4 ms·
Chinese officials say that the NSA tapped the phone of an allied nation's Prime Minister without their knowledge. If you remove yourself from the current spat
by camillomiller 7y ago
Chinese officials say that the NSA tapped the phone of an allied nation's Prime Minister without their knowledge.
If you remove yourself from the current spat between USA and China, how can we take for good what "US officials" say, when we all have PROOF, post-Snowden, of what US officials were actually doing?
The previous sentence is a direct quote of a top-3 executive of Huawei I've witnessed personally at a press conference.
He was absolutely right.
My point is: if you isolate statements like these, the discourse is going nowhere. Also, for the tapping of Merkel's phone we have proof, for most of the things "US officials" say, we have not, we're just asked constantly to trust what they say and take it at face value, but American institutions have squandered that luxury in the past 20 years.
This is also why telco companies in allied countries that have invested billions in 5G infrastructure from China are not really willing to cancel their plans only based on take-it-or-leave-it and trust-based intelligence.
- w7 7y agoHow does proof that the USA did something affect or change the risk that Huawei devices can pose? That's literal whataboutism. The alternative providers aren't even USA owned, they're European. Discourse is going no-where because some people have a fundamental misunderstanding that this is some sort of trial that requires proof, when in actually it's simple risk analysis. Discourse is going no-where because some people somehow think it's unfair for Huawei to be banned from networks, when China routinely bans Western companies based on domestic security/market risk alone. Discourse is going no-where because some people expect backdoors to have giant identifiable red flags, when instead they look like the openssl CVE's from 2006 that disappear and reappear in Huawei's firmware. Discourse is going no-where because some people seem to think this is some attempt by the US to maintain some surveillance hold on telecom networks, when they can just compromise Huawei gear anyways. Anyone sticking to Huawei hardware is doing it because it's extremely cheap, and they're either blind to (willingly or not) the risk or have factored it in (see UK's 35% deal).
- roenxi 7y agoThe future is very uncertain; but dealing with the immediate past the US are much more likely to use their intelligence to drone strike somebody or invade a country. I would personally rather be spied on by the US than by China, but I can see how a rational person would choose the reverse.
- w7 7y agoThe problem is it's not a either/or situation. If China can spy on you, the US likely can as well with its likely greater resources.
- camillomiller 7y agoDiscourse is going nowhere because people think that it's fair for the American Government to enact restrictions on global companies based in America, in a way that makes it impossible for a company from another country to operate fairly on a market (Europe) where American Institutions have absolutely no jurisdiction. How is that even legal in a country where the free market is basically God? Free market as long as it's in the American interest?
- w7 7y agoThere is no "fair" here. China routinely puts soft pressure on foreign companies for making statements that it dislikes. That will likely expand in the future as China's soft power grows. See anything Taiwan, Tibet, or Hong Kong related. Clearly some other countries are still sovereign anyways and have gone against the US's wishes. No true free market exists.
- krtong 7y agoPeople often use "capitalism" or "free market" interchangeably with "laissez faire economics." What you're referring to is laissez faire, not "the free market." Laissez faire occurs in a capitalistic society but it's a subset of capitalism. Really it's an ideology more than anything, usually called names like "libertarianism." It also sort of defeats the point of the economic growth. Economic growth is for national security, specifically to fund and produce supplies for our armies. This is why we talk about economies in the context of nations. This is why nations frequently subsidize businesses or full-industries. This is why Alexander Hamilton sent spies to Britain to steal factory blueprints, or why Xi Jinping subsidizes Huawei, or why the PRC exists at all. America wrote the playbook that china's following. That's why you can trust what America says about China. That's why it's good if america does something but bad if another country does it. Nations are all just horses in the same race. You're supposed to pick one.
- oroul 7y agoWhat are we racing towards though? What is the goal? Nation vs. nation competition seems great up until the point human wellbeing becomes secondary to the ambiguous goal of 'national advancement' .
- lanternslight 7y agoYou would have to be adding that either US intelligence ops are so much more talented than Chinese ops, or that China is so much more principled than the US. Neither of which strike me as accurate. If the US is doing it, China is at least TRYING to do it.