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Hobbling Huawei: Inside the U.S. war on China’s tech giant

reuters.com

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Re: Hobbling Huawei: Inside the U.S. war on China’s tech giant

#61

Post by thommark »

eaim wrote: post #50
takamh wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Citing unidentified intelligence sources" An option would be to confidentially share with UK or German intelligence agencies and verify, but they chose instead to publish a vague article. Seems doubtful this will result in anything concrete.

All is vagueness. It’s popular! Why bother with evidence when agencies / governments / media can simply make vague statements about threats & security? Oh & of course we can’t supply evidence because that would threaten our security also. Circulus In probando

I wouldn't call it vagueness, investigation takes time. Plus, our largest telecom, KPN, already announced they were not going to use Huawei in core-5G - the first EU telecom to do so, last month. I am sure the intelligence report had something to do with it.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kpn-huawei-5g/dutch-telec...

Re: Hobbling Huawei: Inside the U.S. war on China’s tech giant

#62

Post by holy_city »

freeflight wrote: post #47
holy_city wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not more dangerous, it's that the existing infrastructure is not (as) compromised as new infrastructure to be built with Huawei goods. It should be self evident that turning over domestic communications infrastructure to a global rival with the largest military on the planet, nuclear first strike capability, a history of violence, newly minted dictator, and global ambitions is a terrible idea. Also, the US gover…

> Also, the US government isn't stealing US IP and giving it to Chinese businesses. The PLA is, and their ties to Huawei run deep. No, it's stealing "allies" IP and giving it to US businesses [0] while subsidizing Intel to the tune of billions [1]. Still, nobody writes headlines along the lines of "State-sponsored Intel processors come with ME backdoor for government spying." instead we get, super trustworthy, articl…

>while subsidizing Intel to the tune of billions

According to your source the US government is subsidizing Intel to the tune of $228,154,638, $141mm of which are loans. The lions share of those billions are incentives from Oregon and New Mexico to keep Intel manufacturing in their states.

>The absurdity of it all is immense, yet still seems to elude most US Americans.

What seems absurd in my opinion, is the idea it's a bad idea to prevent an unfriendly foreign power from gaining more access to your communication infrastructure. That's not hypocritical, it's pragmatic national security policy...

Re: Hobbling Huawei: Inside the U.S. war on China’s tech giant

#63

Post by hunta2097 »

themark wrote: post #25
mhh__ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piece of kit is a british idiom, yes if that's what you mean.

I have never seen it before, thanks. I read it another way.

https://notoneoffbritishisms.com/2012/09/17/piece-of-kit/

Re: Hobbling Huawei: Inside the U.S. war on China’s tech giant

#64

Post by sonnyblarney »

ETHisso2017 wrote: post #24

If this is a war, then did Google, Broadcom, Microsoft, the rest of the US tech sector, and the worldwide Android community just get forcibly conscripted into service by the US government?

The 'trade war' has been going on for 30 years, we just didn't care that China was doing certain things until it hit home.

It was arguably beneficial to not worry about China's IP issues, foreign ownership, capital controls etc. in the 1990's because a growing China was good for everyone.

Now it's not, so there's a realignment.

There's cynicism here, but both issues are perfectly credible: trade/technology and security.

There are a ton of externalizations that enable China to provide, especially 'services' so cheaply. Those externalizations matter in trade, and probably should be capture in some form of tariff.

i.e. it's not actually 'cheaper' for Sweden to buy stuff from China, if all things otherwise equal the only difference is the manufacturer in China doesn't have to pay for carbon taxes or something like that. It's just moving deck chairs around.

Re: Hobbling Huawei: Inside the U.S. war on China’s tech giant

#65

Post by cfarm »

ETHisso2017 wrote: post #24

If this is a war, then did Google, Broadcom, Microsoft, the rest of the US tech sector, and the worldwide Android community just get forcibly conscripted into service by the US government?

More like governments are at "war" and all the big corporations caught in the middle of trade are the "weapons".

Re: Hobbling Huawei: Inside the U.S. war on China’s tech giant

#67

Post by Gibbon1 »

otoburb wrote: post #44
likeabbas wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn’t one argue that their strength in cost efficiency was largely built on the theft of IP? Without the IP barriers western countries abide by, they were able to take the best technology from multiple companies, implement it and sell it at a fraction of the price?

>> Couldn’t one argue that their strength in cost efficiency was largely built on the theft of IP? There are plenty of accusations that this was the case -- I'm not going to comment on the veracity of those accusations. However, if it were true, then that would certainly be a huge factor why Huawei was able to catch up and overtake other domain players within a relatively short period of time. In defense of Huawei, I…

> I think the combination of this laissez-faire "flexibility" around WTO-mandated IP rights and a grueling and debilitating 996[5] work ethic helped Huawei, among other Chinese companies, to catch up with Western firms pretty quickly.

This is essentially copied from the Japanese. Japanese mega-corps far as I understand very often unofficially pooled patents and technology. That became an issue as dominance was asserted in the consumer electronics market as outsiders weren't in the club. Entry into an established market meant going up against a thicket of patents owned by multiple entities.

Re: Hobbling Huawei: Inside the U.S. war on China’s tech giant

#68

Post by throw20102010 »

otoburb wrote: post #44
likeabbas wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn’t one argue that their strength in cost efficiency was largely built on the theft of IP? Without the IP barriers western countries abide by, they were able to take the best technology from multiple companies, implement it and sell it at a fraction of the price?

>> Couldn’t one argue that their strength in cost efficiency was largely built on the theft of IP? There are plenty of accusations that this was the case -- I'm not going to comment on the veracity of those accusations. However, if it were true, then that would certainly be a huge factor why Huawei was able to catch up and overtake other domain players within a relatively short period of time. In defense of Huawei, I…

While we don't have any real evidence (from the sources that I read) that Huawei stole 5G tech, it's plausible. They've stolen tech in other areas and then iterated the design so fast that they beat the competition to market.

We know for (nearly) certain that Huawei stole folding screen tech from Samsung (via a supplier), and now that Samsung has reneged on it's Galaxy Fold launch the Huawei folding phone will be first to market.

Now that they have a reputation for stealing it is hard to view their other advancements as purely the result of honest work.

Re: Hobbling Huawei: Inside the U.S. war on China’s tech giant

#69

Post by vageli »

beaner wrote: post #48
vageli wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just" chips? The amount of research and development that goes into designing and fabricating chips used for wireless radio technologies is not so easily written off with a "just".

I was hoping I could get away with an honest simple question without having to qualify all the assumptions and naïvities in it.

I mean, aren't chips just electrons, protons and neutrons? :) More seriously, the 5g spec is a complicated and long document. Implementing 5g functionality in silicon is not a weekend project and implementations tend to be protected by NDAs and kept as trade secrets, etc. Ultimately the rationale is that development of these technologies is a complex, non-open-source, and costly endeavor. The nuances of _why_ this is the status quo are more human than technical in nature.

Re: Hobbling Huawei: Inside the U.S. war on China’s tech giant

#70

Post by throw20102010 »

ETHisso2017 wrote: post #24

If this is a war, then did Google, Broadcom, Microsoft, the rest of the US tech sector, and the worldwide Android community just get forcibly conscripted into service by the US government?

Every American company is at the beck and call of the US government at all times, with their existence in peril if they disobey. The US government has been regulating trade like this since before we were born, and most of the time we don't even notice. This is not the first time that Silicon Valley had to obey US government regulations. Notice that there are hardly any Iranian or North Korean tech companies doing business around the world- any US company that transfers technology to a hostile country gets shut down and people go to jail, and it's not even controversial.

The only thing that's unique with this case is that it's rare for the US government to be so openly hostile toward a major trade partner.

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