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Germany ups reliance on Huawei for 5G despite security fears

28 points by ilamont 4y ago

pifm_guy 4y ago
Correction: Germany tries to stir things up with USA over disagreements over Ukraine strategy...
curiousgal 4y ago
What's the alternative? I mean so far, the only country who has actually been found spying on its allies has been the US. So it seems like it's all upside?
- tick_tock_tick 4y ago
  I mean Germany actively has the USA spy on German citizens for them. The last issue wasn't that the USA was doing it but rather "privileged" German citizen who weren't supposed to be on the spy list got on it.
- industriespion 4y ago
  Isn’t China pretty well known for their industrial espionage and totalitarian social-credit system? Look I love a good Obama / Merkel scandal meme but “US is the only one” is just so absurdly ignorant.
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    > totalitarian social-credit system The "Social Credit System" is a myth that just won't die, no matter how many times it's debunked. Go to China and ask people about their social credit scores. They'll have no idea what you're talking about. No such system of scoring individuals exists. The actual social credit system is for regulating businesses, and it's actually incredibly boring.
- KMag 4y ago
  This isn't remotely true, for instance: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oh-by-the-way-germany-spi_b_4184047 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oh-by-the-way-germany-spi_b_4... I also vaguely remember a 60 Minutes piece in the late 80s or early 90s about West Germans fulfilling their mandatory military service obligations by coming to the US and committing industrial espionage. Well before the US got caught, it was well known that the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have a mutual non-spying pact... and Germany knew it wasn't in on such a pact. It's well known that in the absence of non-spying agreements, spying is considered fair game. After Germany caught the US spying, did Germany demand its own mutual non-spying pact with the US? I'm not aware of any such public demands, but maybe I just missed them. If no demands were made, then presumably Germany was less shocked and less hurt than it let on. It probably turns out that, like most allies around the world, the US and Germany generally trust each other, but not to such a high degree that they're willing to give up the ability to check on each other now and then.
  - sschueller 4y ago
    There are 50k US troops on German soil. How much push back can Germany enact? It also is extremely dependent on the US for NATO.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
djohnston 4y ago
Guys it worked out fine with Russian gas dependence, don't worry Germany has this under control.
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  Another way of seeing this is that geopolitical issues have already destroyed one very important economic relationship that Germany has. Should Germany go now ahead and pre-emptively destroy its own most important trading relationship? Germany has no intrinsic geopolitical rivalry with China. China is on the other side of the world. Germany isn't allied with any country on China's periphery, and it's hard to see what any such military alliance would bring to Germany. The only geopolitical "problem" that Germany has with China is that the US sees China as a rival, and wants to prevent China's economic development, so that China does not overtake it as the pre-eminent world power. However, that's a US-China issue, not a Germany-China issue, and the smartest foreign policy for Germany would be to stay as far away as possible from the US-China conflict. In fact, the Germans have a very strong incentive to prevent the US-China conflict from escalating. The German government should make it absolutely clear to the US that if the US decides to go to war with China (over Taiwan, for example), that Germany will not be going along with the US. Germany's interest is to deter the US from taking risky decisions that might blow up the world economy. The US would be less likely to take such actions if it knew that Germany (and the EU, by extension) would not join in.
lost_tourist 4y ago
you'd think getting bitten by depending on the Russian (a belligerent government) would have taught them a lesson about depending on authoritarian countries.

28 points by ilamont 4y ago

Correction: Germany tries to stir things up with USA over disagreements over Ukraine strategy...

What's the alternative? I mean so far, the only country who has actually been found spying on its allies has been the US. So it seems like it's all upside?

tick_tock_tick 4y ago
I mean Germany actively has the USA spy on German citizens for them. The last issue wasn't that the USA was doing it but rather "privileged" German citizen who weren't supposed to be on the spy list got on it.
industriespion 4y ago
Isn’t China pretty well known for their industrial espionage and totalitarian social-credit system? Look I love a good Obama / Merkel scandal meme but “US is the only one” is just so absurdly ignorant.
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  > totalitarian social-credit system The "Social Credit System" is a myth that just won't die, no matter how many times it's debunked. Go to China and ask people about their social credit scores. They'll have no idea what you're talking about. No such system of scoring individuals exists. The actual social credit system is for regulating businesses, and it's actually incredibly boring.
KMag 4y ago
This isn't remotely true, for instance: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oh-by-the-way-germany-spi_b_4184047 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oh-by-the-way-germany-spi_b_4... I also vaguely remember a 60 Minutes piece in the late 80s or early 90s about West Germans fulfilling their mandatory military service obligations by coming to the US and committing industrial espionage. Well before the US got caught, it was well known that the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have a mutual non-spying pact... and Germany knew it wasn't in on such a pact. It's well known that in the absence of non-spying agreements, spying is considered fair game. After Germany caught the US spying, did Germany demand its own mutual non-spying pact with the US? I'm not aware of any such public demands, but maybe I just missed them. If no demands were made, then presumably Germany was less shocked and less hurt than it let on. It probably turns out that, like most allies around the world, the US and Germany generally trust each other, but not to such a high degree that they're willing to give up the ability to check on each other now and then.
- sschueller 4y ago
  There are 50k US troops on German soil. How much push back can Germany enact? It also is extremely dependent on the US for NATO.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

djohnston 4y ago

Guys it worked out fine with Russian gas dependence, don't worry Germany has this under control.

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
Another way of seeing this is that geopolitical issues have already destroyed one very important economic relationship that Germany has. Should Germany go now ahead and pre-emptively destroy its own most important trading relationship? Germany has no intrinsic geopolitical rivalry with China. China is on the other side of the world. Germany isn't allied with any country on China's periphery, and it's hard to see what any such military alliance would bring to Germany. The only geopolitical "problem" that Germany has with China is that the US sees China as a rival, and wants to prevent China's economic development, so that China does not overtake it as the pre-eminent world power. However, that's a US-China issue, not a Germany-China issue, and the smartest foreign policy for Germany would be to stay as far away as possible from the US-China conflict. In fact, the Germans have a very strong incentive to prevent the US-China conflict from escalating. The German government should make it absolutely clear to the US that if the US decides to go to war with China (over Taiwan, for example), that Germany will not be going along with the US. Germany's interest is to deter the US from taking risky decisions that might blow up the world economy. The US would be less likely to take such actions if it knew that Germany (and the EU, by extension) would not join in.

lost_tourist 4y ago

you'd think getting bitten by depending on the Russian (a belligerent government) would have taught them a lesson about depending on authoritarian countries.