Best Buy won’t sell Huawei phones, laptops, or smartwatches anymore
theverge.comWhen US companies sell their phones and other electronic devices around the globe under the guise of free trade, that is OK. The world has to accept it. Even thou USG and its intelligence agencies have a proven track record of tampering the devices, pressuring companies to leave backdoors in software and hardware and spying on the planet.
Now that Chinese companies want to do the same under the same guise, that is not OK. USG is against it. Even thou there is no proof that the devices are tampered or backdoored. (I assume they are, but there is no proof.)
Funny how the same very thing that the US has invented for their imperial purposes ("free-trade") when it was strong and alone in that position comes to bite the inventor in the arse now that China does the same.
> The world has to accept it.
Foreign countries can and do block American technology from sensitive sectors all the time. Your comment is especially inexplicable when the context is China, which blocks a whole host of American websites.
> (I assume they are, but there is no proof.)
I don't really understand your position here. You say yourself that Huawei devices are probably backdoored. I also believe this, and presumably the USG does as well. Given that Chinese corporations only exist if they are in the CPC's good graces, it is a reasonable assumption. Why is ironclad proof required before taking action then? Nobody is on trial here, there is no requirement for "proof beyond a reasonable doubt".
Indeed, foreign countries do block the US tech in sensitive areas. For example, Russia. Alleged partners (major EU and NATO members) do not, and they get spied on.
Also, in the case of USG we do not presume anymore, we know for a fact that it spies on both the US (which is illegal) and the rest of the world (which is scary).
For the rest of your comment, I have to refer you to the last paragraph of my previous comment.
why is spying on the rest of the world scary? that's what they need to do
USA carries out mass surveillance (dragnet). It spies not on special foreign targets of interest but on every human being using electronic communications on this planet. Which means that only those who use smoke signals and pigeons have their privacy.
It is what Nazis did during WWII and what Stasi did in the ex DDR. Back then, the world - especially the so called "free world" - was appalled. And they did it "only" to their citizens.
It is not scary. I wanted to put it mildly. It is rogue!
Each country has a duty to protect its own interests; they also have a duty to promote and support its own intersts
its absurd to imagine that the US would limit the sale of its own devices, on some sense of fairness; its much more believable to think that every other country would limit sale of US devices in their own country, should they see fit.
And if the US has an lucky, unfair hand, it would be irresponsible and downright stupid to not make use of it.
Imagining countries as rational operators, having seperate (maybe moral) expectations on export vs import is exactly what you should expect
> Each country has a duty to protect its own interests; they also have a duty to promote and support its own intersts
There are very few countries on the Earth that can withstand the pressure (political, economic, intelligence, military) of the hegemon which, again, under the guise of "free trade" pushes his own imperial interests. And those countries are immediately called an "enemy" to the "free world" (euphemism for "US and its vasals NATO and EU"). So, the "international community" (another euphemism for "US and its vasals NATO and EU") has to sanction such a country - applying political and economic pressure. If it's militarly weak, to bomb it - applying intelligence and military pressure, as well. In case you don't know which countries I am talking about, just open your warmongering media - warmongering, as they didn't oppose any war of the empire.
Because of all of this, countries cave in and accept being exploited just to avoid the worst. No matter if is is a mobile phone or gas pipeline.
I'll end with a quote from a former free thinking German politician about how USA enforces its interests: "The manner of thought that takes into regard solely its own interests can only be referred to as totalitarian."
>And if the US has an lucky, unfair hand, it would be irresponsible and downright stupid to not make use of it.
The US should be trying to enforce its politics onto other countries, if it benefits itself; in this model, it is the failure of other countries to not find a way to defend themselves (ie by grouping together and forming the EU).
Again, it would be stupid for the US to not pursue its interests; there may be humanitarian and moral conflicts that stop or hamper its pursuit, but the pursuit itself is perfectly justified.
China should protect its own interests, as should the US, as should Germany; and all them should support their own interests
USA, in most cases, doesn't have "an lucky, unfair hand" but it uses its muscles (political, economic, intelligence, military pressure) to force other countries to submit to US interests.
Yes, it is normal that every country wants to protect its interests, but not at the expense of others! And by using the above mentioned pressure, USA bullies others to take a hit for its interests. Two examples:
(1) Biden regarding the countries who weren’t willing to impose sanctions on Russia over Ukraine: “Alot of us had to rally the world’s major economic countries to impose real cost on Russia. It is true they did not want to do that, but again, it was America’s leadership and the president of the United States insisting, oft times almost having to embarrass Europe to stand up and take economic hits to impose costs on Russia.”
(Remember, these are alleged US partners - major NATO and EU members - he's taking about.)
(2) A few days ago, US threatened to sanction European firms involved in Russian gas pipeline project for Europe called North Stream 2. US wants European countries to buy its gas instead of the Russian cheaper one. (US gas is transported by ships and it is much more expensive)
This is completely fair. For anyone unawares of the obstacles purposefully enacted by the Chinese government, below is a non-comprehensive list:
1. Excessive tariffs on companies domiciled outisde China
2. Demanding IP transfer to China as a precondition to evening the playing filed
3. Demanding access to any and all data used by a corp., regardless of privacy of the users
4. Backing domestic companies with unlimited, unfair lines of credit
5 ....
It's NOT a co-incidence that Facebook, Apple, Google, ... that dominate tech pretty much everywhere else lack a significant presence in China.
> It's NOT a co-incidence that Facebook, Apple, Google, ... that dominate tech pretty much everywhere else lack a significant presence in China.
AWS is there, but they actually don't operate it (and the offering pales in comparison with all of their other regions)
China is going to hit back hard at the US and it won't be able to recover ...
From the US. I understand the paranoia, but the bottom line is most the silicon comes from China. If they want to backdoor stuff they can do it at a much lower level on ALL devices, even those without final assembly done in China for a US-based company.
If you are referring to the actual silicon, I don't believe that to be the case, at least according to WikiPedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat...)
Many of the devices are assembled in China thus it's conceivable a backdoor may be installed at that time.