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Britain knows it’s selling out its national security to Huawei

209 points by VieEnCode 7y ago

golemotron 7y ago
Britain is sending a signal to the US that is time to negotiate trade.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  I don’t thank anyone anywhere disagrees that now is the time for UK and US to work on trade. You could be the most strict “remainer” there is and have to accept this - regardless of 5G.
Scarbutt 7y ago
Good for Britain for standing on its own and not letting itself being used as another puppet in the economic war between U.S. and China.
- Covzire 7y ago
  Something tells me you don't do business is China. There is no material difference between Huawei and the Chinese Government.
  - yorwba 7y ago
    Do you have any interesting stories to share about your experience doing business with Huawei and/or the Chinese government? It's always refreshing to hear from someone with first-hand knowledge. (Comment edited to (hopefully) clarify tone.)
  - kmlx 7y ago
    > There is no material difference between Huawei and the Chinese Government. this is false.
    - HugoHobling 7y ago
      > There is no material difference between Cisco and the United States government. Agree? Edit: This isn’t intended as a rude or rhetorical question. I’m really interested in your answer.
  - nbevans 7y ago
    There is also no material difference between say Cisco and the American government. Or Siemens and the German government. Where does it end? The UK is, as of today, currently an independent nation and - on paper at least - nobody is its friend. The Huawei furore is akin to saying "public WiFi is not secure so why are you using it?".
    - Spooky23 7y ago
      That isn’t meaningfully true at all. Cisco or Siemens aren’t government controlled enterprises. They are subject to the law in their jurisdictions. Huawei is “owned” by a labor union that is controlled by the party. They are in effect an arm of government. There’s a difference in how AT&T operates vs how your state DMV operates. Control matters.
      - DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
        > Huawei is “owned” by a labor union that is controlled by the party. They are in effect an arm of government. That's a pretty thin argument. The employees' shares are managed through the union, because of laws that make it impossible for a privately-owned (i.e., not publicly traded) company to issue shares to large numbers of individuals. That union is a member of the national confederation of unions. It's a big leap to argue that that means the government runs Huawei. The connection is highly tenuous and indirect. What is certain is that Ren Zhengfei, the founder of the company, has veto power over all major decisions of the company. If you were to try to identify the person in control of the company, he'd be it.
        redis_mlc 7y ago
        You skipped over the fact that he is former army. Stop being a useful idiot.
Zenst 7y ago
Whatever provider of 5G hardware the UK picked - it was always going to be open to foreign power abuse. What they have done is take all three offerings and limit what percentage of the market they can have - effectively having the country 5G networks provided by a three supplies all having an equal amount of kit in the field. They are also taking the approach of presuming it is potential bad-actor and proactively planning around that. So a bit like putting an IDS/Firewall in place before you realise you need one, you could say. Is it ideal - nope, but the lack of local offering make that impossible anyhow. So plan for the worst and hope for the best, is not a bad plan of action in this instance.
- Craighead 7y ago
  Chinas authoritarianism is the worst in the world and you'd be wise to stop thinking every country is the same
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    Worst in the world? Probably not. But probably very very close. But that's not really relevant. What's relevant is what China will do to advance its geopolitical and economic interests. And how it uses 5G as an espionage tool to do so. And in my opinion, the US _is_ just as bad as China. I don't trust the US to be any more ethical than China. I completely expect the US to cheat and steal and ruin foreign corporations to advance its own. I think many nations would be equally as bad if they had the capability of the Americans or Chinese or Russians, too.
    - bad_user 7y ago
      I'm not keen on defending the US, but as an European seeing these two countries equated doesn't make sense. The US is a _liberal democracy_ and at least when it comes to Europe, they have been a valuable ally. Saying that the US is just as bad as China, a comunist country that routinely violates human rights and keeps its people in the dark via censorship, I for one don't think it's a rational thought process. And I'm speaking as a citizen of an ex comunist country in Eastern Europe. I know what censorship and living with fear of the state looks and feels like. When the US infects the world with their ideology, what we get is freedom of speech, Hollywood and Coca Cola. I'm horrified however of a world in which China's policies are normalized and their values exported. And before you say anything, think about how we wouldn't be able to have this conversation in China without fearing reprisals against yourself or your family.
aldoushuxley001 7y ago
Yup, and as a Canadian the worst part about this is it gives the government here an easy out to sell out our own national security, because we're just followng Britain's lead after all. They already broke up the Five Eyes.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  In my experience, our Canadian government sells us out to China even more readily than the UK government has; but at least we're not Australia, which is (no joke) basically on the edge of becoming a dependent territory of the PRC. To me, as a dual citizen, it is mystifying that the U.S. is allowing this to happen; if the PRC compromises half of the commonwealth, that seems like a serious threat to the United States, and to human rights as a concept and reality.
  - aldoushuxley001 7y ago
    I agree, but I had hope the Liberals would be under such intense pressure to ban Huawei that they’d be forced to, politically. Eg With the liberals being just a minority, the majority of the Canadian parliament got together and recently passed legislation for and subsequently set up a committee to review Canada-China relations, on the backdrop of China holding our citizens hostage and extraordinary Chinese intervention into Canadian governments (federal, provincial and municipal). But realistically I know better than to bet against a Trudeau selling out Canada.
unethical_ban 7y ago
Here's my biggest question of the whole thing: * Can governments not inspect the hardware themselves to see if there are physical backdoors? * Could they not, as a precondition for any provider, demand to see the source code of the radios? * If the ISPs tunnel the backbone traffic combined with more/most Internet traffic being secured anyway, wouldn't that minimize data leaks? * If you admit that the previous point isn't valid because of metadata concerns, doesn't that invalidate the US national security establishment's position on metadata towards the public? They have previously scoffed at such concerns ("It's only a phone number") but now it matters. * Wouldn't rogue equipment exfiltrating data be rather obvious?
- matthewheath 7y ago
  For points 1 and 2 at least, the UK has the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre where GCHQ can inspect all Huawei hardware as well as the source code, although it is run by former Huawei employees (overseen by GCHQ) so its independence is questionable.
  - timthorn 7y ago
    The staff are actively employed by Huawei, but all undergo UK security clearance to DV standard.
  - hardlianotion 7y ago
    I believe the centre cannot satisfy itself that the code they inspect is the code that is built into the hardware.
    - gnfargbl 7y ago
      Yes. ...it is not possible to be confident that the source code examined by HCSEC is precisely that used to build the binaries running in the UK networks. -- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/790270/HCSEC_OversightBoardReport-2019.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
swiley 7y ago
Telecom equipment should be free as in freedom if we’re going to give it exclusive use of portions of the spectrum. Proprietary wireless equipment is harmful surf-like enslavement of the people.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > telecom equipment should be free as in freedom The author agrees with you: “The U.K., for example, could force providers to work with open coding standards (“OpenRAN”) that would ensure interoperability between providers, thus lowering market entry barriers to future market entrants and disadvantaging Huawei, which has heavily bet on closed proprietary solutions.”
- pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
  Wow. this changes everything. you are very bright. thanks for helping society.
trimbo 7y ago
This is a really good article, worth reading all the way through. For me, this was the line that sums it up: > After Brexit, London sees itself as dependent on Beijing’s goodwill.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- trhway 7y ago
  Having more freedom to adjust regulations and needing new business/investments while still being part of Europe post-Brexit Britain can possibly find its future as the Chinese base and tunnel into Europe .
kmlx 7y ago
isn't huawei already powering every country's 4g/lte offering?
- thesimon 7y ago
  Yes and it's not that 5G is completely different from 4G anyway. Very much hyped up.
  - mtgx 7y ago
    Even so, if you distrusted Chinese products, then this would work as gradually giving them up as new tech is adopted.
  - otoburb 7y ago
    >>Yes and it's not that 5G is completely different from 4G anyway. Very much hyped up. 5G RAN (access) is very different. I'd agree that 5G Core not be that different at the most abstract levels compared to 4G LTE packet core, but the reality on the ground is that they are still sufficiently different enough that network operators are using 5G as a strong reason to re-evaluate suppliers and put major network components up for tender.
Nokinside 7y ago
You can control the security risk without following US lead. US and Five Eyes countries following US are banning Huawei for strategic reasons, not for technical reasons. Telecom infrastructure is strategic industry and US want's to prevent Chinese getting ahead. US can't compete directly because US is out from 4G/LTE/5G game and US based companies are only component providers (Qualcomm and others). >but nevertheless permitted it to compete for up to 35 percent market share in the country’s access network—that is, its antennae and similar equipment. There is magical thinking involved if someone thinks that base stations alone completely break national security. Mobile networks involve huge number of components. The components and the software in the mobile core network and services pose more risk than base stations. Interfaces are standardized and you can buy different components from different vendors. European network operators (especially if they have government contracts) have silently limited what they buy from Huawei. Base stations and most hardware is OK. Operating services, network control, visitor and location registers, mobile switching centers, network monitoring, and rest of the software that deals with the core network can be bought from others. Many EU countries just "happen" to have one or two carriers with strategically shielded core networks without formally banning Huawei.
- badrabbit 7y ago
  There are European vendors like ericcson. This is about being cheap.
  - adventured 7y ago
    This is a strange case where for some reason the EU isn't doing exactly what it very obviously should be doing: looking after its own self-interest and pushing European technology aggressively [1]. The EU should have taken the opportunity to severely deflate Huawei in the EU and push European alternatives. Europe needs to gain in tech and this is one easy way to do it, by supporting their own players, their own ecosystem. And it's a self-interest freebie at that: the US and EU interests are mostly aligned, there will be no push-back for supporting Ericsson & Co. The US would rather everyone use Ericcson than Huawei. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/29/21113289/european-union-eu-huawei-5g-networks-national-infrastructure-ban-usa https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/29/21113289/european-union-e...
mFixman 7y ago
Dumb question: why is Huawei the only available provider of 5G technology? Are all other companies too far away?
- Jefro118 7y ago
  It's the most viable at the lowest price point I believe. Other companies like Ericsson can also provide 5G but I think Huawei is furthest ahead yes. This has really been poor planning on the part of the UK government going back a few years - this decision has been coming for a long time but not enough effort seems to have gone into creating a better set of choices. Instead we are accepting Huawei despite believing they are a bad actor and only now starting to seriously plan for reducing our dependence on them.
- ddeck 7y ago
  They are not. From the article: >Yet Europe is home to two of the world’s leading vendors, Ericsson and Nokia; Samsung offers yet another alternative from a trustworthy democracy.
  - gabaix 7y ago
    Why are there no US vendors? It is rare to see a cutting-edge sector without the US.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - sangnoir 7y ago
      Cisco and Motorola are not interested in this market, and Lucent is no longer American. To answer your question: maximizing shareholder value is why there are no US vendors (that in turn, might be because of lack of competition behavior between Verizon and AT&T leading to lowered investment in infrastructure)
  - thesimon 7y ago
    Though I'm not sure if they are more secure, they also have offices in China.
avocado4 7y ago
Chinese government criticized UK's recent decision. - hard cap on the market share (35%) - no Huawei parts in core part of network - no Huawei in sensitive locations (military, energy) - Huawei declared as the only provider that poses national security to the UK It's not a complete ban but it sure is a blow to Huawei who has been expanding globally unopposed in the past decade.
OscarTheGrinch 7y ago
Can't we just buy Chinese stuff... and copy it? I'm only half joking. History teaches us that any technological shortfall can be remedied fairly quickly if you have a clear priority and the audacity to steal. 5G doesn't require imploding plutonium.
- johnchristopher 7y ago
  > 5G doesn't require imploding plutonium. Reading HN, I was under the impression that we didn't need 5G anyway (except for people streaming videos in stadium, which I haven't really understood why yet).
  - pmlnr 7y ago
    This. Especially because 4G is far, from being deployed everywhere.
  - carlmr 7y ago
    I can stream Netflix on my 25mbit/s. For personal use I absolutely don't care about 5G. For professional use it might give me better picture quality when I remote into work, but I think my work's VPN server is more of a bottleneck currently.
    - Reason077 7y ago
      > ”I can stream Netflix on my 25mbit/s. For personal use I absolutely don't care about 5G.” I can stream at 25 Mbps just fine on 4G+/LTE too. At off-peak times. I’ve even seen it hit 70, 80, 90 Mbps occasionally. The problem happens at peak times, usually starting around 6pm, when the network slows to a crawl and I can’t stream things reliably despite having 5/5 signal strength, because my carrier (Three UK) has sold too many cheap unlimited data plans and their 4G network is highly congested. 5G is needed because it greatly improves the data carrying capacity of given blocks of spectrum, meaning more users and higher speeds in areas that currently suffer capacity constraints. And honestly, 5G’s 200 Mbit+ speeds would just be nice to have to speed up things like downloading multi-GB OS updates and the like.
nickdothutton 7y ago
If the UK is limiting a vendor because it believes it to be malign, or more likely to be malign, or more susceptible to being turned malign by its Government, then limiting it to 30% or 3% isn’t going to help much. One fox in the henhouse is enough. As for being able to mitigate a “man in the vendor”, whether the “man” is acting according to the vendor or whether the vendor themselves have been coercively controlled or infiltrated matters very little. Mobile operators generally don't even run their own networks today, they outsource the management of the critical platforms to the vendors themselves who often finance the deal too. UK dropped the ball on this, but it dropped it 10-20 years ago, and now this kind of problem is going to keep coming up again and again. Some of you might enjoy this examination I made of the topic and the context for all this. https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g/ https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g/
- mtgx 7y ago
  It is clear they made this compromise because the telecoms didn't want to lose their investments. Pure and simple. Same in Germany.
- gnfargbl 7y ago
  From the NCSC themselves: The cap at 35% ensures the UK will not become nationally dependent on a high risk vendor while retaining competition in the market and allowing operators to continue to use two Radio Access Network (RAN) vendors. In other words, the limit isn’t there to mitigate the risk of Huawei being malign (there are other mitigations in place for that risk, such as keeping them away from sensitive network functions). The limit is there to prevent the operator from becoming entirely beholden to Huawei.
  - iso1631 7y ago
    In general no single supplier should provide more than 35% of any source. Anyone beholden to a single supplier is opening themselves up to be ripped off at best. Problems of course come when suppliers merge. I have contracts with 8 different supplier for my business, one goes bust, or jacks up prices, and I simply increase supplies of the other 7. Then those 8 companies start merging, and before long you're left with a single supplier, or at best a cartel.
oxfordmale 7y ago
The truth is that if China wants to hack the UK, it will. It might possibly be easier when 5G is built on Huawei equipment, however, other suppliers will inadvertentlg introduce security weaknesses which can be exploited by China as well.
tyingq 7y ago
I imagine the UK weighs Huawei equipment with potential Chinese introduced backdoors vs Cisco equipment with potential US introduced backdoors. Probably cases exist where Huawei is the safer choice. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa... Feels like there's a niche market for a UK, French, German, Australian, etc, line of equipment.
- aldoushuxley001 7y ago
  But the UK is part of the 5 eyes, it makes more sense to use US backdoors than Chinese backdoors, despite both being undesirable to say the least.
  - tyingq 7y ago
    That's weird and funny to me. Doesn't the UK have its own foreign policy that's distinctly different from the US view? Isn't there room for some selective divergence? Consider, for example, Ukraine, Syria, or Iraq. I wouldn't trust US sanctioned intelligence at all in those areas. Chinese influenced info might (sometimes/often) be more neutral.
- ethanbond 7y ago
  This is only true if you naively believe that being compromised by the US carries even remotely similar risk to being compromised by the CCP. One key difference: China is an adversary to the US and UK. The US is not an adversary to the UK. This strategic relativism is tired and indefensible in any version of reality.
  - tyingq 7y ago
    "The US is not an adversary to the ...UK." Not generally, but there are cases where they are. Ask Assange, for example. Surely the UK has information they would rather not share with the US in some cases.
    - 7y ago
badrabbit 7y ago
From what I understand, using Ericcson(european) instead would delay it by around a year and £4B. It is guaranteed the CCP will wage information warfare against the UK in the future. If there's a global war, China is the most powerful country based on current politics that will be the UK's adversary. Ability to limit or interfere with public communicarion infrasructure is an invaluable war-time advantage. For those that say this is just edge gear, I say that makes it even worse. Redundancy and access control is easier at the core than at the edge which lives in the field and direcrly interfaces with possibly hostile end devices. Even just a dumb antenna can be built in a way that makes it easier tl cripple or help with jamming/DOS.
- mark_l_watson 7y ago
  Thanks, you triggered an interesting thought: is the U.K. really likely to be an adversary of China? Based on reading James Rickard’s Aftermath and also Gaft Luft’s and Anne Klein’s De-Dollarization, I can list out how different the UK’s and the USA’s situations are re: China: China and Russia (with many smaller countries who are growing more resentful of the advantage we get having the dollar as the world reserve currency) are actively trying to undermine the dollar (let’s hope they fail, or that it takes a long time!) but they probably view the U.K. as a trading partner and as much as possible be cordial with. England is done with being the world mono polar superpower so they don’t show up strategically as a real adversary. For financial and ego reasons, the USA is trying to hold on to its status (although by over using tariffs and sanctions, we are being incredibly clumsy - we need to get our act together!)
  - badrabbit 7y ago
    UK is the US's closest ally,it will likely be something about taiwan,HK or elswhere outside mainland. And it will probably slowly escalate if I had to guess to where in one shape or form China attacks SK ,US military bases,hawaii or western US as a retaliation ,after which the UK will be presurred to join ,except the public would be divided and that's when comms will have issues: is it US or China hacking brits? China does not care for the west as a trading partner much more than as a stepping stone to reach elsewhere. The west uses economic advantages to arm twist domestic Chinese policy. If they have their grip on Africa, Asia and S. America who cares about the fading west? And the USA right now is vital for continued world peace and stability as a superpower. There many many nations that owe their geopolitical stability right now to the US being the sole super power. China has sheer volume but being maybe a third at most their population size the US dominates many things still. Technologically they're still behind in military appllications. The US woud squash China in a heartbeat in both conventional and Nuke warfare. And you have to undetstand how much SK and Japan (both important UK allies btw) are important to the US. Their loss too China will happen only after losing WW3. These are one ot many reasons why both China and Russia are working hard to dismantle the US and UK from the inside out as well as sow discord between them. UK fought with US in both Iraq and Afghanistan!!! Many brits died in America's wars already.
silasdavis 7y ago
Where is the part that explains why using Huawei equipment sells out national security? I have heard zero satisfying arguments. What is the proposed attack? How does it not apply to the penetration of Chinese made chips everywhere. Why should we trust US made chips and their companies' obligations to US national security apparatus any more? Or other countries? If strong trust in certain hardware is the requirement for some level of trust in the network then I think we are already lost.
siavosh 7y ago
I’m wondering if this is a negotiation tactic post Brexit as they’re about to enter trade negotiations with the US. Just a bluff bargaining chip to concede.
- mattrp 7y ago
  I think it’s not a neogiting tactic but an indicator that post-Brexit the UK will permanently seek to increase open trade with all parties. I also think in a zero trust environment one has to assume everything is compromised and deal accordingly. Finally I think UK has stronger ties than its peers due to its history in Hong Kong and it will seek to leverage that as the belt and road initiative develops to ensure it is not left out by a revengeful EU.
  - siavosh 7y ago
    I would imagine the UK would like to have its cake and eat it too, but the US will make them choose.
gnfargbl 7y ago
There’s a lot of speculation in the comments here around exactly what the UK is or isn’t doing, and why. The NCSC’s Technical Director has laid it out in detail: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/the-future-of-telecoms-in-the-uk https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/the-future-of-telecoms-in-.... The linked article points to the blog post, but then largely ignores the points it makes.
AsyncAwait 7y ago
Serious question, as an European why would I trust say Cisco more than Huawei?
- deltron3030 7y ago
  Surrounding culture the company is embedded in. As an European I'd always favor an US company over a Chinese one that's linked to a dictatorship.
  - AsyncAwait 7y ago
    I just saw this story regarding Afghanistan: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/28/admission-colossal-failure-us-dropped-record-number-bombs-afghanistan-2019 https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/28/admission-colos... Were any of the war criminals that lied us into Iraq prosecuted? Nope. Did the NSA modify Cisco routers and tap the phones of its EU allies? Yes. Is Guantanamo Bay still open? Did the U.S. just commit an international crime by assassinating a top Iranian diplomat? Am asking all these questions, because while the U.S. is still better domestically, (be it with huge cracks, even on that front), I'd say that internationally it isn't as clear cut as I'd once have agreed with you it is.
    - jquery 7y ago
      If you asked those same questions in China you would risk police visiting your house and taking you in for "questioning." This false equivalence between the USA and China is really obnoxious. It's not even close.
      - AsyncAwait 7y ago
        Domestically the U.S. is still better, abet getting more repressive by the day. Internationally however, and since I don't live in China more relevant to me, it's not so clear cut. I'm not saying China is more moral than the U.S., I am simply saying that when it comes to international behavior the case for the U.S. being clearly more moral isn't as clear. Personally, I'd prefer the EU to assert itself more independently from the U.S. so there's some counterbalance to it from democratic countries as well. As for specifically Huawei, I don't want the NSA to have my data, but I know they already do, per Snowden. The case for Huawei having them is a lot less clear. I know for some people it's 'obvious' that they do, but I'd like to work with cold, hard evidence. Now, the U.S. is known for its outrageous overreach far, far outside its borders, just look at the Kim Dotcom raid, so the NSA having all the data has been demonstrated to have extremely negative implications. The case against Huawei has not been made so convincingly and no, I do not trust the NSA/FBI to make the case.
hogFeast 7y ago
I don't know whether this is technologically sound but a few things to bear in mind: * Before they took this decision, the govt consulted with the UK's Cyber Security Centre (these guys are not meek civil servants...GCHQ end up owning every Home Secretary, they are powerful). * The distinction they made was between allowing Huawei into the "core" part of the UK's networks. * Because Huawei won't provide "core" infrastructure, there is no risk. Tbh, I am not an expert but this sounded very wrong to me. 5G is going to require building out a dense blanket of receivers...if you let them do this, then they are in...it doesn't matter. The suggestion was that sensitive data is only carried through certain infrastructure...I don't really buy this because it doesn't really protect 5G which is obviously a component of the network anyway, and I don't really believe that there is some kind of parallel internet out there for GCHQ only...but I don't know. To me, this sounded a lot like cheapness. The issue with lack of competition was brought up in the Parliamentary debate...that is a problem that exists but the way to solve that is not to buy equipment from unsafe providers (the Foreign Secretary seemed to accept btw, that Huawei was controlled by the Chinese govt).
amaccuish 7y ago
As someone who works in retail, a large number of the UK population support this decision, as they also buy Huawei phones. Huawei phones are incredibly popular and customers tell me they're very angry at the current anti-Huawei/China feeling at the moment. For those who don't have a lot of money, they really appreciate that Huawei makes phones for all kinds of incomes, not just £40,000+ a year. A lot of them (rightly imho) perceive the US action against Huawei to be out of fear that the US may not be topdog in an area of technology. >If the British government was truly concerned about market failures, it would not reward Huawei, which profits from unfair support by Chinese state capitalism, giving it advantages over its competitors from market economies. Is this not outrageous? That we're so intolerant of other kinds of economies that we must try and band and block so that people don't realise the disadvantages of our own system? If your system is so superior, let it compete on its own merits.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- kypro 7y ago
  > Is this not outrageous? That we're so intolerant of other kinds of economies that we must try and band and block so that people don't realise the disadvantages of our own system? If your system is so superior, let it compete on its own merits. What are you arguing? Would you want to live in an economic system similar to Chinas? Many economists believe there is a genuine merit to China's economic system, but that doesn't mean it's something we in the West should support. There is a social cost to China's state intervention. The largest being that it leads to corruption. Do you think Huawei can ever take a stance against the Chinese government? Of course not. China's economic system is basically just corrupt capitalism. It's not about who's got the best economic system, it's about who has the right values.
- w7 7y ago
  > Is this not outrageous? That we're so intolerant of other kinds of economies that we must try and band and block so that people don't realise the disadvantages of our own system? If your system is so superior, let it compete on its own merits. Is this a criticism of the West or China? Because China does this currently with multiple Western companies.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
niyikiza 7y ago
It all really comes down to being the cheapest option. Huawei has no monopoly on 5G technology. It just has the means (and government support) to make big R&D investments. This Twitter thread discussed that point of a view a few days ago:https://twitter.com/mikebutcher/status/1221842546881679360?s=19 https://twitter.com/mikebutcher/status/1221842546881679360?s...
gumby 7y ago
> London sees itself as dependent on Beijing’s goodwill. If only Britan could join together with others perhaps in a supra-national group of nations so that collectively they'd have more strength to resist large economies like China's.
tim333 7y ago
I would have thought for any communications that you are worried about the security off you'd encrypt them with https or similar. I've never really given thought as to whether there is a chinese bit of equipment in the chain of not when I do a bank transfer or such like and along those lines, as a brit I'm not that worried that some bit of the network may have a back door from Huawei or whoever. Is this really a problem?

209 points by VieEnCode 7y ago

golemotron 7y ago

Britain is sending a signal to the US that is time to negotiate trade.

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
I don’t thank anyone anywhere disagrees that now is the time for UK and US to work on trade. You could be the most strict “remainer” there is and have to accept this - regardless of 5G.

Scarbutt 7y ago

Good for Britain for standing on its own and not letting itself being used as another puppet in the economic war between U.S. and China.

Covzire 7y ago
Something tells me you don't do business is China. There is no material difference between Huawei and the Chinese Government.
- yorwba 7y ago
  Do you have any interesting stories to share about your experience doing business with Huawei and/or the Chinese government? It's always refreshing to hear from someone with first-hand knowledge. (Comment edited to (hopefully) clarify tone.)
- kmlx 7y ago
  > There is no material difference between Huawei and the Chinese Government. this is false.
  - HugoHobling 7y ago
    > There is no material difference between Cisco and the United States government. Agree? Edit: This isn’t intended as a rude or rhetorical question. I’m really interested in your answer.
- nbevans 7y ago
  There is also no material difference between say Cisco and the American government. Or Siemens and the German government. Where does it end? The UK is, as of today, currently an independent nation and - on paper at least - nobody is its friend. The Huawei furore is akin to saying "public WiFi is not secure so why are you using it?".
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    That isn’t meaningfully true at all. Cisco or Siemens aren’t government controlled enterprises. They are subject to the law in their jurisdictions. Huawei is “owned” by a labor union that is controlled by the party. They are in effect an arm of government. There’s a difference in how AT&T operates vs how your state DMV operates. Control matters.
    - DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
      > Huawei is “owned” by a labor union that is controlled by the party. They are in effect an arm of government. That's a pretty thin argument. The employees' shares are managed through the union, because of laws that make it impossible for a privately-owned (i.e., not publicly traded) company to issue shares to large numbers of individuals. That union is a member of the national confederation of unions. It's a big leap to argue that that means the government runs Huawei. The connection is highly tenuous and indirect. What is certain is that Ren Zhengfei, the founder of the company, has veto power over all major decisions of the company. If you were to try to identify the person in control of the company, he'd be it.
      - redis_mlc 7y ago
        You skipped over the fact that he is former army. Stop being a useful idiot.

Zenst 7y ago

Whatever provider of 5G hardware the UK picked - it was always going to be open to foreign power abuse. What they have done is take all three offerings and limit what percentage of the market they can have - effectively having the country 5G networks provided by a three supplies all having an equal amount of kit in the field. They are also taking the approach of presuming it is potential bad-actor and proactively planning around that. So a bit like putting an IDS/Firewall in place before you realise you need one, you could say. Is it ideal - nope, but the lack of local offering make that impossible anyhow. So plan for the worst and hope for the best, is not a bad plan of action in this instance.

Craighead 7y ago
Chinas authoritarianism is the worst in the world and you'd be wise to stop thinking every country is the same
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  Worst in the world? Probably not. But probably very very close. But that's not really relevant. What's relevant is what China will do to advance its geopolitical and economic interests. And how it uses 5G as an espionage tool to do so. And in my opinion, the US _is_ just as bad as China. I don't trust the US to be any more ethical than China. I completely expect the US to cheat and steal and ruin foreign corporations to advance its own. I think many nations would be equally as bad if they had the capability of the Americans or Chinese or Russians, too.
  - bad_user 7y ago
    I'm not keen on defending the US, but as an European seeing these two countries equated doesn't make sense. The US is a _liberal democracy_ and at least when it comes to Europe, they have been a valuable ally. Saying that the US is just as bad as China, a comunist country that routinely violates human rights and keeps its people in the dark via censorship, I for one don't think it's a rational thought process. And I'm speaking as a citizen of an ex comunist country in Eastern Europe. I know what censorship and living with fear of the state looks and feels like. When the US infects the world with their ideology, what we get is freedom of speech, Hollywood and Coca Cola. I'm horrified however of a world in which China's policies are normalized and their values exported. And before you say anything, think about how we wouldn't be able to have this conversation in China without fearing reprisals against yourself or your family.

aldoushuxley001 7y ago

Yup, and as a Canadian the worst part about this is it gives the government here an easy out to sell out our own national security, because we're just followng Britain's lead after all. They already broke up the Five Eyes.

microcolonel 7y ago
In my experience, our Canadian government sells us out to China even more readily than the UK government has; but at least we're not Australia, which is (no joke) basically on the edge of becoming a dependent territory of the PRC. To me, as a dual citizen, it is mystifying that the U.S. is allowing this to happen; if the PRC compromises half of the commonwealth, that seems like a serious threat to the United States, and to human rights as a concept and reality.
- aldoushuxley001 7y ago
  I agree, but I had hope the Liberals would be under such intense pressure to ban Huawei that they’d be forced to, politically. Eg With the liberals being just a minority, the majority of the Canadian parliament got together and recently passed legislation for and subsequently set up a committee to review Canada-China relations, on the backdrop of China holding our citizens hostage and extraordinary Chinese intervention into Canadian governments (federal, provincial and municipal). But realistically I know better than to bet against a Trudeau selling out Canada.

unethical_ban 7y ago

Here's my biggest question of the whole thing: * Can governments not inspect the hardware themselves to see if there are physical backdoors? * Could they not, as a precondition for any provider, demand to see the source code of the radios? * If the ISPs tunnel the backbone traffic combined with more/most Internet traffic being secured anyway, wouldn't that minimize data leaks? * If you admit that the previous point isn't valid because of metadata concerns, doesn't that invalidate the US national security establishment's position on metadata towards the public? They have previously scoffed at such concerns ("It's only a phone number") but now it matters. * Wouldn't rogue equipment exfiltrating data be rather obvious?

matthewheath 7y ago
For points 1 and 2 at least, the UK has the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre where GCHQ can inspect all Huawei hardware as well as the source code, although it is run by former Huawei employees (overseen by GCHQ) so its independence is questionable.
- timthorn 7y ago
  The staff are actively employed by Huawei, but all undergo UK security clearance to DV standard.
- hardlianotion 7y ago
  I believe the centre cannot satisfy itself that the code they inspect is the code that is built into the hardware.
  - gnfargbl 7y ago
    Yes. ...it is not possible to be confident that the source code examined by HCSEC is precisely that used to build the binaries running in the UK networks. -- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/790270/HCSEC_OversightBoardReport-2019.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

swiley 7y ago

Telecom equipment should be free as in freedom if we’re going to give it exclusive use of portions of the spectrum. Proprietary wireless equipment is harmful surf-like enslavement of the people.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> telecom equipment should be free as in freedom The author agrees with you: “The U.K., for example, could force providers to work with open coding standards (“OpenRAN”) that would ensure interoperability between providers, thus lowering market entry barriers to future market entrants and disadvantaging Huawei, which has heavily bet on closed proprietary solutions.”
pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
Wow. this changes everything. you are very bright. thanks for helping society.

trimbo 7y ago

This is a really good article, worth reading all the way through. For me, this was the line that sums it up: > After Brexit, London sees itself as dependent on Beijing’s goodwill.

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trhway 7y ago
Having more freedom to adjust regulations and needing new business/investments while still being part of Europe post-Brexit Britain can possibly find its future as the Chinese base and tunnel into Europe .

kmlx 7y ago

isn't huawei already powering every country's 4g/lte offering?

thesimon 7y ago
Yes and it's not that 5G is completely different from 4G anyway. Very much hyped up.
- mtgx 7y ago
  Even so, if you distrusted Chinese products, then this would work as gradually giving them up as new tech is adopted.
- otoburb 7y ago
  >>Yes and it's not that 5G is completely different from 4G anyway. Very much hyped up. 5G RAN (access) is very different. I'd agree that 5G Core not be that different at the most abstract levels compared to 4G LTE packet core, but the reality on the ground is that they are still sufficiently different enough that network operators are using 5G as a strong reason to re-evaluate suppliers and put major network components up for tender.

Nokinside 7y ago

You can control the security risk without following US lead. US and Five Eyes countries following US are banning Huawei for strategic reasons, not for technical reasons. Telecom infrastructure is strategic industry and US want's to prevent Chinese getting ahead. US can't compete directly because US is out from 4G/LTE/5G game and US based companies are only component providers (Qualcomm and others). >but nevertheless permitted it to compete for up to 35 percent market share in the country’s access network—that is, its antennae and similar equipment. There is magical thinking involved if someone thinks that base stations alone completely break national security. Mobile networks involve huge number of components. The components and the software in the mobile core network and services pose more risk than base stations. Interfaces are standardized and you can buy different components from different vendors. European network operators (especially if they have government contracts) have silently limited what they buy from Huawei. Base stations and most hardware is OK. Operating services, network control, visitor and location registers, mobile switching centers, network monitoring, and rest of the software that deals with the core network can be bought from others. Many EU countries just "happen" to have one or two carriers with strategically shielded core networks without formally banning Huawei.

badrabbit 7y ago
There are European vendors like ericcson. This is about being cheap.
- adventured 7y ago
  This is a strange case where for some reason the EU isn't doing exactly what it very obviously should be doing: looking after its own self-interest and pushing European technology aggressively [1]. The EU should have taken the opportunity to severely deflate Huawei in the EU and push European alternatives. Europe needs to gain in tech and this is one easy way to do it, by supporting their own players, their own ecosystem. And it's a self-interest freebie at that: the US and EU interests are mostly aligned, there will be no push-back for supporting Ericsson & Co. The US would rather everyone use Ericcson than Huawei. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/29/21113289/european-union-eu-huawei-5g-networks-national-infrastructure-ban-usa https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/29/21113289/european-union-e...

mFixman 7y ago

Dumb question: why is Huawei the only available provider of 5G technology? Are all other companies too far away?

Jefro118 7y ago
It's the most viable at the lowest price point I believe. Other companies like Ericsson can also provide 5G but I think Huawei is furthest ahead yes. This has really been poor planning on the part of the UK government going back a few years - this decision has been coming for a long time but not enough effort seems to have gone into creating a better set of choices. Instead we are accepting Huawei despite believing they are a bad actor and only now starting to seriously plan for reducing our dependence on them.
ddeck 7y ago
They are not. From the article: >Yet Europe is home to two of the world’s leading vendors, Ericsson and Nokia; Samsung offers yet another alternative from a trustworthy democracy.
- gabaix 7y ago
  Why are there no US vendors? It is rare to see a cutting-edge sector without the US.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - sangnoir 7y ago
    Cisco and Motorola are not interested in this market, and Lucent is no longer American. To answer your question: maximizing shareholder value is why there are no US vendors (that in turn, might be because of lack of competition behavior between Verizon and AT&T leading to lowered investment in infrastructure)
- thesimon 7y ago
  Though I'm not sure if they are more secure, they also have offices in China.

avocado4 7y ago

Chinese government criticized UK's recent decision. - hard cap on the market share (35%) - no Huawei parts in core part of network - no Huawei in sensitive locations (military, energy) - Huawei declared as the only provider that poses national security to the UK It's not a complete ban but it sure is a blow to Huawei who has been expanding globally unopposed in the past decade.

OscarTheGrinch 7y ago

Can't we just buy Chinese stuff... and copy it? I'm only half joking. History teaches us that any technological shortfall can be remedied fairly quickly if you have a clear priority and the audacity to steal. 5G doesn't require imploding plutonium.

johnchristopher 7y ago
> 5G doesn't require imploding plutonium. Reading HN, I was under the impression that we didn't need 5G anyway (except for people streaming videos in stadium, which I haven't really understood why yet).
- pmlnr 7y ago
  This. Especially because 4G is far, from being deployed everywhere.
- carlmr 7y ago
  I can stream Netflix on my 25mbit/s. For personal use I absolutely don't care about 5G. For professional use it might give me better picture quality when I remote into work, but I think my work's VPN server is more of a bottleneck currently.
  - Reason077 7y ago
    > ”I can stream Netflix on my 25mbit/s. For personal use I absolutely don't care about 5G.” I can stream at 25 Mbps just fine on 4G+/LTE too. At off-peak times. I’ve even seen it hit 70, 80, 90 Mbps occasionally. The problem happens at peak times, usually starting around 6pm, when the network slows to a crawl and I can’t stream things reliably despite having 5/5 signal strength, because my carrier (Three UK) has sold too many cheap unlimited data plans and their 4G network is highly congested. 5G is needed because it greatly improves the data carrying capacity of given blocks of spectrum, meaning more users and higher speeds in areas that currently suffer capacity constraints. And honestly, 5G’s 200 Mbit+ speeds would just be nice to have to speed up things like downloading multi-GB OS updates and the like.

nickdothutton 7y ago

If the UK is limiting a vendor because it believes it to be malign, or more likely to be malign, or more susceptible to being turned malign by its Government, then limiting it to 30% or 3% isn’t going to help much. One fox in the henhouse is enough. As for being able to mitigate a “man in the vendor”, whether the “man” is acting according to the vendor or whether the vendor themselves have been coercively controlled or infiltrated matters very little. Mobile operators generally don't even run their own networks today, they outsource the management of the critical platforms to the vendors themselves who often finance the deal too. UK dropped the ball on this, but it dropped it 10-20 years ago, and now this kind of problem is going to keep coming up again and again. Some of you might enjoy this examination I made of the topic and the context for all this. https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g/ https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g/

mtgx 7y ago
It is clear they made this compromise because the telecoms didn't want to lose their investments. Pure and simple. Same in Germany.
gnfargbl 7y ago
From the NCSC themselves: The cap at 35% ensures the UK will not become nationally dependent on a high risk vendor while retaining competition in the market and allowing operators to continue to use two Radio Access Network (RAN) vendors. In other words, the limit isn’t there to mitigate the risk of Huawei being malign (there are other mitigations in place for that risk, such as keeping them away from sensitive network functions). The limit is there to prevent the operator from becoming entirely beholden to Huawei.
- iso1631 7y ago
  In general no single supplier should provide more than 35% of any source. Anyone beholden to a single supplier is opening themselves up to be ripped off at best. Problems of course come when suppliers merge. I have contracts with 8 different supplier for my business, one goes bust, or jacks up prices, and I simply increase supplies of the other 7. Then those 8 companies start merging, and before long you're left with a single supplier, or at best a cartel.

oxfordmale 7y ago

The truth is that if China wants to hack the UK, it will. It might possibly be easier when 5G is built on Huawei equipment, however, other suppliers will inadvertentlg introduce security weaknesses which can be exploited by China as well.

tyingq 7y ago

I imagine the UK weighs Huawei equipment with potential Chinese introduced backdoors vs Cisco equipment with potential US introduced backdoors. Probably cases exist where Huawei is the safer choice. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa... Feels like there's a niche market for a UK, French, German, Australian, etc, line of equipment.

aldoushuxley001 7y ago
But the UK is part of the 5 eyes, it makes more sense to use US backdoors than Chinese backdoors, despite both being undesirable to say the least.
- tyingq 7y ago
  That's weird and funny to me. Doesn't the UK have its own foreign policy that's distinctly different from the US view? Isn't there room for some selective divergence? Consider, for example, Ukraine, Syria, or Iraq. I wouldn't trust US sanctioned intelligence at all in those areas. Chinese influenced info might (sometimes/often) be more neutral.
ethanbond 7y ago
This is only true if you naively believe that being compromised by the US carries even remotely similar risk to being compromised by the CCP. One key difference: China is an adversary to the US and UK. The US is not an adversary to the UK. This strategic relativism is tired and indefensible in any version of reality.
- tyingq 7y ago
  "The US is not an adversary to the ...UK." Not generally, but there are cases where they are. Ask Assange, for example. Surely the UK has information they would rather not share with the US in some cases.
  - 7y ago

badrabbit 7y ago

From what I understand, using Ericcson(european) instead would delay it by around a year and £4B. It is guaranteed the CCP will wage information warfare against the UK in the future. If there's a global war, China is the most powerful country based on current politics that will be the UK's adversary. Ability to limit or interfere with public communicarion infrasructure is an invaluable war-time advantage. For those that say this is just edge gear, I say that makes it even worse. Redundancy and access control is easier at the core than at the edge which lives in the field and direcrly interfaces with possibly hostile end devices. Even just a dumb antenna can be built in a way that makes it easier tl cripple or help with jamming/DOS.

mark_l_watson 7y ago
Thanks, you triggered an interesting thought: is the U.K. really likely to be an adversary of China? Based on reading James Rickard’s Aftermath and also Gaft Luft’s and Anne Klein’s De-Dollarization, I can list out how different the UK’s and the USA’s situations are re: China: China and Russia (with many smaller countries who are growing more resentful of the advantage we get having the dollar as the world reserve currency) are actively trying to undermine the dollar (let’s hope they fail, or that it takes a long time!) but they probably view the U.K. as a trading partner and as much as possible be cordial with. England is done with being the world mono polar superpower so they don’t show up strategically as a real adversary. For financial and ego reasons, the USA is trying to hold on to its status (although by over using tariffs and sanctions, we are being incredibly clumsy - we need to get our act together!)
- badrabbit 7y ago
  UK is the US's closest ally,it will likely be something about taiwan,HK or elswhere outside mainland. And it will probably slowly escalate if I had to guess to where in one shape or form China attacks SK ,US military bases,hawaii or western US as a retaliation ,after which the UK will be presurred to join ,except the public would be divided and that's when comms will have issues: is it US or China hacking brits? China does not care for the west as a trading partner much more than as a stepping stone to reach elsewhere. The west uses economic advantages to arm twist domestic Chinese policy. If they have their grip on Africa, Asia and S. America who cares about the fading west? And the USA right now is vital for continued world peace and stability as a superpower. There many many nations that owe their geopolitical stability right now to the US being the sole super power. China has sheer volume but being maybe a third at most their population size the US dominates many things still. Technologically they're still behind in military appllications. The US woud squash China in a heartbeat in both conventional and Nuke warfare. And you have to undetstand how much SK and Japan (both important UK allies btw) are important to the US. Their loss too China will happen only after losing WW3. These are one ot many reasons why both China and Russia are working hard to dismantle the US and UK from the inside out as well as sow discord between them. UK fought with US in both Iraq and Afghanistan!!! Many brits died in America's wars already.

silasdavis 7y ago

Where is the part that explains why using Huawei equipment sells out national security? I have heard zero satisfying arguments. What is the proposed attack? How does it not apply to the penetration of Chinese made chips everywhere. Why should we trust US made chips and their companies' obligations to US national security apparatus any more? Or other countries? If strong trust in certain hardware is the requirement for some level of trust in the network then I think we are already lost.

siavosh 7y ago

I’m wondering if this is a negotiation tactic post Brexit as they’re about to enter trade negotiations with the US. Just a bluff bargaining chip to concede.

mattrp 7y ago
I think it’s not a neogiting tactic but an indicator that post-Brexit the UK will permanently seek to increase open trade with all parties. I also think in a zero trust environment one has to assume everything is compromised and deal accordingly. Finally I think UK has stronger ties than its peers due to its history in Hong Kong and it will seek to leverage that as the belt and road initiative develops to ensure it is not left out by a revengeful EU.
- siavosh 7y ago
  I would imagine the UK would like to have its cake and eat it too, but the US will make them choose.

gnfargbl 7y ago

There’s a lot of speculation in the comments here around exactly what the UK is or isn’t doing, and why. The NCSC’s Technical Director has laid it out in detail: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/the-future-of-telecoms-in-the-uk https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/the-future-of-telecoms-in-.... The linked article points to the blog post, but then largely ignores the points it makes.

AsyncAwait 7y ago

Serious question, as an European why would I trust say Cisco more than Huawei?

deltron3030 7y ago
Surrounding culture the company is embedded in. As an European I'd always favor an US company over a Chinese one that's linked to a dictatorship.
- AsyncAwait 7y ago
  I just saw this story regarding Afghanistan: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/28/admission-colossal-failure-us-dropped-record-number-bombs-afghanistan-2019 https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/28/admission-colos... Were any of the war criminals that lied us into Iraq prosecuted? Nope. Did the NSA modify Cisco routers and tap the phones of its EU allies? Yes. Is Guantanamo Bay still open? Did the U.S. just commit an international crime by assassinating a top Iranian diplomat? Am asking all these questions, because while the U.S. is still better domestically, (be it with huge cracks, even on that front), I'd say that internationally it isn't as clear cut as I'd once have agreed with you it is.
  - jquery 7y ago
    If you asked those same questions in China you would risk police visiting your house and taking you in for "questioning." This false equivalence between the USA and China is really obnoxious. It's not even close.
    - AsyncAwait 7y ago
      Domestically the U.S. is still better, abet getting more repressive by the day. Internationally however, and since I don't live in China more relevant to me, it's not so clear cut. I'm not saying China is more moral than the U.S., I am simply saying that when it comes to international behavior the case for the U.S. being clearly more moral isn't as clear. Personally, I'd prefer the EU to assert itself more independently from the U.S. so there's some counterbalance to it from democratic countries as well. As for specifically Huawei, I don't want the NSA to have my data, but I know they already do, per Snowden. The case for Huawei having them is a lot less clear. I know for some people it's 'obvious' that they do, but I'd like to work with cold, hard evidence. Now, the U.S. is known for its outrageous overreach far, far outside its borders, just look at the Kim Dotcom raid, so the NSA having all the data has been demonstrated to have extremely negative implications. The case against Huawei has not been made so convincingly and no, I do not trust the NSA/FBI to make the case.

hogFeast 7y ago

I don't know whether this is technologically sound but a few things to bear in mind: * Before they took this decision, the govt consulted with the UK's Cyber Security Centre (these guys are not meek civil servants...GCHQ end up owning every Home Secretary, they are powerful). * The distinction they made was between allowing Huawei into the "core" part of the UK's networks. * Because Huawei won't provide "core" infrastructure, there is no risk. Tbh, I am not an expert but this sounded very wrong to me. 5G is going to require building out a dense blanket of receivers...if you let them do this, then they are in...it doesn't matter. The suggestion was that sensitive data is only carried through certain infrastructure...I don't really buy this because it doesn't really protect 5G which is obviously a component of the network anyway, and I don't really believe that there is some kind of parallel internet out there for GCHQ only...but I don't know. To me, this sounded a lot like cheapness. The issue with lack of competition was brought up in the Parliamentary debate...that is a problem that exists but the way to solve that is not to buy equipment from unsafe providers (the Foreign Secretary seemed to accept btw, that Huawei was controlled by the Chinese govt).

amaccuish 7y ago

As someone who works in retail, a large number of the UK population support this decision, as they also buy Huawei phones. Huawei phones are incredibly popular and customers tell me they're very angry at the current anti-Huawei/China feeling at the moment. For those who don't have a lot of money, they really appreciate that Huawei makes phones for all kinds of incomes, not just £40,000+ a year. A lot of them (rightly imho) perceive the US action against Huawei to be out of fear that the US may not be topdog in an area of technology. >If the British government was truly concerned about market failures, it would not reward Huawei, which profits from unfair support by Chinese state capitalism, giving it advantages over its competitors from market economies. Is this not outrageous? That we're so intolerant of other kinds of economies that we must try and band and block so that people don't realise the disadvantages of our own system? If your system is so superior, let it compete on its own merits.

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kypro 7y ago
> Is this not outrageous? That we're so intolerant of other kinds of economies that we must try and band and block so that people don't realise the disadvantages of our own system? If your system is so superior, let it compete on its own merits. What are you arguing? Would you want to live in an economic system similar to Chinas? Many economists believe there is a genuine merit to China's economic system, but that doesn't mean it's something we in the West should support. There is a social cost to China's state intervention. The largest being that it leads to corruption. Do you think Huawei can ever take a stance against the Chinese government? Of course not. China's economic system is basically just corrupt capitalism. It's not about who's got the best economic system, it's about who has the right values.
w7 7y ago
> Is this not outrageous? That we're so intolerant of other kinds of economies that we must try and band and block so that people don't realise the disadvantages of our own system? If your system is so superior, let it compete on its own merits. Is this a criticism of the West or China? Because China does this currently with multiple Western companies.

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niyikiza 7y ago

It all really comes down to being the cheapest option. Huawei has no monopoly on 5G technology. It just has the means (and government support) to make big R&D investments. This Twitter thread discussed that point of a view a few days ago:https://twitter.com/mikebutcher/status/1221842546881679360?s=19 https://twitter.com/mikebutcher/status/1221842546881679360?s...

gumby 7y ago

> London sees itself as dependent on Beijing’s goodwill. If only Britan could join together with others perhaps in a supra-national group of nations so that collectively they'd have more strength to resist large economies like China's.

tim333 7y ago

I would have thought for any communications that you are worried about the security off you'd encrypt them with https or similar. I've never really given thought as to whether there is a chinese bit of equipment in the chain of not when I do a bank transfer or such like and along those lines, as a brit I'm not that worried that some bit of the network may have a back door from Huawei or whoever. Is this really a problem?