7 ms·

This doesn’t make any sense. It’s kind of funny. His statements imply that he’ll show the US by still being a powerful business... but I don’t see how that chan

This doesn’t make any sense. It’s kind of funny. His statements imply that he’ll show the US by still being a powerful business... but I don’t see how that changes anything about it’s relationship with the US? I think he’s just putting on a strongman face because otherwise this is going to substantially weaken Huawei as a company.

StreamBright 7y ago
Not to mention that Cisco and other networking equipment vendors benefit from the Huawei ban.
- the_seraphim 7y ago
  but micron would suffer, and other chip manufacturers
- close04 7y ago
  Make our backdoors great again... For the eager downvoters out there, consider that (to my knowledge) no actual case for Huawei backdoors was made so far (although we can all be pretty sure they exist). At the same time Cisco routers giving root access with a specific private key is considered a simple "could happen to anyone" bug. So yes, it's what I said above: someone will have backdoors in the infrastructure. From US perspective it better be the home team.
  - StreamBright 7y ago
    Actually there were several cases of Huawei backdoors, more recently found by Vodafone in Italy. I am a big fan of China but I think the problem is two fold regarding Huawei. China makes it very hard for foreign companies to enter the Chinese market and they often ignore IP. Having backdoors in networking equipment is a issue and you rightfully point out that the Chinese are not the only ones implementing such things.
    - close04 7y ago
      What I meant was a case for a "backdoor" rather than the typical "it's a bug" that you see with every other manufacturer. I didn't want to go into the way China does business. Just wanted to point out the hypocrisy of the justification used here.
      - StreamBright 7y ago
        Sure but isn't a backdoor a kind of bug that left there on purpose?
        close04 7y ago
        > on purpose Then that's the case that would have to be made I guess.
FooBarWidget 7y ago
Huawei seems to see the US bans as a way to bully Huawei, and perhaps a way to bully China as well. Some of the Chinese people I know think that the US wants Chinese to stay poor, that the US is jealous of the Chinese's success. The press release is basically painting the story of the underdog resisting against bullies, and thriving against all odds.
- space_fountain 7y ago
  I definitely think some Americans have exactly that opinion.
  - monetus 7y ago
    There are americans that think the earth is flat. I doubt the median educated american would want a billion+ people to stay poor.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      The 'median educated american' [sic] is not quite 'your average American' which is usually the demographic used for such statements. It's all about 'winning' now I guess and for one to win all others have to lose.
      - monetus 7y ago
        I use median, because thinking of the guy in the middle of the spectrum seems to make more sense than averaging it into an amorphous person. I like math, is all.. I'm not sure what your statement about winning means, are you okay? Negative neuroplasticity is a thing, dont despair. This situation is bullshit, I'm not sure if any superorganism is really winning in the long term. Some individuals maybe. Edit: I maybe should have used worldly, rather than educated; not quite sure of the precise word I was looking for. I didn't mean college educated.
        jacquesm 7y ago
ASalazarMX 7y ago
Could this be an instance of "saving face" as people do in East Asia?
- samsonradu 7y ago
  Is “saving face” an (Eastern) Asia thing? (genuine question)
  - shaobo 7y ago
    It is an everybody thing, why else would the phrase enter popular usage.
  - mc32 7y ago
    Saving face is on a continuum. In some cultures it’s more important than others. In some it has more impact on day to day lives. Is some cultures it encourages people to take responsibility and resign to “save face for a company or the state” even when it’s not that person’s fault but rather the fault of the position. So yeah I think the majority of societies practice this to lesser and greater degrees. Some have elaborate customs around it, in others it’s almost imperceptible.
    - eej71 7y ago
      I always find this distinction interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt-Shame-Fear_spectrum_of_cultures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt-Shame-Fear_spectrum_of_c...
  - SoReadyToHelp 7y ago
    No, they just do it in slightly different ways than Americans so it's framed as something exotic and weird instead of typical human behaviour.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - jasonshen 7y ago
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
This is probably necessary for his political survival in China. Huawei’s leadership bungled their position by overplaying their hand. Their mistakes have escalated into an international disagreement and a problem for Beijing. He needs to make sure sacrificing him is more costly than fighting Washington. Positioning himself with the public as a nationalistic martyr is one way to do that.
- swordsmith 7y ago
  Someone who reads between the lines
sehugg 7y ago
The relationship between Huawei and the Chinese government is a little blurry: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669
- bjourne 7y ago
  As is the relationship between the US government and The Trump Organization...
  - seppin 7y ago
    Poor comparison. If Apple and Motorola was run by the DoD that would be better.
  - 8note 7y ago
    is it really? Donald Trump runs both for his own profit as he sees fit.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Huawei's controlling ownership structure is opaque. They might be controlled by the PLA, or maybe just the Ren family by themselves. Employees get shares, but nothing in terms of controlling ownership, and it is all cashed out when they leave. On the other hand, even if Huawei is controlled by the PLA, so what? They are under Chinese jurisdiction anyways, so the Chinese government could already do pretty much whatever it wanted to with it. The same for an American company under American jurisdiction.
  - xfs 7y ago
    I did some research. Huawei's ownership system is so radical that probably no one in the West and few in China realized what it is. It is collective ownership in the socialist sense, or a commune. The paradox of this kind of ownership system is that the company is simultaneously owned by everyone and no one in particular, meaning all revenues and profits go back to all employees and reinvestment and no outside investors and financial capitals get anything, while nobody in particular can say I'll quit and take my share of the company - there is no 'private property' in the company. Legally the ownership of the company is set up to be 1% for Ren Zhengfei and 99% for a owner's committee under a legally sanctioned trade union. It's a strange setup because trade unions in China are lame ducks and usually don't do anything, but Huawei's ownership is set up this way so that the trade union 'owns' 99% of the company to represent the collective ownership, which is not what trade unions were legally intended for. It's Socialism in One Company, the leadership does not own anything but has the power to decide how to use everything, and it exploits its employee like the SU and China did in their early stage. This is unfathomable to the West so the only conclusion by the media could be opaque and government-owned.
addicted 7y ago
Well, to be fair to the founder, the US has already rolled back the restrictions it placed on Huawei, giving it a 90 day reprieve instead of imposing it immediately as they did earlier. So clearly Huawei actually does have some leverage here that the US did not originally factor in. That being said, I don’t see how it benefits Huawei for their founder to take this combative stance unless they think that the US is doing this solely to kneecap Huawei and there is no chance they will allow them to compete even if the allegations are proven untrue.
- b_tterc_p 7y ago
  I'm not sure I would attribute that to Huawei leverage so much as US Telecoms depending on them in the short term and needing time to switch. But yeah.
  - robbiemitchell 7y ago
    I'd call that leverage
- xfs 7y ago
  > I don’t see how it benefits Huawei for their founder to take this combative stance unless they think that the US is doing this solely to kneecap Huawei and there is no chance they will allow them to compete even if the allegations are proven untrue. That's a strange position. Please help me understand. The allegations are about national security threats. How does one prove his innocence in general? Huawei did what they can with the British by showing the source code and build processes, which was obviously far from enough. The US has gone out of its way to pressure its allies to ban Huawei, following a long and hard media campaign, ending with a deadly blow on Huaweis supply chain. The writing is on the wall. If the US is not doing this to cripple Huawei then what for?
- majia 7y ago
  Huawei is not taking a combative stance. It’s just Guardian took a few out of context quotes to make him looks like combative.

StreamBright 7y ago

Not to mention that Cisco and other networking equipment vendors benefit from the Huawei ban.

the_seraphim 7y ago
but micron would suffer, and other chip manufacturers
close04 7y ago
Make our backdoors great again... For the eager downvoters out there, consider that (to my knowledge) no actual case for Huawei backdoors was made so far (although we can all be pretty sure they exist). At the same time Cisco routers giving root access with a specific private key is considered a simple "could happen to anyone" bug. So yes, it's what I said above: someone will have backdoors in the infrastructure. From US perspective it better be the home team.
- StreamBright 7y ago
  Actually there were several cases of Huawei backdoors, more recently found by Vodafone in Italy. I am a big fan of China but I think the problem is two fold regarding Huawei. China makes it very hard for foreign companies to enter the Chinese market and they often ignore IP. Having backdoors in networking equipment is a issue and you rightfully point out that the Chinese are not the only ones implementing such things.
  - close04 7y ago
    What I meant was a case for a "backdoor" rather than the typical "it's a bug" that you see with every other manufacturer. I didn't want to go into the way China does business. Just wanted to point out the hypocrisy of the justification used here.
    - StreamBright 7y ago
      Sure but isn't a backdoor a kind of bug that left there on purpose?
      - close04 7y ago
        > on purpose Then that's the case that would have to be made I guess.

FooBarWidget 7y ago

Huawei seems to see the US bans as a way to bully Huawei, and perhaps a way to bully China as well. Some of the Chinese people I know think that the US wants Chinese to stay poor, that the US is jealous of the Chinese's success. The press release is basically painting the story of the underdog resisting against bullies, and thriving against all odds.

space_fountain 7y ago
I definitely think some Americans have exactly that opinion.
- monetus 7y ago
  There are americans that think the earth is flat. I doubt the median educated american would want a billion+ people to stay poor.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    The 'median educated american' [sic] is not quite 'your average American' which is usually the demographic used for such statements. It's all about 'winning' now I guess and for one to win all others have to lose.
    - monetus 7y ago
      I use median, because thinking of the guy in the middle of the spectrum seems to make more sense than averaging it into an amorphous person. I like math, is all.. I'm not sure what your statement about winning means, are you okay? Negative neuroplasticity is a thing, dont despair. This situation is bullshit, I'm not sure if any superorganism is really winning in the long term. Some individuals maybe. Edit: I maybe should have used worldly, rather than educated; not quite sure of the precise word I was looking for. I didn't mean college educated.
      - jacquesm 7y ago

ASalazarMX 7y ago

Could this be an instance of "saving face" as people do in East Asia?

samsonradu 7y ago
Is “saving face” an (Eastern) Asia thing? (genuine question)
- shaobo 7y ago
  It is an everybody thing, why else would the phrase enter popular usage.
- mc32 7y ago
  Saving face is on a continuum. In some cultures it’s more important than others. In some it has more impact on day to day lives. Is some cultures it encourages people to take responsibility and resign to “save face for a company or the state” even when it’s not that person’s fault but rather the fault of the position. So yeah I think the majority of societies practice this to lesser and greater degrees. Some have elaborate customs around it, in others it’s almost imperceptible.
  - eej71 7y ago
    I always find this distinction interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt-Shame-Fear_spectrum_of_cultures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt-Shame-Fear_spectrum_of_c...
- SoReadyToHelp 7y ago
  No, they just do it in slightly different ways than Americans so it's framed as something exotic and weird instead of typical human behaviour.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jasonshen 7y ago

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

This is probably necessary for his political survival in China. Huawei’s leadership bungled their position by overplaying their hand. Their mistakes have escalated into an international disagreement and a problem for Beijing. He needs to make sure sacrificing him is more costly than fighting Washington. Positioning himself with the public as a nationalistic martyr is one way to do that.

swordsmith 7y ago
Someone who reads between the lines

sehugg 7y ago

The relationship between Huawei and the Chinese government is a little blurry: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669

bjourne 7y ago
As is the relationship between the US government and The Trump Organization...
- seppin 7y ago
  Poor comparison. If Apple and Motorola was run by the DoD that would be better.
- 8note 7y ago
  is it really? Donald Trump runs both for his own profit as he sees fit.
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Huawei's controlling ownership structure is opaque. They might be controlled by the PLA, or maybe just the Ren family by themselves. Employees get shares, but nothing in terms of controlling ownership, and it is all cashed out when they leave. On the other hand, even if Huawei is controlled by the PLA, so what? They are under Chinese jurisdiction anyways, so the Chinese government could already do pretty much whatever it wanted to with it. The same for an American company under American jurisdiction.
- xfs 7y ago
  I did some research. Huawei's ownership system is so radical that probably no one in the West and few in China realized what it is. It is collective ownership in the socialist sense, or a commune. The paradox of this kind of ownership system is that the company is simultaneously owned by everyone and no one in particular, meaning all revenues and profits go back to all employees and reinvestment and no outside investors and financial capitals get anything, while nobody in particular can say I'll quit and take my share of the company - there is no 'private property' in the company. Legally the ownership of the company is set up to be 1% for Ren Zhengfei and 99% for a owner's committee under a legally sanctioned trade union. It's a strange setup because trade unions in China are lame ducks and usually don't do anything, but Huawei's ownership is set up this way so that the trade union 'owns' 99% of the company to represent the collective ownership, which is not what trade unions were legally intended for. It's Socialism in One Company, the leadership does not own anything but has the power to decide how to use everything, and it exploits its employee like the SU and China did in their early stage. This is unfathomable to the West so the only conclusion by the media could be opaque and government-owned.

addicted 7y ago

Well, to be fair to the founder, the US has already rolled back the restrictions it placed on Huawei, giving it a 90 day reprieve instead of imposing it immediately as they did earlier. So clearly Huawei actually does have some leverage here that the US did not originally factor in. That being said, I don’t see how it benefits Huawei for their founder to take this combative stance unless they think that the US is doing this solely to kneecap Huawei and there is no chance they will allow them to compete even if the allegations are proven untrue.

b_tterc_p 7y ago
I'm not sure I would attribute that to Huawei leverage so much as US Telecoms depending on them in the short term and needing time to switch. But yeah.
- robbiemitchell 7y ago
  I'd call that leverage
xfs 7y ago
> I don’t see how it benefits Huawei for their founder to take this combative stance unless they think that the US is doing this solely to kneecap Huawei and there is no chance they will allow them to compete even if the allegations are proven untrue. That's a strange position. Please help me understand. The allegations are about national security threats. How does one prove his innocence in general? Huawei did what they can with the British by showing the source code and build processes, which was obviously far from enough. The US has gone out of its way to pressure its allies to ban Huawei, following a long and hard media campaign, ending with a deadly blow on Huaweis supply chain. The writing is on the wall. If the US is not doing this to cripple Huawei then what for?
majia 7y ago
Huawei is not taking a combative stance. It’s just Guardian took a few out of context quotes to make him looks like combative.