
Huawei Sues U.S. as a ‘Last Resort’ Over What It Calls an Unfair Ban - artemiszx
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/business/huawei-united-states-trade-lawsuit.html
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ddoolin
> “The actual and intended effect of these prohibitions is to bar Huawei from
> significant segments of the U.S. market for telecommunications equipment and
> services, thereby inflicting immediate and ongoing economic, competitive,
> and reputational harms on Huawei,” the company’s lawyers wrote in the suit.

This is incredulously ironic coming from a Chinese company. China, who sets up
just about every barrier imaginable to foreign companies. Do they also lobby
the Chinese government in favor of easing restrictions on those foreign
businesses? I'm not saying we should follow their lead or really commenting on
the merits at all, but I just find these times to be quite strange & humorous
indeed.

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thetechlead
You are confusing Chinese companies with Chinese government. In most areas,
whatever restrictions/laws on foreign businesses, are also put on Chinese
companies (private). Most foreign companies lost Chinese market due to fierce
competition from local counterparts, not any imaginable barrier. Back in
2000s, Chinese government even gave green light when Huawei tried to sell
[ref] itself to Motorola, but only been turned down by the American side, and
in the past few months Huawei ascends from nowhere to the #1 target of US spy
agencies. See the irony?

edit ref:
[https://www.ft.com/content/fa8e7ab4-3905-11e9-b856-5404d3811...](https://www.ft.com/content/fa8e7ab4-3905-11e9-b856-5404d3811663)

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ratling
They are the same thing. You don’t do business in China without playing ball
with the state.

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jewelry_wolf
Don't you think that Huawei couldn't do business in US because it couldn't
play the ball with the US government? LOL

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ratling
Change their entire business model and act as a trojan horse for the US
government? No that won't fly in the US (yes I'm aware of NSLs, there's a
significant difference in degrees).

In China that's standard procedure. Party says you switch up everything you're
doing for their whims you do it.

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TaylorGood
Is it me or has Huawei only appeared in media the last few months? All my
years of reading HN, etc. and no recollection until recent controvery. Feels
like they’ve managed to stir many waters in record time. For a company founded
in 1987, what gave?

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rakoo
Huawei, and the Chinese industry in general is at the forefront of 5G coming
soon, and the West is mad that China can be more advanced than them and scared
that all the equipment we use for deploying 5G is from them and, consequently,
full of (not backdoors) spying capabilities.

As someone whose country isn't part of five eyes, the hypocrisy makes me
quietly laugh.

(Edit: updated for less gratuitous accusations)

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geowwy
The issue is not back doors in my opinion. It's more that the US is expecting
5G to be big (really big) and they don't want to world relying on China for
their infrastructure. It's bad for (America's) national security and it gives
China too much clout.

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atoav
Sadly the five eyes couldn’t proof a single backdoor in Huawei products while
the history of backdoors in US hardware is quite well documented.

If the five eyes hadn’t shown time and time again, that they don’t give a damn
about the laws and rights of other democratic nations, and quite definitly use
“security” as a token for industrial spionage, I might show more support.

But please show more than some fiction in which Huwawei has backdoors nobody
managed to proof just yet.

Yeah they _could_. But _do_ they?

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zaphirplane
The issue isn’t current back doors as you are trying to shift the conversation
towards, it is about future Chinese government ordered back doors. I mean
you’d have to be in a special dumb category to insert back doors today with
all the coverage

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atoav
If you are outside the Five Eyes, you are left with the choice between US
products (with a documented history of spying also on democratic nations) and
Chinese products, which potentially in the future could also be host for
government backdoors.

This means the choice is only about who gets your trade secrets, with a bit
more favour for huawei because they didn’t do it yet.

It is so easy from an US perspective to say “Take our product, we are the good
ones” and conviniently ignoring that people tasked with building a
infrastructure that isn’t beeing spied on have a hard time choosing here.

This would be easier if US products were actually trustworthy and there wasn’t
a history of ignoring the rights of allied nations and court ordered
backdoors. Why would I care if the backdoor was ordered by the chinese
government or the US government? Both proofed they don’t really care about the
rights of foreign citizen and both have aspirations to become or stay an
empire.

The US damaged itself with it’s undemocratic spying practices and the final
bill for it is not there yet. That beeing said I’d love to pay a bit more for
a good product I can trust, but the US is not the place for such a product.

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lexs
Aren't there European competitors for some/most of the stack like Nokia,
Ericsson, as well Japanese?

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rgbrenner
Yes.. in fact none of the companies providing 5g infrastructure are American.

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grwthckrmstr
How come nobody talks about the NSA or other US secret agencies to spy on
people while simultaneously dissing Huawei for "allegedly" building backdoors
to spy on the public?

Help.me.understand...

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rgbrenner
None of the 5g infrastructure providers are American. The choice isn’t between
Huawei and an American company.. it’s between Huawei and a European or
Japanese company.

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techie128
It is unbelievable that Huawei can do this in US and pretty much in any
democratic country. The reverse is absolutely not true. The Chinese government
has used every tool at its disposal to make life miserable for foreign
competitors - see Google's exit, AWS, Apple, Uber and countless other
companies were / are still being harassed. When was the last time a foreign
company won a court case in China against its local competitor and Chinese
government took any adverse action against the local company?

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TobbenTM
So do you want us all to sink to their level, or actually be the democratic
countries we pretend to be?

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atoav
What would be the most american answer to this question?

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ionised
Whatever makes the most money.

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stevefan1999
And I believe westerners could start a class action on Huawei as well

