Hacker News Reader

Looking "tough on China" ahead of what will be another very bitter election.

Do you believe it is only for looks? No genuine and valid motives?

I'd definitely call that ("only for looks") the single most likely possibility by a good margin.

It has nothing to do with this. There is a lot of pressure on Huawei also coming from Australia and New Zealand as well which given our proximity to China are not trying to be tough on them at all.

I work in telco and can assure you that Huawei is a security concern especially given the changing landscape of technology (more complex, more containerised architectures) which allows for more attack vectors.

People keep forgetting that China is a dictatorship, has no independent judiciary/media and a long pattern of IP theft, hacking etc.

Entities in the US/Europe have been trying to take down China for a long time, the excuses to do it will be manufactured if required.

The US and China are ramping military purchases with each other in mind. So I’m sure the US at least partially made this decision based on the likelihood of a future war, or the higher probability of much more tense relations.

Leverage in trade negotiations would be the main benefit I see.