Is the US shooting itself in the foot by banning Huawei?

[weig2000]

Mr. Ren Zhengfei's interview with BBC at Huawei headquarter in Shenzhen, China. In this interview, BBC has tried hard to do a balanced and fair reporting of Huawei and Mr. Ren himself. It has reflected opinions from Huawei, the US government and Australian think thank, for example. I must say it has done a decent job, at least compared to most of the English media on the same subject.

I came to know Huawei nearly twenty years ago because Huawei happened to set up one of their subsidiaries in the North America city where I lived then. Because a lot of my friends worked for the telecom industry, I got to know Huawei more and have kept my interest over the years. But I have never worked in the telecom industry myself. Besides, Huawei had always been a very low-profile company, largely because Mr. Ren is a very low-profile person. It was difficult to learn much about Huawei. On top of that, until Huawei decided to enter the brand smartphone business a few years ago, people outside the telecom equipment industry don't understand the business and Huawei didn't need to advertise either.

This has all changed in the last year, particularly in the last few months. The US has launched a whole-of-government and global campaign against the company Huawei. Huawei has had to open up and defend itself. The media and press world over have had so much coverage on Huawei, and suddenly 'Huawei" is not all that difficult to pronounce for most westerners! I think a lot of people came to understand how good a company it is and how advanced their technologies are, thanks to the US government. I myself have learned so much more about Huawei. It's been a great PR and free advertisement campaign that Huawei would not have dreamed of creating itself, no matter how much money it spends.

The interview is highly recommended.

 

[B.I.B.]

Australia as a sovereign nation takes its security concerns seriously and China’s past behavior and recent posture does not suggest it will modify its future behavior. Australia will need to do what it considers necessary to protect itself and its own interest. Just last week, a “state actor’ conducted cyber hacks on both of Australia’s political parties and it is obvious who was the “state actor”.

You wouldn't be referring to the CIA? It's the only state actor that I can think of that has meddled in Australian politics.

 

[Nutrient]

The western media invariably like to insinuate that Mr. Ren has some deep and secrete connection with PLA because he used to be an army engineer in the '70s and '80s and Huawei's success is due in large part to government subsidies and support.

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Indeed. If Huawei had so much support from China's government, it wouldn't have had to sell itself to Motorola.

Thanks for the article. I didn't know about the Motorola deal.

Looks like Ed Zander really blew it when he nixed the Huawei merger. When he was CEO of Sun Microsystems, he also nearly bought Apple. I don't know if Zander was also responsible for chickening out of that one, but in hindsight he should have done the deal.

 

[Brumby]

You wouldn't be referring to the CIA? It's the only state actor that I can think of that has meddled in Australian politics.

Do you have some kind of evidence that support your claim that the CIA was the body engaged in the hacking last week?

 

[Brumby]

Yes, so you and your government thinks huawai is bad and should be banned on security ground because they can use their equipment to spy on your citizens.
Ok I get that.
But, my question was that all nations conduct spying activities, and the west is more adept at it than China.
In fact, China, US or even OZ can and does spy on other nations using equipments made by others. Yet you don't see this as a security issues.
All you can say is that huawai has to do what their government ask because it's written in their law and this is a bad thing and somehow unique to China. But quite conveniently forget to mention that almost every nations in the world have the same security requirment written on their laws to request their own providers to give up information to their security agencies. A bit selective, don't you think?

Tell me what law is enacted in Australia that is similar to the 2017 National Security Law as enacted in China. .

 

[Brumby]

In which country? Define abuse and oppression. In both the US and China institutions are required to cooperate with the government should there be an investigation into the criminal activity of its patrons. Are such investigations the definition of "abuse" and "oppression"?

You are shifting the theme of the discussion.
The subject matter was about freedom between an oppressed state and one that has institutions that provide some check and balance and ultimately protection from oppression by the state on its people. If you are confused please go back and read the genesis of the conversation.

 

[Brumby]

The western terminology of the event is "the great British tea heist". The dictionary definition of a "heist" is "a robbery" or "a steal". Using common logic, I would assume a robbery would be considered as illegal in any culture and in any country...

In the case of tea, China had considered its tea industry a primary trade secret that was pivotal to its national interests. It was a trade secret that China had successfully protected for centuries and China had profited from its tea industry immensely. That's why Mr. Fortune had to pretend to be a Chinese and had to resort to stealing to get the secrets of the Chinese tea industry. I don't know how you can justify that, except maybe using technicality and argue that there was no WTO back in the 19th century. Since there was no international law for intellectual properties back then, any people from any country would be free to do whatever they wanted, I guess? I would have no response to that. However, I would like to reiterate that even the West considers the act as a heist, which is a negative term used to describe an illegal crime.

I will not dispute the facts of the case that you mentioned because in fact it reinforces the points that I will be making. If there is any comfort, I am more than willing to concede that in history a lot of countries including the European powers had taken advantage of other nations for its personal gain. The point is the world has moved on and its cognizant that many of past practices are unacceptable and should not be repeated. Weaker nations should be able to compete in a more level playing field. This means regulatory framework within which nations are expected to behave and to compete with adjudication and mediation mechanism to resolve disputes e.g. WTO.

I am perfectly fine with your argument about how Huawei would potentially pose a security risk to Australia. Absolutely fine. No disagreement there. I am equally fine with Australia's decision to keeping Huawei out. It is a totally legit decision to do whatever you can to protect your own national interests.

However, you did mention in your post about the unethical history of Huawei by Western standards, as shown and highlighted below. That's what motivated me to compose the post that I did. Since you brought up "history", I wanted to emphasize that the West has had a similar history of unethical behaviors. That's why I said that there was no need to use the moral high ground as an argument since everyone has been guilty of the same crimes. As such, using the moral high ground would actually weaken your argument. Simply arguing that rejecting Huawei is in accordance with the national interests of Australia would be the most powerful and the most legit reason.

There is an important distinction in bringing up the history of Huawei's past behaviour because the conversation is about specific vendor risk. Its past behaviour is an important consideration in making an overall determination of risk. It is no different if you were considering a specific vendor and its services. Its past performance record would be an important factor.

Australia's assessment of Huawei as a security risk is not a recent event arising from the US position. Even going back to 2012 when Australia was undergoing telecommunication upgrades, Huawei was excluded from some projects and consequently our communication infrastructure is not as embedded with Huawei equipment unlike the UK. The problem with UK currently is that if they were to exclude Huawei in 5G, they would have a lot of integration issues of decoupling Huawei equipment. It is a significant economic hit. Fortunately for Auatralia we don't have such a problem with Huawei equipment for the reason mentioned. Australia has a very conservative position when it comes to security.

 

[Equation]

You are shifting the theme of the discussion.
The subject matter was about freedom between an oppressed state and one that has institutions that provide some check and balance and ultimately protection from oppression by the state on its people. If you are confused please go back and read the genesis of the conversation.

I'm not shifting anything. You asked me a question so I require you to define the terms "abuse" and "oppression," which you used in your question, and you have failed to do it. If you are confused, go read your own question again.

 

[vesicles]

Australia's assessment of Huawei as a security risk is not a recent event arising from the US position. Even going back to 2012 when Australia was undergoing telecommunication upgrades, Huawei was excluded from some projects and consequently our communication infrastructure is not as embedded with Huawei equipment unlike the UK. The problem with UK currently is that if they were to exclude Huawei in 5G, they would have a lot of integration issues of decoupling Huawei equipment. It is a significant economic hit. Fortunately for Auatralia we don't have such a problem with Huawei equipment for the reason mentioned. Australia has a very conservative position when it comes to security.

In my opinion, this is a very strong argument for Australia’s decision on Huawei. No one but the Australians themselves can decide what’s good for them. This is their decision and everyone should respect that.

 

[Mr_C]

All I know is if the Huawei ban continues in Australia, don't expect to get 5G anytime soon in the Land Down Under. Aussies are still rolling out this NBN thing and its just a big mess caused by politics. Australia's internet rating is already pretty crap... it will just get crappier with the Huawei ban... I just wanna play games and watch netflix without dropping out and crappy load times.