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Has anyone else noticed the increased "scrutiny" the US has been putting on Chinese companies recently? Huawei seems to be the biggest example and its worrying

Has anyone else noticed the increased "scrutiny" the US has been putting on Chinese companies recently? Huawei seems to be the biggest example and its worrying me because they are starting to strong arm EU allies to follow in their footsteps. Both Germany and the UK have cleared Huawei to take put in 5g rollouts against the USA's wishes. I'm not sure who to side with here, the company with multiple allegations against it or the country which is known to do exactly the same thing except maybe worse...? Try not to dismiss this because its not dripping in pro-usa sentiment, i'm interested to hear what people inside the bubble think.

NotPaidToPost 7y ago
Telecommunication is of strategic importance and the West has had a monopoly on it. This monopoly had ended and that makes some people uncomfortable. > Both Germany and the UK have cleared Huawei to take put in 5g rollouts France has as well, as they said that all suppliers will be treated equally and subject to the same security tests.
- swarnie_ 7y ago
  > France has as well, as they said that all suppliers will be treated equally and subject to the same security tests. This is the bit that gets me. I simply don't believe you would approve a supplier with a question mark over them without running it past GCHQ/MI5/MI6 ect..... Presumably Germany and France did the same thing with their security services. It leaves me wondering if the US know something their 3 closest allies don't or if their position is purely economic/ideological.
  - bildung 7y ago
    As apparently no one who opposes Huawei seems to be bothered with e.g. Ciscos security track record, it has to be either corruption or ideology.
  - tpetry 7y ago
    I guess it's mostly ideological. The US has been spying on europeans for _years_. All these leaks by Snowden showed really good how they threat europeans. Everything which has been leaked can't be used anymore. So if you want to continue spying on telecommunications you need to have some control. There's nothing more easy than a smearing campaign against the only other big telecommunications vendor and putting some pressure on the decision makers behind curtains. For any european country there's no difference between spying equipment from the US or China.
gloflo 7y ago
Absolutely, I find the increase of our politics and media attacking 'The Russians' and 'The Chinese' in recent years very concerning. Especially with the lack of reflection on our own actions both nationally and internationally. Like pervasive surveillance, hacking, military aggression and influencing elections, just to name a few.
- mschuster91 7y ago
  > Absolutely, I find the increase of our politics and media attacking 'The Russians' and 'The Chinese' in recent years very concerning. I rather find it concerning that Russia has been financing the far-right, nationalist and anti-European parties that have risen over entire Europe, and that China is using debt as political leverage to gain power over poor African countries. Add to this that many Western companies and politicians only look for the next quarter/election results and not 10, 20 or heaven forbid 50 years in the future... while this is precisely what Russia and China are doing. A splintered EU won't do a thing when Russia once again screws over human rights, and no one in deep debts to China (or with all manufacturing outsourced to China...) will dare criticize them when they start executing the Uyghur Muslims.
  - gloflo 7y ago
    Thanks for this fine example of proving my point.
SiempreViernes 7y ago
It was Obama that pivoted to putting China in the "big bad" portrait frame, though at the time scary foreigner wasn't an important part of the incumbents political strategy. China has also relatively recently gotten a more hardliner leader, which is bound to sour relations with "the West" to some degree as he imposes weird restrictions on human rights and reverses the trend towards openness of years prior. But the US now has an openly racist and explicitly nationalist (in US terms) president, so open conflict with the primary enemy was guaranteed from the start. For deep ideological reasons it is necessary for the current administration that there should be conflict with the rest of the world. With this sort of focus by the administration the media reporting is bound to follow to some extent.
tempguy9999 7y ago
> Try not to dismiss this because its not dripping in pro-usa sentiment I find your presumption, that other people are more biased than you, somewhat offensive. > i'm interested to hear what people inside the bubble think. I find your presumption, that other people are less capable of independent thought than you, very offensive. My experience from posting elsewhere is that a thoughtful post is surprisingly well taken even if it's not pretty. Actual case, I posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19783291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19783291 last night and expected to get crucified because... well, for obvious reasons. I very nearly didn't post. It actually got upvoted. So, steppenwolf, don't assume the worst of people.
Traster 7y ago
Well I'm from the UK and this was actually a big topic of discussion recently because the Prime Minister was briefed at the National Security Council, made a decision to allow Huawei and then it leaked that she was advised by the NSC not to. So it's not exactly uncontroversial. In my opinion it's very clear that the Trump admin is willing to just blatantly make up accusations to harm their economic adversaries. We all remember Trump sticking tariffs on goods for "National Security" that were nakedly economic protectionism. Having said that, it's also true that both China and the US are putting backdoors in technology to provide espionage opportunities. The question is though - are we likely to end up on the opposite end of the US in a war, or China? Well at the moment China is definitely more of a threat. So it's more dangerous having the Chinese back doors. That may well change though and the UK should absolutely be developing methods to mitigate all infrastructure attacks like these (and obviously putting our own backdoors in ARM chips where we can).

NotPaidToPost 7y ago

Telecommunication is of strategic importance and the West has had a monopoly on it. This monopoly had ended and that makes some people uncomfortable. > Both Germany and the UK have cleared Huawei to take put in 5g rollouts France has as well, as they said that all suppliers will be treated equally and subject to the same security tests.

swarnie_ 7y ago
> France has as well, as they said that all suppliers will be treated equally and subject to the same security tests. This is the bit that gets me. I simply don't believe you would approve a supplier with a question mark over them without running it past GCHQ/MI5/MI6 ect..... Presumably Germany and France did the same thing with their security services. It leaves me wondering if the US know something their 3 closest allies don't or if their position is purely economic/ideological.
- bildung 7y ago
  As apparently no one who opposes Huawei seems to be bothered with e.g. Ciscos security track record, it has to be either corruption or ideology.
- tpetry 7y ago
  I guess it's mostly ideological. The US has been spying on europeans for _years_. All these leaks by Snowden showed really good how they threat europeans. Everything which has been leaked can't be used anymore. So if you want to continue spying on telecommunications you need to have some control. There's nothing more easy than a smearing campaign against the only other big telecommunications vendor and putting some pressure on the decision makers behind curtains. For any european country there's no difference between spying equipment from the US or China.

gloflo 7y ago

Absolutely, I find the increase of our politics and media attacking 'The Russians' and 'The Chinese' in recent years very concerning. Especially with the lack of reflection on our own actions both nationally and internationally. Like pervasive surveillance, hacking, military aggression and influencing elections, just to name a few.

mschuster91 7y ago
> Absolutely, I find the increase of our politics and media attacking 'The Russians' and 'The Chinese' in recent years very concerning. I rather find it concerning that Russia has been financing the far-right, nationalist and anti-European parties that have risen over entire Europe, and that China is using debt as political leverage to gain power over poor African countries. Add to this that many Western companies and politicians only look for the next quarter/election results and not 10, 20 or heaven forbid 50 years in the future... while this is precisely what Russia and China are doing. A splintered EU won't do a thing when Russia once again screws over human rights, and no one in deep debts to China (or with all manufacturing outsourced to China...) will dare criticize them when they start executing the Uyghur Muslims.
- gloflo 7y ago
  Thanks for this fine example of proving my point.

SiempreViernes 7y ago

It was Obama that pivoted to putting China in the "big bad" portrait frame, though at the time scary foreigner wasn't an important part of the incumbents political strategy. China has also relatively recently gotten a more hardliner leader, which is bound to sour relations with "the West" to some degree as he imposes weird restrictions on human rights and reverses the trend towards openness of years prior. But the US now has an openly racist and explicitly nationalist (in US terms) president, so open conflict with the primary enemy was guaranteed from the start. For deep ideological reasons it is necessary for the current administration that there should be conflict with the rest of the world. With this sort of focus by the administration the media reporting is bound to follow to some extent.

tempguy9999 7y ago

> Try not to dismiss this because its not dripping in pro-usa sentiment I find your presumption, that other people are more biased than you, somewhat offensive. > i'm interested to hear what people inside the bubble think. I find your presumption, that other people are less capable of independent thought than you, very offensive. My experience from posting elsewhere is that a thoughtful post is surprisingly well taken even if it's not pretty. Actual case, I posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19783291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19783291 last night and expected to get crucified because... well, for obvious reasons. I very nearly didn't post. It actually got upvoted. So, steppenwolf, don't assume the worst of people.

Traster 7y ago

Well I'm from the UK and this was actually a big topic of discussion recently because the Prime Minister was briefed at the National Security Council, made a decision to allow Huawei and then it leaked that she was advised by the NSC not to. So it's not exactly uncontroversial. In my opinion it's very clear that the Trump admin is willing to just blatantly make up accusations to harm their economic adversaries. We all remember Trump sticking tariffs on goods for "National Security" that were nakedly economic protectionism. Having said that, it's also true that both China and the US are putting backdoors in technology to provide espionage opportunities. The question is though - are we likely to end up on the opposite end of the US in a war, or China? Well at the moment China is definitely more of a threat. So it's more dangerous having the Chinese back doors. That may well change though and the UK should absolutely be developing methods to mitigate all infrastructure attacks like these (and obviously putting our own backdoors in ARM chips where we can).