Oxford places ban on donations and research grants from Huawei • Hacker News Board

Re: Oxford places ban on donations and research grants from Huawei

#11

Post by dTal » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 8:31 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #10

luddy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you don't get (or try to spin away) is this: - the money that China spends at Oxford and at US universities is an attempt to spread the ideology I describe - inside China (I lived there for many years) there is ZERO ambiguity about the purpose of these soft power programs. it is only wumao working outside China who push the fiction that to object to propaganda programs that are focused on the West is to interfer…

My question is what is unique to China. Do the Five Eyes not also invest in universities so they can spread their ideology throughout the world, using both soft power and bombs? Do they not also have ethnonationalist leaders? If we are going to reject money for principled reasons, let us first have principles and see who fits them. Let us not say who we don't like and then find better-sounding reasons to dislike them…

luddy already comprehensively answered your question further up the thread with a list of power abuses unique to China. Nor is it some great mystery what principles we have that China does not respect. "Freedom of speech" is a big one. "Representative government" is another.

When you ask "can you list specific things", and someone does so, and then you ignore the answer and ask again, it begins to look like "whataboutism" in bad faith, rather than an attempt to further the discussion.

Re: Oxford places ban on donations and research grants from Huawei

#12

Post by bassman9000 » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 9:14 PM UTC

RidingPegasus wrote: post #2

Donations ok, but research grants? It does seem to be getting hysterical. The unease around Huawei is justified, but does anyone think the 5 eyes or at least the US aren't all up in Cisco (et al) hardware and have been for decades? Every other country on Earth is subject to that. Not sure there's a moral highground here. Watching this unfold I'm always wondering how much it is about natsec and how much is simply prot…

It's actually very simple. Cisco and Huawei are not on equal grounds. The first is a public company (as in publicly traded), HQed in the US, and subject to far more controls and oversight than Huawei, which is ultimately owned by the Chinese government.

Given the US and UK are allies, and China is not, and I would even consider them enemies, given their online activities, I'd say it's pretty reasonable.

Re: Oxford places ban on donations and research grants from Huawei

#13

Post by luddy » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #10

luddy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you don't get (or try to spin away) is this: - the money that China spends at Oxford and at US universities is an attempt to spread the ideology I describe - inside China (I lived there for many years) there is ZERO ambiguity about the purpose of these soft power programs. it is only wumao working outside China who push the fiction that to object to propaganda programs that are focused on the West is to interfer…

My question is what is unique to China. Do the Five Eyes not also invest in universities so they can spread their ideology throughout the world, using both soft power and bombs? Do they not also have ethnonationalist leaders? If we are going to reject money for principled reasons, let us first have principles and see who fits them. Let us not say who we don't like and then find better-sounding reasons to dislike them…

rejecting for example Confucius Institutes at universities because they are promulgating an ideology that is diametrically opposed to the foundational principles of universities in the West -- open discussion without political interference -- is a principle and a principle that fits perfectly. Tsinghua would reject a program from the West that pushed principles that for example reject Maoism. It doesn't fit. Where's the mystery?

Re: Oxford places ban on donations and research grants from Huawei

#14

Post by RidingPegasus » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 9:40 AM UTC

bassman9000 wrote: post #12

RidingPegasus wrote: post #2

Donations ok, but research grants? It does seem to be getting hysterical. The unease around Huawei is justified, but does anyone think the 5 eyes or at least the US aren't all up in Cisco (et al) hardware and have been for decades? Every other country on Earth is subject to that. Not sure there's a moral highground here. Watching this unfold I'm always wondering how much it is about natsec and how much is simply prot…

It's actually very simple. Cisco and Huawei are not on equal grounds. The first is a public company (as in publicly traded), HQed in the US, and subject to far more controls and oversight than Huawei, which is ultimately owned by the Chinese government. Given the US and UK are allies, and China is not, and I would even consider them enemies, given their online activities, I'd say it's pretty reasonable.

Perhaps for the UK, but what about allies like France and Switzerland? It's a strange moral relativism blindly defending backdoored products [0] from the US/Five Eyes who have been caught committing corporate espionage against these allies [1] for decades.

It sort of nullifies the entire argument of being in the "right". As far as IP theft goes, India has a bipartisan policy of willfully stealing and then exporting pharma IP, it's blatant and rampant.[2] Tens of billions stolen each year from the US alone and to add insult India pharma's biggest export market is the US. Yet you'll see none of the rhetoric that comes with China's rampant manufacturing IP theft.

If people are happy to admit it's essentially now a team sport and everyone is playing the game that's fine, but claiming to have moral superiority on these matters is amusingly easy to debunk.

[0] https://www.infoworld.com/article/2608141/internet-privacy/s...

[1] https://articles.latimes.com/1995-10-11/news/mn-55816_1_cia-...

[1] https://www.rt.com/news/269251-nsa-sarkozy-hollande-wikileak...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2013/09/16/indias-wa...