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"National security" has been increasingly been used over the last 5 years as a justification for measures that are actually much more broadly geopolitical in na

"National security" has been increasingly been used over the last 5 years as a justification for measures that are actually much more broadly geopolitical in nature. A private individual using a Huawei phone or router isn't a national security threat to the US. However, in a broader sense, the US government sees the technological development of China as a threat to American strategic dominance, and has been taking ever more drastic measures to try to hobble the Chinese tech sector. The campaign against Huawei, which began a few years ago, was the opening shot. Blacklisting various Chinese semiconductor companies (which does not only prevent American companies from doing business with them, but which also threatens companies around the world with secondary sanctions if they do business with the targeted companies) was a further escalation. This was also justified as a "national security" measure, with the claim that these companies do business with the Chinese military (these claims were not publicly backed up by evidence, of course). Biden dramatically escalated the "tech war" recently with even broader sanctions against much of the Chinese high-tech sector. The "national security" justification has become so broad that virtually any business with China is now being construed as a national security threat. Americans should consider if they really want to turn their relationship with the world's largest economy into one that is purely hostile.

googlryas 4y ago
Why would this be considered souring the relationship, when it is child's play compared to the restrictions put on Americans selling in China?
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  Apple is the #1 smartphone brand in China. American companies are much more active in the Chinese market than vice-versa. If China starts reacting in kind, a lot of American companies will be in for a world of hurt.
  - loandbehold 4y ago
    Manufactured in China, with forced technology transfer.
    - Animatronio 4y ago
      Who forced Apple to enter China? Didn't they know the situation beforehand?
    - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
      Assembled in China, by a Taiwanese company, mostly using imported chips, with most of the profit going to Apple. And there's no forced technology transfer (who would they transfer it to - the Taiwanese company Foxconn?).
genmud 4y ago
Consumer devices with sufficient adoption are most definitely a national security threat. Let’s for a moment imagine Iran (instead of china) has a significant amount of the low end consumer cameras sold in the US. Imagine they push propaganda, or build in a back door to control them.
snovv_crash 4y ago
Chinese government takes a much stronger involvement in their companies than the US government. Do you know the chaos that would ensue if every Huawei router injected 100+V into the LAN cables connected to it at a fixed time? What if the phones all caught fire at the same time as well, and all the 5G modems jammed everything from GPS to WiFi bands, including aircraft communication, sattelite comms etc. This could easily bring a country to it's knees for a week, never mind the time spent cleaning up and purging the mess. Compare that, and the US's still ongoing reaction, to just two buildings in NYC being destroyed over 20 years ago.
lordfrito 4y ago
> Americans should consider if they really want to turn their relationship with the world's largest economy into one that is purely hostile. The relationship is far from "purely hostile". We're giant trading partners. The relationship is mutually beneficial. As was said here, our restrictions on Chinese companies are nothing compared to their restrictions on ours. And they've built their economy using so much stolen IP that's it's hard to believe this wasn't CCP policy coming from the top. [1] [2] It's also not hard to imagine CCP hackers using homegrown telecommunications equipment as part of this IP "procurement" process. Personally I think a move like this is long overdue. As has been said here, what's wrong with deciding who your friends are and aren't? We're trading partners, that doesn't necessarily make us allies. Yes this is geopolitical, and if geopolitical issues aren't issues of national security, I don't know what is. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/1-in-5-companies-say-china-stole-their-ip-within-the-last-year-cnbc.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/1-in-5-companies-say-china-s... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_intellectual_property_theft_by_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_intellectual_pr...
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  > As was said here, our restrictions on Chinese companies are nothing compared to their restrictions on ours. This is something that is widely believed in the US, but which is not actually true. American companies have very large market shares in many sectors of the Chinese economy. Chinese companies are not active in the US market on any comparable level. China used to have many more restrictions on market entry, but that was during a time in which investment was almost entirely in one direction (into China). Those restrictions were meant to prevent foreign companies from completely supplanting Chinese companies, which were technologically far behind and incapable of competing with foreign giants like Volkswagen. The deal was that foreign companies got to exploit cheap labor in China and gain a dominant position in China's growing market, and in exchange, they took on local joint-venture partners, to which they transferred some amount of technology. As China has developed, those restrictions have been dropped from most sectors. > As has been said here, what's wrong with deciding who your friends are and aren't? There's a very big difference between not "being friends" and implementing broad sanctions intended to bankrupt another country's entire high-tech sector. The US is attempting to prevent any company anywhere in the world from doing business with any major Chinese tech company. This is really an unprecedented level of economic warfare, at least in the last several decades. I don't think many Americans are aware of how far their government has gone here.
galdosdi 4y ago
> "National security" has been increasingly been used over the last 5 years as a justification for measures that are actually much more broadly geopolitical in nature. That's what national security IS, dude.
throwaway4good 4y ago
The US will just keep increasing bans and sanctions as the Chinese stategy seem to be not to respond in kind, but instead build capacity to become independent of US-controlled technology, something that might take a decade.
Normille 4y ago
Frankly, I don't really give toss if the US decides not to trade with X, Y and Z. That's the US's business. What boils my piss is the certain knowledge that their lickspittle acolytes in EU, UK and AUS will dutifully follow suit. Living in a snivelling vassal state is so embarrassing. The more so when Brexit voting fuckwitts bleat about 'taking back control'.

googlryas 4y ago

Why would this be considered souring the relationship, when it is child's play compared to the restrictions put on Americans selling in China?

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
Apple is the #1 smartphone brand in China. American companies are much more active in the Chinese market than vice-versa. If China starts reacting in kind, a lot of American companies will be in for a world of hurt.
- loandbehold 4y ago
  Manufactured in China, with forced technology transfer.
  - Animatronio 4y ago
    Who forced Apple to enter China? Didn't they know the situation beforehand?
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    Assembled in China, by a Taiwanese company, mostly using imported chips, with most of the profit going to Apple. And there's no forced technology transfer (who would they transfer it to - the Taiwanese company Foxconn?).

genmud 4y ago

Consumer devices with sufficient adoption are most definitely a national security threat. Let’s for a moment imagine Iran (instead of china) has a significant amount of the low end consumer cameras sold in the US. Imagine they push propaganda, or build in a back door to control them.

snovv_crash 4y ago

Chinese government takes a much stronger involvement in their companies than the US government. Do you know the chaos that would ensue if every Huawei router injected 100+V into the LAN cables connected to it at a fixed time? What if the phones all caught fire at the same time as well, and all the 5G modems jammed everything from GPS to WiFi bands, including aircraft communication, sattelite comms etc. This could easily bring a country to it's knees for a week, never mind the time spent cleaning up and purging the mess. Compare that, and the US's still ongoing reaction, to just two buildings in NYC being destroyed over 20 years ago.

lordfrito 4y ago

> Americans should consider if they really want to turn their relationship with the world's largest economy into one that is purely hostile. The relationship is far from "purely hostile". We're giant trading partners. The relationship is mutually beneficial. As was said here, our restrictions on Chinese companies are nothing compared to their restrictions on ours. And they've built their economy using so much stolen IP that's it's hard to believe this wasn't CCP policy coming from the top. [1] [2] It's also not hard to imagine CCP hackers using homegrown telecommunications equipment as part of this IP "procurement" process. Personally I think a move like this is long overdue. As has been said here, what's wrong with deciding who your friends are and aren't? We're trading partners, that doesn't necessarily make us allies. Yes this is geopolitical, and if geopolitical issues aren't issues of national security, I don't know what is. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/1-in-5-companies-say-china-stole-their-ip-within-the-last-year-cnbc.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/1-in-5-companies-say-china-s... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_intellectual_property_theft_by_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_intellectual_pr...

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
> As was said here, our restrictions on Chinese companies are nothing compared to their restrictions on ours. This is something that is widely believed in the US, but which is not actually true. American companies have very large market shares in many sectors of the Chinese economy. Chinese companies are not active in the US market on any comparable level. China used to have many more restrictions on market entry, but that was during a time in which investment was almost entirely in one direction (into China). Those restrictions were meant to prevent foreign companies from completely supplanting Chinese companies, which were technologically far behind and incapable of competing with foreign giants like Volkswagen. The deal was that foreign companies got to exploit cheap labor in China and gain a dominant position in China's growing market, and in exchange, they took on local joint-venture partners, to which they transferred some amount of technology. As China has developed, those restrictions have been dropped from most sectors. > As has been said here, what's wrong with deciding who your friends are and aren't? There's a very big difference between not "being friends" and implementing broad sanctions intended to bankrupt another country's entire high-tech sector. The US is attempting to prevent any company anywhere in the world from doing business with any major Chinese tech company. This is really an unprecedented level of economic warfare, at least in the last several decades. I don't think many Americans are aware of how far their government has gone here.

galdosdi 4y ago

> "National security" has been increasingly been used over the last 5 years as a justification for measures that are actually much more broadly geopolitical in nature. That's what national security IS, dude.

throwaway4good 4y ago

The US will just keep increasing bans and sanctions as the Chinese stategy seem to be not to respond in kind, but instead build capacity to become independent of US-controlled technology, something that might take a decade.

Normille 4y ago

Frankly, I don't really give toss if the US decides not to trade with X, Y and Z. That's the US's business. What boils my piss is the certain knowledge that their lickspittle acolytes in EU, UK and AUS will dutifully follow suit. Living in a snivelling vassal state is so embarrassing. The more so when Brexit voting fuckwitts bleat about 'taking back control'.