Then those companies cannot compete globally.
Then the US ends up with the shittier products on the market because it's that or nothing.
This is why the US generally tries to engage in free trade: It's better in the long term. The fact the same isn't happening here will just mean US citizens don't get better, faster, cheaper mobile networks. Everyone else will. And that will stifle other areas of the US economy too.
If China wants to self harm for political reasons, that's their loss. Don't copy them.
The US generally engages in free trade only when it's better for US in the long term.
Google isn’t banned in China, it just isn’t operating there, because it would need to obey the law.
That, btw, is another aspect of this problem - American companies like Cisco have been shown to plant backdoors, while the “subservient” Huawei hadn’t.
That’s not true though. American companies will, on a regular basis, publicly criticise proposed and actual US government policies, and fund third party groups (lobby groups, think-tanks, etc) which do the same. Tell me, how often do Huawei and ZTE publicly criticise proposed and actual Chinese government policies? How much money do they give to groups which publicly criticise the Chinese government? Their failure to do those things is a very real way in which they demonstrate government subservience but Western companies do not.
Tell me, why are there backdoors in American telco equipment, but not in Chinese? Are those manufacturers planting them _against_ their government will? :-)
Can you commie-explain that?
1) These routers do not provide any kind of content filtering features 2) My particular terminal was in bridge mode 3) It's happening rarely on random websites
So, if they MITM random SSL sessions with home equipment I can imagine what they do with business infrastructure.
If criticism really doesn’t matter, why does the Chinese government show so little tolerance for it? Are they thin-skinned?
And, how do you know there are no backdoors in Chinese telco equipment? Even if none have been publicised, that doesn’t mean none exist.
That’s a very good question. I’m guessing it’s cultural, and it’s somewhat similar to what you see in Japan or Korea. And yeah, it’s unfortunate.
Also notice how you don’t hear about this problem in context of other countries. Same as you don’t hear about someone who spent four years in prison for merely talking to police when it happens in USA, but you would if it happened in China. Or how everyone in the west knows about Tiananmen, but very few heard about Gwangju Uprising.
As for the backdoors - there have been audits, eg by GHCQ, and hadn’t found nothing suspicious. So sure, we can suspect something might have been missed, but for now the score is pretty clear: numerous documented backdoors in infrastructure from US companies, none from Chinese.
The Japanese and South Korean governments show vastly greater tolerance for public criticism than the Chinese government does. In Tokyo, if one stands on a street corner holding up a sign saying "Fumio Kishida should be sacked"–odds are, you'll just be ignored. In Seoul, one might stand there with a sign saying "Impeach Yoon Suk-yeol" – likewise, people will most likely just ignore you. Try standing on a street corner in Beijing holding up a sign saying "Xi Jinping should be sacked"–how many minutes will pass before you are arrested?
So, it isn't East Asian culture in general. It isn't even Chinese culture, because in Taiwan you would not be arrested just for holding up a sign saying "Impeach Tsai Ing-wen". On the other hand, in North Korea, you'd probably be executed for a sign saying "Impeach Kim Jung-un". The thing that North Korea and China have in common, is both are Marxist-Leninist dictatorships. So, isn't the real explanation here, not national culture, but rather Marxism-Leninism? Xi Jinping's intolerance for criticism has a lot in common with that of Leonid Brezhnev.
> Or how everyone in the west knows about Tiananmen, but very few heard about Gwangju Uprising.
There is a big difference between the Gwangju massacre and the Tiananmen massacre–the South Korean government has repeatedly publicly apologised for Gwangju. Every year, there is an official memorial day to remember the victims of Gwangju, and the government has established a national memorial to remember its victims. In the 1990s, several of the political leaders responsible for Gwangju were convicted, and one received a death sentence (that death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and then all the convicts were pardoned.) More recently, the South Korea government has established a national truth commission, for further public investigations of those responsible for the crime. Meanwhile, what has the Chinese government done to publicly apologise for the crime of Tiananmen, to commemorate its victims and punish its perpetrators?
It makes complete sense for the world to focus on wrongs for which there is a refusal to acknowledge and apologise and make amends, rather than on wrongs for which many such efforts have been made. The former is far more relevant than the later.
> numerous documented backdoors in infrastructure from US companies, none from Chinese
Even if it is true that there are zero backdoors in Huawei/ZTE equipment today, that could change tomorrow.
What a perfectly timed question: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/14/world/asia/china-internet.... So, you probably won't get arrested, but you'll definitely get demonetised. Maybe even banned on Weibo.
Now compare this with something more atypical: four years in prison for talking back to a police officer, https://twitter.com/ajplus/status/1567515298479149057.
Note, however, that we're talking about two different things: I was talking about the culture of "keeping to themselves", which, when applied on a larger scale, goes directly against transparency, and that's what we see in China. What you're talking is mostly about how media works. Sure, in the West you can say whatever you want and nobody cares - precisely because nobody cares what you say ("majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts", https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...).
>in Taiwan you would not be arrested just for holding up a sign
Indeed, it's been over 30 years now since the end of White Terror (~20 thousands killed, ~140 thousands imprisoned).
>Meanwhile, what has the Chinese government done to publicly apologise for the crime of Tiananmen, to commemorate its victims and punish its perpetrators?
The prime minister responsible for it spent the rest of his life in house arrest. I'd say both countries handled it much better than how it's traditionally done in the West.
Still, I'm not buying it - "it" being the difference in public awareness of Tiananmen and Gwangju massacre being caused by governments apologising. But I don't have anything better than "gut feeling" at the moment.
>Even if it is true that there are zero backdoors in Huawei/ZTE equipment today, that could change tomorrow.
Everything could change tomorrow, but this excuse can be used for any arbitrary decision.
If you read the details of the case - she was chanting that the police were going to die, which goes beyond mere “talking back”; and she would not have received such a lengthy sentence if it was not for multiple prior convictions. Now, all that said, I still think her sentence is excessive-and indeed, her legal team says they will appeal it-but it seems far less outrageous than it does when presented without those details. It doesn’t have much bearing on the issue of free speech, given that making death threats is a crime in most jurisdictions, and few consider free speech to include the right to make death threats.
> Indeed, it's been over 30 years now since the end of White Terror (~20 thousands killed, ~140 thousands imprisoned).
Bad, but not as bad as Mao - and at least the current Taiwanese government openly admits that was wrong; the Chinese government censors public discussion of Mao’s crimes, and instead plasters his picture everywhere
> The prime minister responsible for it spent the rest of his life in house arrest.
Because of the massacre, or because he’d embarrassed the Party by not crushing the protests a lot sooner?
And yet people tend to ignore those details when it fits anti-Chinese propaganda.
>Mao’s crimes
Do you know what happened to the Gang of Four?
And of course there is no “public discussion”, same way you don’t have public discussion in Japan about its nazi past. Like I said, a cultural thing.
As for that prime minister - you could ask that same question regarding Gwangju. To me what matters is that he got prosecuted, which is rather shocking contrast compared to Kent State or most American massacres really - Americans tend to hold this subconscious belief that one can’t possibly prosecute its rulers.