So...just read that Trump implies that Huawei can be "part of the trade deal talks with China". Once again: when are you going to impeach this clown?
Look...let's take this logically: this whole "huawei is spying up everyone" thing is either true or false. If it's true, then that's a crime. In that case, USA is correct in banning them in as much places as they can. And then I don't see how any of that is excusable or even part of a trade deal. What are you going to say to Chinese representatives? "yeah, we got you spying, but ey...if you meet our trade demands we'll happily let you continue.
" ? Of course not.
So the only alternative is that this whole thing isn't true. That would mean that China has either no idea of what huawei did, or that huawei is innocent to begin with. and that it's just Trump creating a trump card in the negotiation talks. He hopes to gain more than China is willing to give by starting to take something away from them. This, however, only works if China WANTS to keep trading with the USA. And while on the short term, they might not have an alternative, it's not the sort of situation that's sustainable in the long run (basically: "if we give in now, how do we know that he won't pull this same bullshit the next time he wants something?").
I think you're referring to the Bloomberg report I mentioned earlier. First of all it wasn't Huawei that was affected but supermicro which is an American company. The Report stated that the hardware was only manipulated for certain orders. According to the report Apple and Amazon received manipulated servers.
All companies involved deny the claim and apparently the story closely matches a supply chain attack scenario described by an expert they interviewed for the piece. However, Bloomberg has not retracted the story despite Tim Cook demanding a retraction, Bloomberg is crediting multiple anonymous sources from the intelligence community that corroborated the story independently.
All in all the story can't really be verified because of the limited scope of the alleged manipulation. If there is anything to it, nothing chinese manufactured could be trusted for critical infrastructure.
On a political level no one really worries about smart devices, although it is something that may be mentioned because the average joe can relate to it. Huawei also manufactures network and infrastructure equipment, aside from the 5G stuff they also do switches, servers, etc. They have made big efforts to get a bigger market share in the server market in the past couple years.
No one has had a problem with Lenovo which is Chinese and has bought IBM's PC and more recently IBM's server division. Apparently there's serious question regarding the influence of the Chinese government in Huawei.
Either way it seems like you have to believe the conspiracy theory that Huawei is a Chinese Government controlled puppet to facilitate cyber intelligence operations or you have to believe the conspiracy theory that everything is made up by Trump to save US companies in the 5G race.
For everyone else it's pick your poison and I'd rather pick the poison delivered by our NATO allies.
Thanks for the clarification.
It's basically as you claim: all there really is, is a bloomberg article by anonymous sources. And rather than assuming simple corporate espionage(1), it is portrayed as "it's the entirety of China versus the entirety of the USA".
(1): this is assuming it's true to begin with. Unfortunately, the people smart enough to detect and trace this sort of thing are pretty likely to be direct (American) competitors who could use this to leverage external partners out of contracts
Either way it seems like you have to believe the conspiracy theory that Huawei is a Chinese Government controlled puppet to facilitate cyber intelligence operations or you have to believe the conspiracy theory that everything is made up by Trump to save US companies in the 5G race.
For everyone else it's pick your poison and I'd rather pick the poison delivered by our NATO allies.
That's a very good summary, yes. In 2003 or 2004, I remember a situation not unlike this one. The government then provided vague pictures as "proof" that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, which would warrant America the right for a "pre-emptive strike" (basically: attack another country without provocation from their side whatsoever). There were expert teams in Iraq searching for those things, but they simply could not find anything. That news wasn't heard (or believed) in America, so the attack began.
There were no weapons of mass destruction. Much later, it was revealed that the agencies pushing it were pushed themselves into showing proof of things that were only "maybe" or "very potentially" traces of weapon manufacturing.
How is this different? It's not Iraq but China and it's not weapons but spyware. But it's the same kind of "we cannot REALLY prove it, but you'll have to take our word for it".
The only real difference is in the government. The USA was still seen as the victim of a terrorist attack at that time (btw: way to squander all your goodwill, USA). Nowadays, the USA's credibility is pretty much nothing. And that's all thanks to you-know-who: he lies and cries about being a victim so much that everyone not in his fan club has a "yeah...sure, buddy. It's all the fault of foreigners. And democrats. And black people. And your incompetent staff. And everyone not yourself"-attitude. So if I was a company (or a country controlling one) wishing to spy up on the USA, I wouldn't pass up the opportunity. I mean...even if I'd get caught: nobody would believe the main spokesman of the place.
