silicon Valley to the US government?

the wholesale theft of intellectual property through "partnerships"

First of all, these partnerships were not theft. Be careful about making these sorts of accusations. China made a pretty simple deal with foreign companies: you get to access our massive pool of cheap labor, and in return, you transfer some amount of technology to a local partner. I don't actually see anything immoral with this. It's a fair trade.

Second of all, these requirements for local partnerships have been phased out over time, and are limited now to certain sectors. For example, Tesla wholly owns its operations in China.

Western companies won't "win" in China because the CCP won't allow it to happen.

Western companies have been "winning" in China for decades. Not only have they been able to exploit cheap labor, but they have conquered many sectors of China's internal market. VWs are ubiquitous in China, and as of last year, Tesla was the top-selling EV car manufacturer in China. China is one of the largest markets for Boeing and Airbus. Qualcomm gets 2/3 of its revenue from China. I could go on, but you get the point.

That is, if Western companies aren't given fair access to the Chinese market

American and European brands are far more dominant in China than the other way around. If anything, the story of Huawei shows that once Chinese companies try to move beyond selling low-value-added products in the West, they are viewed as strategic rivals and face discrimination on poorly explained national security grounds.

cletus5• 5 years ago

The government does not by any means micromanage or control even a tiny fraction of companies in China

This is a straw man argument. No one accused China of micro-managing companies. It's never that overt. For example of how this works in the real world, look at Vladimir Putin in Russia and the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky [1]. He was, at the time, one of the most richest and powerful oligarchs in Russia. By imprisoning him, Putin sent the message that no other oligarch was safe and if they wanted to continue to exist they had to fall in line, which they did.

How tightly connected is Silicon Valley to the US government?

I'll assume good intent here and that this isn't simply "butwhataboutism". US companies need to obey US laws of course. This includes, for example, the FISA court nonsense. You can argue that Chinese companies are simply following Chinese law. While that's technically true, it's a question of degree.

US companies are more independent from the US government than Chinese companies are from the Chinese government.

First of all, these partnerships were not theft.

I beg to differ. For example, look at the case of ASMC and Sinovel [2].

... and as of last year, Tesla was the top-selling EV car manufacturer in China

Now to much this year [3].

China is one of the largest markets for Boeing and Airbus.

Yes, because China currently cannot make commercial aircraft at scale to compete with Boeing and Airbus. I guarantee you that's a problem they're working on and they're going to be aided by the boards of both companies giving away the keys to the kingdom for access to that market.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Khodorkovsky

[2] https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/25/technology/china-us-sinovel...

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/10/investing/tesla-china-sales/i...

tyrfing• 5 years ago

China made a pretty simple deal with foreign companies: you get to access our massive pool of cheap labor, and in return, you transfer some amount of technology to a local partner.

China vigorously denies that there was ever such a deal. If you recognize this as the status quo, it speaks against your first point: this is not an official policy, and it never was. Any such requirement was always entirely unofficial, and an example of what you call theoretical pressure.

SoylentYellow• 5 years ago

American and European brands are far more dominant in China than the other way around. If anything, the story of Huawei shows that once Chinese companies try to move beyond selling low-value-added products in the West, they are viewed as strategic rivals and face discrimination on poorly explained national security grounds.

When it comes to Huawei, the national security implications are obvious. Just read China's national security laws. Chinese intelligence agencies can walk into Huawei at any time and force their cooperation. Of course, the CIA/NSA can do that domestically too (perhaps with more oversight), and that is why I wouldn't blame China for not using US sourced devices in their critical infrastructure.

coliveira3• 5 years ago

The US exerts a lot of pressure on US companies for geopolitical reasons, so this puts them in the same level as the Chinese government. Everybody knows that the US compiles "avoid-lists" of countries they want to attack, and companies have to comply or suffer huge penalties. This absurd push to remove Chinese products from the market is just the latest example.

cletus5• 5 years ago

I see a lot of this on this topic. It's the fallacy of false equivalence.

For example, the United States clearly has dark stains in its history. Slavery obviously, Japanese interment in WW2, the treatment of Native Americans (eg Trail of Tears), segregation, etc. And these are all raised as counterpoints when criticizing China for human rights abuses.

But here's the difference. You can't end up in prison of a "re-education" camp in the US for discussing any of these. Now compare that to China's treatment of political "dissidents", the treatment of the Uighurs, Tibet, the Tiannemen Square massacre and the censorship of these and other issues.

So no, they're not equivalent.

It's the same for "pressure" on US companies. It's a question of degree. The US has courts that can check the power of executive or legislative overreach. US companies can (and have) resisted the US governments efforts within these legal frameworks.

Twitter and Facebook, both US companies, removed a sitting US president from their platforms after excessive policy violations (and justifiably so) so whatever "geopolitical pressure" you imagine, it's simply less in the US.

creato• 5 years ago

This absurd push to remove Chinese products from the market is just the latest example.

This is effectively the default for the Chinese market for foreign companies. Whatever "absurd" push you are thinking of, it's nowhere close to even basic reciprocation for Chinese policy.

nnm• 5 years ago

Can't believe a comment that openly discriminated China-born US citizens is now a top comment. The whole logic behind the argument (around China-born US citizens) is so weak.

post_from_work3• 5 years ago

Previous cases of naturalized Chinese-Americans being indicted for espionage/IP theft/national security-related crimes:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/mit-professor-arrested-an...

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-navy-officer-his-wife-and-...

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-cia-case-officer-charg...

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3104566/ch...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-citizen-...

jacquesm6• 5 years ago

Replace "China" with "The USA" and "Eastern" with "Western" and the other way around and not much of meaning or value would be lost.

It's the rest of the world that's really up the creek without a paddle in this respect, they have no options other than to side with either behemoth and hope for the best.

seneca• 5 years ago

Replace "China" with "The USA" and "Eastern" with "Western" and the other way around and not much of meaning or value would be lost.

This is nonsense, and basically textbook whataboutism. Companies in the US are not an extension of the state in anyway near the way Chinese firms are, even if some collude. The US allows dual citizenship.

kindle-dev• 5 years ago

Network infrastructure is just a microcosm of the issues facing small countries. They need protection, access to markets and resources, investment, and access to technology just to name a few.

dukeofdoom• 5 years ago

The increasingly bad news for the US is that countries are siding with China in the world. Due to strikingly different approaches to foreign policy. For example, China went into Africa and is building up their roads, factories, and infrastructure. Now consider how the US spent decades doing drone strikes in the middle east. That doesn't build trust.

Even this year, the consequence is now that the Taliban is now actively working with China, to build a oil pipeline to Iran. So it makes sense that these countries will end up buying network/software/hardware in the future from China too. Not to mention the price advantage China is offering to developing countries on their products.

josephcsible2• 5 years ago

Replace "China" with "The USA" and "Eastern" with "Western" and the other way around and not much of meaning or value would be lost.
> This goes beyond classified material and extends to China cheating on trade including, but not limited to, the wholesale theft of intellectual property through "partnerships" and other means as the price Western companies pay for "access" to the Chinese market.
> Why the issue with those born in mainland China? Because China doesn't allow dual-citizenship. Those that become naturalized in the United States, for example, lose their Chinese citizenship. This then becomes a carrot the CCP can dangle in front of those wishing to return: restoration of citizenship. That is, of course, if you happen to have a particular set of knowledge or skills deemed important to China.

Those things aren't true of the US though.

didntknowya• 5 years ago

everyone keeps saying loyalty like people sign blood pacts with the CCP or something. it's no different from companies abiding by US laws (and provide backdoors etc) in order to stay operating.

it's not loyalty or some secret pact. it's just them acting in their best interest to follow regulations (however dubious) in order to keep making money.

dillondoyle• 5 years ago

The difference is in the structuring of the 'law' and government, which are very different between those countries. I put 'law' in quotations because from my perspective, US citizen, CCP's form of government doesn't work within anything similar to a framework of democracy, rights, and founding principles like the US.

jimmydorry• 5 years ago

While it may not be a literal blood pact with the government, there have been numerous accounts of Chinese (ex)-citizens being coerced into taking actions under the threat of harm to their family and relatives that remain on the main-land.

Blood pact is a poor choice of wording, but not too far off from the reality. Perhaps blood-line persuasion is better?

cwkoss2• 5 years ago

The concept of intellectual property theft was invented by the intellectual property lobby.

Ideas should be free. Attempts to inhibit the freedom of information are sisyphean futility, inevitably doomed just like the endless War on Drugs.

cscurmudgeon• 5 years ago

Of course, then the flow of information should be bidirectional.

nonethewiser2• 5 years ago

What's your bank account number?

temp8964• 5 years ago

I believe this will continue and I fully expect that at some point the United States will deem those born in mainland China, regardless of current citizenship, to be a security risk and they won't be allowed to work in areas of national security or national interest.

I think this kind of policy is already in practice, maybe not in the federal government but in some highly sensitive private business.

I heard, forgot the source, business like Lockheed martin has secret programs won’t hire you if your parents are born in mainland China. I found it reasonable, because the CCP will definitely take your remaining family members in China as hostages to make you do things.

oingoboingothro• 5 years ago

It need not be a policy to be applied in practice at the governmental level. Writing things down is FOIA bait both on the USG side and the prime side (which your Lockheed scenario is a good example of, actually, despite your distinguishing of the two environments). Primes and feds are able to communicate about matters like this without communicating, and do it routinely.

Source: Need to know.

DiogenesKynikos12• 5 years ago

It's a sign of the times that the top comment here seems to be tacitly endorsing discrimination against Chinese Americans, and the top reply is explicitly doing so.

Robotbeat2• 5 years ago

> I believe this will continue and I fully expect that at some point the United States will deem those born in mainland China, regardless of current citizenship, to be a security risk and they won't be allowed to work in areas of national security or national interest.

For top secret programs, maybe that makes sense, but if you’re thinking it should apply to any science/engineering areas with broad national interest/security applicability, it’s not a good idea at all. First, besides the moral implications (handled by others), there’s the fact that it preemptively disarms the US of one of its greatest strengths: the ability to brain drain other countries of their top talent and add it to its own. How did we do the Manhattan Project? By taking in all the scientists fleeing Germany and about-to-be-occupied mainland Europe (and after that, Operation Paperclip gave us a leg up in the Cold War). This would be a massive self-own, and it’s not worth it just because it might somewhat reduce industrial espionage a bit. What we should do is give every STEM graduate school graduate in good standing from other countries full status and ideally a job.

Having a Chinese grad student as an asset on a science project is practically a meme, and China is indeed a huge labor pool from which we can cherry pick the best and the brightest. It makes no sense for us to educate their elites and then force them to go home even when they want to stay and become Americans.

And if blackmailing families back home becomes an issue or real fear, then the State Department should do something about it. We’re not powerless here.

Having seen how the actions driven by fear of industrial/national espionage can often be far worse than the industrial/national espionage ever would’ve been, I’m wary of taking measures that would directly mitigate our greatest strengths. Let’s lean into the whole “Statue of Liberty” Nation of Immigrants mythology, and build on it. It is our strength and it’d be foolish to give it up due to fear that China will copy our stuff. I mean, they’re going to do that anyway, even if we put Chinese background people in internment camps. Our only chance is winning based on speed of innovation (which can’t happen if we spend all our resources on paranoia… paranoia has a MASSIVE overhead and slows innovation to a crawl… no one can steal our inventions if we stop inventing stuff!) and the cultural victory of acting like the good guys and being the city on the hill. Remember, this is a game we now have to play by convincing people to like us and be our allies. We are no longer the unchallenged hegemon like in the 90s; we need our allies.

aliyfarah• 5 years ago

And if blackmailing families back home becomes an issue or real fear

Threats of blackmail against families have long been a reality and a key tool the CCP uses against overseas students and businessmen.

There are 8bn people in the world, US can definitely afford to pay close scrutiny to Chinese citizens, they don’t hold a monopoly on skilled labor.

Our only chance is winning based on speed of innovation

Advantage of speed in innovation is rendered useless when the Chinese just sit & wait while you spend billions on r&d only to steal all your IP when your ready to launch your product.

alasdair_2• 5 years ago

How did we do the Manhattan Project? By taking in all the scientists fleeing Germany and about-to-be-occupied mainland Europe

Given that the same Germans (Klaus Fuchs) then leaked the bomb to the soviets, I’m not sure this is the best example.

sjs382• 5 years ago

there’s the fact that it preemptively disarms the US of one of its greatest strengths: the ability to brain drain other countries of their top talent and add it to its own

Worthy adversaries can turn each other's strengths into weaknesses

SkyMarshal2• 5 years ago

I agree that Western companies operating in China are chasing a phantom carrot that the CCP will never allow them to catch, and that reciprocity, or "equalization" as I think of it, is necessary in trade.

If Western companies can only operate in China via 50/50 partnership and technology transfer requirements, then the same should apply to Chinese companies in the West.

If Western social media companies are banned in China, then Chinese social media companies should have whatever restrictions are constitutionally possible in the West, with a caveat [1].

Etc.

That said, I think Western governments need to realize that their Chinese citizens are going to be put under pressure by the CCP as you said, but to presume innocence and err on the side of protecting them.

The CCP will use both carrot and stick to coerce ethnic Chinese back to China, or to enlist them in espionage operations. Western governments need to develop strategies to counter that, to ensure their Chinese citizens remain safe and welcomed in their adopted homelands, and that they can safely reject CCP coercion and be protected by their adopted homelands' governments [2].

Some spies and agents will of course slip through the cracks, but Western governments can deal with those as they happen. Better to protect the majority of innocent Chinese who emigrated to the West for a better life, than to implicitly criminalize them all. The latter would play right into the CCP's hands.

[1]: The 1st Ammendment may make banning social media companies impossible. It's also possible that allowing Chinese social media companies in the West is still a net gain for spreading the ideals of free speech and anti-censorship.

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28333148

jen20• 5 years ago

The 1st Ammendment may make banning social media companies impossible. It's also possible that allowing Chinese social media companies in the West

The "west" does not consist solely of the USA. Not even most of North America has first amendment protections, and Europe most certainly does not.

Further it's not obvious that "freedom of speech" is even a defence if the US government has decided you shouldn't exist - look at Mega or The Pirate Bay for examples to the contrary.

ipaddr• 5 years ago

Wouldn't you have to worry about anyone who had strong family ties regardless of birth?

suriyaG• 5 years ago

As a complete aside. What is it that China offers that is making so many western companies go and do business in China? If it is cheap labour then India has it as well. I feel like I'm missing something, but not sure what. Can someone ELI5 please?

bulletsvshumans• 5 years ago

For manufacturing, a large portion of existing supply chains already exist within China, so even if it's not the cheapest, it's practical to set up your factory closer to where all your input components are manufactured.

LurkingPenguin• 5 years ago

What is it that China offers that is making so many western companies go and do business in China? If it is cheap labour then India has it as well. I feel like I'm missing something, but not sure what. Can someone ELI5 please?

It's not just cheap labor, a robust supply chain, etc. Those are definitely factors, but today, a lot of companies invest (or remain invested) in China because it significantly helps them access the Chinese domestic consumer market.

India, of course, has a huge population too, but China's consumer market is a lot more developed and therefore attractive.

cletus5• 5 years ago

So there are four major draws to China for Western companies:

1. It's a market of >1B people, hundreds of millions of whom are rapidly developing disposable income. That in itself is probably enough;

2. Cheap labour;

3. Supplier proximity; and

4. Political stability

I can't stress how important (3) is.

The net effect of all this is there's a network effect of suppliers in China. Those phones that are made in, say, Shenzhen require parts that are made by a factory down the road. This could be everything from chips to tiny screws.

Anywhere else and you'd need to ship various parts from China and have the supply chains and inventory management that that entails.

If you look past the fact that worker conditions are Dystopian, it's quite a wonder of the modern world, really.

But when I (and I'm sure others) talk about the perils of kowtowing to China, it's because they want the market not the manufacturing capacity.

Think of a movie studio that wants to distribute content in China. To get permission to do so that content has to be acceptable to the CCP.

Many suspect this is why the movie "First Man" had no scene of planting the American flag in lunar soil (an iconic historical moment). Some pseudo-artistic defenses have been unenthusiastically lobbed on this issue. Personally I find these unconvincing at best.

Western companies willingly engaging in self-censorship (or even the credible allegation of such) to pander to a foreign totalitarian government is not something I, personally, approve of.

elzbardico4• 5 years ago

Nixon made sure US companies invested hundreds of billions in China, not in India, for some stupid Nixon's reason.

jollybean7• 5 years ago

China is a huge export market. Though tread is lopsided, Western companies are eager to sell there.

Most markets are locked up by entrenched players, new, growing previously less developed places offer massive, new greenfield customer base.

Everyone and their aunt wants in.

hulitu2• 5 years ago

Cisco has so many backdoors that they can not be there unintentional. Also an extension of national policy.

throwaway4good• 5 years ago

The deep racism of this comment is thinly disguised. Would you dare to write a similar slant about muslims or jews?

Very sad to see this comment voted to the top of hn.

hef19898• 5 years ago

Way back I interned at Nokia-Siemens-Networks, before they were sold to Nokia. I wondered two things: How do these people think they can compete with the Chinese? And why is the EU giving all the orders to the Chinese?

Still not sure what the answers are, but I'd really like to have "local" suppliers for critical infrastructure and hardware.

jollybean7• 5 years ago

The CCP is requiring Chinese banks to fund Huawei customers with extremely cheap financing terms.

So HW competes on their own terms - and apparently they are a good 'one stop shop' combined with the Chinese mentality of 'always saying yest to everything' - but then you add in hugely generous 'no money down' financing provided by entities acting in concert with foreign policy, and you have something awesome.

BT can rollout a massive new network while paying for it much later.

Arguably, this sort of financing should be regarded as a trade violation. There's nothing wrong with Chinese banks offering those terms, but when it's coordinated/mandated by the government, and, the Central Bank is politicized for this reason, it's a form of economic dumping.

OneTimePetes• 5 years ago

Why the issue with those born in mainland China? Because China doesn't allow dual-citizenship. Those that become naturalized in the United States, for example, lose their Chinese citizenship. This then becomes a carrot the CCP can dangle in front of those wishing to return: restoration of citizenship. That is, of course, if you happen to have a particular set of knowledge or skills deemed important to China.

The main issue is not this. Born in mainland means your family lifes there and can be used as hostages or coercion bargaining chips. The bureaucracy and "rules&laws" are just decoration, for something that is more resembling of a mob-extortion racket by the CCP. Not mentioning this, is repackaging what is done by these hostages as a "choice" on their side. They have no choice, never had, they live at gunpoint since birth.

LatteLazy5• 5 years ago

Of course, you could say exactly the same about the USA...

And Huawei do offer the best kit on the market at the moment, with no actual evidence of security flaws...

techie128• 5 years ago

Disclaimer: I am neither a supporter of China or CCP. I have my own thoughts on them but they're besides the point for now.

I don't mean to attack you but your post reeks of American exceptionalism and elitism. Allow me to explain:

Your post is based on an underlying assumption that 'Western companies' lose because CCP / China creates a very uneven playing field. Thats the only reason in your mind that Western companies lose. This is not true. Western companies have lost in foreign markets due to variety of reasons not the least of which is a hostile local government.

The Chinese government's job is to ensure a level playing field for everybody and regulate its market in its own best interests not foreign interests. They're doing exactly what the US government and other Western countries have been doing for a long time. In fact Western companies and countries have had a long head start and several factors in their favor historically. Some that come to my mind are investment capital availability, ability to take on more debt due to different regulatory policies in domiciled country, US government's ability to impose trade sanctions, tariffs, favorable currency exchange rates, etc.

Traditionally the US (and other western countries, Europe included) have used various tactics to gain advantage in foreign markets. When the host government is weak, they have typically won. However in markets such as China (and India to an extent), the local government has created effective competitors that have crushed foreign rivals in some situations. In others their western counterparts have flourished. For example, Coke, Tesla and various companies have done really well as opposed to Google, Uber, etc.

One of the greatest reasons Western companies have failed in markets such as China (and India) is because they enter it with an air of arrogance. They assume the market works in the same way as the rest of the world. Let me cite an example from India which arguably is more open at welcoming Western goods and services than China.

When Dominoes first entered the Indian market, they sold the same pizzas that they sold in the US. Sure, the average Indian consumer would love to eat at Dominoes because of the brand value. However they got 2 things terribly wrong which caused them to wind down operations. First, the pizzas tasted like crap to the average Indian consumer. Even though they had money to spend, American Pizza recipes do not jive well with Indian taste buds. Second, the pricing was all wrong. The Indian market was price sensitive. Nobody was willing to pay for a crappy tasting pizza (to the Indian taste buds) when there were so many other local foods that could be had for lesser price. It wasn't a question of affordability, Dominos simply did not provide enough value for the customer. They eventually failed. Learned from their mistakes, relaunched with better pricing and Indianized their pizza offerings. They're doing pretty well now. Had they done their research well they wouldn't have made the mistake. In case of Dominos they were able to relaunch after taking massive losses. However, many others choose to exit the market. In this specific instance it wasn't the government, but the company's fault for launch such a crappy product at the wrong price.

aembleton• 5 years ago

Now I want to try an Indianised pizza.

jollybean7• 5 years ago

"The Chinese government's job is to ensure a level playing field for everybody"

This is very upside down.

The Chinese government actively opposes a 'level playing field and strongly prefers local companies, especially those with deep ties to the state.

Even export policy is natinalized. Huawei can offer it's customers internationally amazing financing terms (pay nothing down, and pay small amounts over time) provided by Chinese banks at the behest of the Chinese Government, facilitate by a politicized Central bank.

It would be like Biden/Trump ordering JP Morgan to finance Boeing deals, and to coordinate it all with the Treasury and the Central Bank.

That's a violation of basic trade norms - and that's just the export stuff.

Internally, there's much more control.

"One of the greatest reasons Western companies have failed in markets such as China (and India) is because they enter it with an air of arrogance."

This is not factual and you've provided no real evidence of that.

When US companies have 'hard protections', particularly in Brand, they do very well. Nike, Apple, Pizza Hut etc. all do very well.

But trains? China requires that train makers hand over their IP, the IP is given to local companies who then get a head start while the Chinese government holds the foreign company up in red tape.

The Chinese government 'role' is to absolutely minimize the amount of success foreign companies have to the extent they can duplicate/copy/reproduce locally, that's what they do.

Even foreign initiatives cannot actually be foreign owned: 51% has to be owned by Chinese.

The CCP puts a cadre of it's party staff within every company to ensure national guidelines are followed.

Your 'Dominos in India' example is countered by 'Yum Brands' i.e. KFC, Pizza Hut who were very successful in China.

anovikov• 5 years ago

CCP sees all ethnic Chinese as their subjects regardless of where they were born...

murbard2• 5 years ago

There's a reason why there are Chinese versions of every Western company you can think of that's dominant in China.

Luxury brands, e.g. LVMH, seem like a notable exception. If part of the value prop for the product is that it's being made by a fancy, long-established, foreign company, it's inherently hard to replicate.

speed_spread2• 5 years ago

I doubt that LVMH products are as hard to replicate as technology. People who pay for luxury goods do not care for the product itself but for the prestige it carries. The products LVMH sells are proof of social standing, which are the final token in a chain of trust that would also include LVMH retail stores in which one can be publically verified to be actually shopping and buying - the elite wouldn't be caught dead in a mall selling counterfeit products.

jmacd• 5 years ago

This issue seems to have been tiptoed around and many governments have tried to "play fair" about some aspects of critical infrastructure.

If the strategic importance of a company like ASML hasn't taught western governments how much is at stake when it comes to getting a technology edge then I'm not sure what will.

coliveira3• 5 years ago

The US has never proved that there is any kind of Chinese surveillance going on with Huawei equipment. Lying and anti-market strategies seem to be the tool of choice of the US government to block the advance of societies that are not deemed to be part of their empire.

xster• 5 years ago

The NSA has been hacking Huawei for years. If it had anything concrete, it would have shared it years ago rather than forcing its NATO allies to dump Huawei based on vagueries like "I know we wiretapped your chancellor, but trust us, Huawei is evil, we're just not going to prove it to you".

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2488962/nsa-hacked-int...

_jal2• 5 years ago

If it had anything concrete, it would have shared it years ago

1) This is the NSA. They only talk when attention serves their goals.

2) They may well have, just not with you. We have no idea what conversations have happened amongst NATO members (let alone among 5 Eyes).

kevin_thibedeau2• 5 years ago

we're just not going to prove it to you

How do you know there is no proof? Unlike some dimwitted administrators, the US doesn't have a policy of disclosing actively classified information.

jjcon• 5 years ago

I don't think anyone needs to prove malfeasance here - a threat to national security doesn't require wrongdoing, only the existence of attack vectors by a foreign hostile nation/entity. Publishing those attack vectors would be a hilariously terrible idea as it would have ramifications in every country with Huawei in its infrastructure. Plenty of products are deemed essential and produced domestically or only by close allies, this goes for just about every country, I'm not sure why communications infrastructure is somehow different.

MichaelZuo• 5 years ago

The US already has secret and higher security internet networks for the communication that is deemed ‘essential’. And I would bet there are no products that have not gone thorough vetting deployed on those networks.

fouric7• 5 years ago

There is a very large amount of evidence that the CCP can and does exert its influence to "encourage" vendors to support its policies, such as the censorship of terms like "Free Tibet", "Long live Taiwan independence", and "democracy movement" on consumer-grade hardware[1].

If Xiaomi's consumer-facing devices are subject to this, that suggests that Huawei's enterprise-facing products are subject to the same.

Moreover, they're not doing something like forbidding Chinese-made devices to be sold in the US - instead, they're providing a program to reimburse telecoms for replacing Chinese-made networking hardware - and for national security reasons, which (as other commentators have correctly pointed out) does not require proof (or even accusations) of a backdoor in order to be valid - you can merely be concerned about your supply chain for critical infrastructure.

Furthermore, if the government had discovered a backdoor, there's a strong incentive for it to keep that knowledge hidden, as revealing the nature of the backdoor (or which one they found, if there are several) would give an advantage to those who placed it there.

Lying and anti-market strategies seem to be the tool of choice of the US government to block the advance of societies that are not deemed to be part of their empire.

As a matter of fact, your whole comment is illogical flamebait that does not deserve to be on HN.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/lithuania-say...

nickdothutton• 5 years ago

For background, a couple of posts on the Huawei 5G debacle. From the UK viewpoint, but at least partly relevant to other western powers. https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g/ https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g-the-uk-gets-a-lesson-in-g...

Railsify• 5 years ago

NOK

whoevercares2• 5 years ago

Make sense for the US to do - though again can be easily used by CCP to incite nationalism. Although more and more people in China does not admire US as a whole anymore, after Trump, Afghanistan shitshow

archsurface• 5 years ago

Will be interesting to see how this plays out in other countries such as South Africa which has Huawei infrastructure and Huawei 5g routers in homes.

toomanybeersies3• 5 years ago

Here's a pretty interesting article on that exact topic from a couple of years back [1]. The closing paragraph sums up the (South African) author's sentiment:

But, if the tech cold war comes down to a choice between Chinese or American internets and technology, Africa’s choice has already been made. Its current internet and technology boom is in significant part because of the investment of Chinese tech companies and the sale of affordable, quality components.

[1] https://mg.co.za/article/2019-03-06-china-wins-the-tech-war-...

ano88888• 5 years ago

US really need to think hard on why Huawei gets ahead in 5G. And how can they make US telecoms more innovative. I think they should introduce more competitions.

rizpanjwani2• 5 years ago

From what I understand, Huawei got "ahead" in 5G by stealing Nortel's IP and running it into ground by the way of spycraft.

signa11• 5 years ago

and csco too.

hutzlibu2• 5 years ago

That they copied IP, no doubt, but "running it into ground by the way of spycraft" I would like some sources?

est4• 5 years ago

Nortel is a Canadian company.

Does this mean it belongs to America's 5G portfolio?

LatteLazy5• 5 years ago

You can't get ahead by copying, you can only get to the same level. So how did they get ahead?

throwaway2102223• 5 years ago

US really need to think hard on why Huawei gets ahead in 5G.

Good question, and a lot of of the answer is truly banal.

The GSM/UMTS/LTE/… telephone network was designed on the concept of standardised, layered message protocols. And itself built on the ISDN standards.

The idea was to foster competition by allowing a Siemens HLR to communicate with an Ericsonn MSC and support a Nokia radio network. This meant that you had to licence a particular protocol whenever you added a new piece of equipment - on both ends.

What Hauwei did is offer two licencing models: a pricey licence if you wanted to connect non-Hauwei kit (X) to an Hauwei network element, and a really, really, really cheap (often free) licence if you wanted to use the licence to connect said box to Hauwei's version of whatever X was (also cheap).

The numbers worked out to make adding new equipment vendors prohibitive.

So once you have enough Hauwei equipment, it spread quickly.

Then they offer to run it for you.

quantum_state• 5 years ago

It is sad to find so many folks have been brainwashed without being aware of it …

beloch• 5 years ago

The swap of Meng Whenzhou for the two Canadian Michaels demonstrates why it doesn't matter if Huawei's equipment is trustworthy or not.

Canada was obeying international treaties when it detained Meng. The Chinese state took Canadian hostages and held them in questionable conditions until they were eventually able to force a swap. It is now clear that the Chinese government expects certain Chinese executives and corporations to be above both international law and the law of foreign countries in which they operate.

If your country permits Huawei to do business within it's borders, that puts your own citizens at risk of being taken hostage. Let's not kid ourselves that national governments care more about people than economics, but letting foreign countries take your citizens hostage without repercussion can threaten your chances of being reelected.

Thanks to this episode, public opinion in Canada is now overwhelmingly against letting Huawei operate in Canada. Given this and pressure from its allies in the five eyes, it seems almost inconceivable that the Canadian government won't soon ban Huawei from participation in 5G networks.

This episode has also raised questions about permitting the operations of other Chinese corporations that are too closely associated with the Chinese government. e.g. If a Chinese mining corp operating in a foreign country had it's operations shut down for environmental law infractions, would there be reprisals in the form of trade sanctions, etc. from China?

This kind of lawless behaviour is going to have a chilling effect on all commerce with Chinese companies.

bllguo2• 5 years ago

letting foreign countries take your citizens hostage without repercussion can threaten your chances of being reelected.

Hence why two Canadian spies were detained.

How this episode could possibly be framed as Chinese aggression, I have no idea.

Your claims are also disingenuous. Why do you emphasize "international"? Only one party was interested in prosecuting Meng on ridiculous charges - the US.

null0pointer• 5 years ago

Present any evidence at all that they were spies. I'll wait.

oyashirochama2• 5 years ago

Imagine being so brainwashed as to think the two Michaels were anything but tourists and expats living in a foreign country, they had lives friends and family in China with no reason to be spies.

One of them was a great friend of SerpentZa and C-Milk, and a contributing factor for running out of China for them.

silexia• 5 years ago

Almost every international company that has tried to do business in China has had it's IP stolen, and quite often has been blocked from ever really being profitable. I remember in Business school in 2008, the hot trend was businesses trying to open markets in China and offshore there. Is this still the case? Why would any responsible CEO do business in China after seeing what happened to the two Canadians, what happened in Hong Kong, and seeing countless international businesses robbed?

hutzlibu2• 5 years ago

Again, there is sooo much talk around it in all directions.

But has there actually been a backdoor exposed?

With all the attention turned towards it and that it has been a topic in geopolitics since years - there should have been some ressources allocated towards some reverse engeneering, that clearly shows it is not trustworthy?

If not, why not? I mean it surely is not easy - but I always only hear blame without proof.

(And I don't need proof, that the ccp is not nice. I know that.)

In either case, my takeaway is, that we need more open hardware, that can be easily verified to do what it claims.

bagacrap2• 5 years ago

by the time they actually find a vulnerability, it will be a little late to do anything about it.

And if the US govt intelligence community did find a backdoor, what makes you think they'd tell you or me about it?

est4• 5 years ago

Next step: insert domestic backdoors and patriotic data monitoring.

perryizgr8• 5 years ago

Maybe it is different when it comes to enterprise equipment, but for consumer routers and APs I find Huawei's offerings to be extremely poorly designed. They have the minimum amount of hardware capability, badly designed bug-ridden ugly software, missing and misleading configurations. I would never buy a Huawei product unless I absolutely had to have the cheapest crap in the market. If people/ISPs would just pay for quality, Huawei would be out of business tomorrow.

LatteLazy5• 5 years ago

It is different sadly. For a long time Huawei were the only company offering actual 5G base stations for instance (they might still be). That's one reason they are in so many infrastructure systems right now...

U.S. to open program to replace Huawei equipment in U.S. networks

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