
Huawei Could Divide the World - howard941
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-20/how-huawei-could-divide-the-world
======
ssnistfajen
I miss the Internet in early-2000's China. Not as many sites were blocked and
everyone was much more open-minded as the undereducated chauvinists did not
yet acquire reliable Internet access. Nowadays everyone has a smartphone and
it has enabled the chauvinists and other radicals to voice their opinions
online, only this time they are actually emboldened by the nation which has
risen in the last 30 years to become a serious competitor against the current
superpower nation that is the US.

China has achieved amazing progress thanks to market reforms and
entrepreneurship but certain aspects are continuously regressing under Xi's
term which will last for the forseeable future. Private sector confidence is
at an all-time low due to state media editorials calling for more state
control and boosting state-owned corporations. There has been more and more
censorship orders aimed at reducing "Western influence" regardless of whether
they are politics-related. More and more Chinese citizens are travelling
abroad yet their beliefs in the "Chinese system" only gets re-affirmed by
mistakenly thinking that China's success is completely dependent on
authoritarianism. I don't agree with fervently supporting the current regime
which is oppressive, brutal, antidemocratic, and still corrupt; nor do I agree
with painting an entire nation and its people as some sort of evil reincarnate
for the sake of a new Cold War. I don't have the knowledge or capability to
offer a solution and I am just overall disappointed at the current state of
affairs.

~~~
sonnyblarney
"More and more Chinese citizens are travelling abroad yet their beliefs in the
"Chinese system" only gets re-affirmed by mistakenly thinking that China's
success is completely dependent on authoritarianism."

This is by far the scariest part.

Even people who knowingly try to 'escape the system' still support it, as
though 'the party = China'.

I believe this problem exists a little bit in Europe where so many believe the
EU = Europe, they use the terms interchangeably.

~~~
baby
I think a lot of people (including me) want China to join the club of first
world countries, not just economically, but also in terms of respect of human
rights. How do you get there? By banning chinese products and heavily
penalizing them? Or by inviting them to get their people richer and more
educated?

There's actually a very interesting kurzgesagt video on the subject:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ)

~~~
educationdata
"I think a lot of people (including me) want China to join the club of first
world countries, not just economically, but also in terms of respect of human
rights. "

\-- Really? A lot? I don't think so. My experience is Chinese middle class
rarely care about human rights issues. Most of them are extremely cold blood.
As long as their own family is not hurt, they don't care about human rights
issues at all. As long as they can get rich and stay rich, they will praise
the authoritarian regime.

~~~
lostlogin
I didn’t read baby’s comment as meaning a lot of Chinese people want better
human rights in China, I read it as a lot of people everywhere want that.

~~~
baby
This is what I meant, thanks.

------
thisgoodlife
No. Huawei doesn't divide the world. The world is divided and Huawei gets
caught in the middle. Just like those two Canadians, they may or may not do
something wrong. But that's irrelevant when they get caught in the middle
between China and Canada.

------
xrd
Can someone explain how a Chinese company is subject to a US embargo?

And, at the risk of getting political, whether the idea raised in the article
about the success of China in the last forty years being due to abandoning
their isolationism is at direct odds with a trade embargo anyway.

~~~
xster
No need to worry about it getting political because it is a political rather
than a judicial act. Otherwise, imagine private citizen board members or
executives of HSBC being arrested or extradited (US-UK have extradition) for
actually 'violating sanctions' with Iran, Libya, Sudan, Burma and Cuba in
2012.

The sanction itself is purely political as well. The US overthrows the Iranian
democratically elected government to maintain BP's regional dominance because
the government threatened to use their country's natural resources' profits to
benefit its people. Installs puppet and helps the puppet plan to build 23
nuclear reactors (and the secret police Savak among other things). Puppet gets
overthrown by the people and now Iran has 'nuclear ambitions'. And that's
after getting the other puppet Saddam to go to war with Iran and then getting
rid of the other puppet because now he's US armed like ISIS. And now Iran has
a sanction and the sanction is used against other countries.

This is a pyramid scheme of imperialism.

~~~
slededit
You mean like when Mike Turner the CEO of Britain's largest defense company
was arrested upon landing in America for arms sales to Saudi-Arabia?

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1976770/BAE-
bosses-detained-by-US-investigators-over-Saudi-case.html)

~~~
xster
One might be able to find dozens of non-snatched executives from sanction
breaking companies per each arrested one such as:

Banco do Brasil, Bank of America, Bank of Guam, Bank of Moscow, Bank of Tokyo-
Mitsubishi, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Clearstream Banking, Commerzbank, Compass,
Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo, JP Morgan Chase,
National Bank of Abu Dhabi, National Bank of Pakistan, PayPal, RBS (ABN Amro),
Société Générale, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Trans-Pacific National Bank (now
known as Beacon Business Bank), Standard Chartered, and Wells Fargo.

Since we're all about making light-hearted fun of China's non rule of law, I
think it's consistent to be at least concerned about the selective enforcement
of Western rule of law.

[https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-war-on-
hu...](https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-war-on-huawei-meng-
wanzhou-arrest-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2018-12)

------
cs702
Questions that keep me awake:

What is the _endgame_ of this escalation of conflict between the US+Canada and
China?

If there's no endgame, why are politicians escalating the conflict?

The last thing we would want is for both sides to continue to escalate the
conflict in response to further escalation from the other side, because
neither side wants to end up looking "weak," to the detriment of everyone.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
I think its really simple.

Cars made in China and sold in the U.S. have a 2% tariff.

Cars made in the U.S. and sold in China have a 40% tariff.

We need to balance that eventually. If we ignore it for another 40 years there
won't be any American car companies.

We don't have to have perfect balance tomorrow, or free trade exactly, its ok
to allow them to exploit trade with us to some extent as there economy catches
up with the west.

But it is time for that assistance and trade imbalance to start to shrink.
China has given no indication that they think we should be equal trading
partners even after their country becomes the world leader in economy,
scientific research, and military power.

~~~
lostlogin
The does sound fair and I agree with it, but the US hasn’t applied this to
other countries and are smaller by population, economic, scientific and
military measures, why should China apply it to the US?

------
hguant
I found this article incredibly naive and idealistic. The divide between China
and America isn't a mere disagreement about trade 'disparities' and how IP is
handled. The Chinese Communist Party is running an authoritarian, draconic
police state that has spent its time quashing human rights, and threatening
and bullying democratic nations, all while cynically exploiting its own
citizens for increasingly centralized wealth. No amount of cross border trade
can alter the fact that China has positioned itself as an enemy of democracy
when it stands in the face of hegemonic Chinese power, both abroad and at
home.

This is a country where the government forced ~10,000 women to be sterilized
or see their families imprisoned in 2010, where a report came out not 2 months
ago documenting how prisoners of conscience are harvested for organ
transplants (the organs in question being sold; it is, after all, _state_
capitalism), a country that joined Russia in preventing the UN from
sanctioning Syria after one of the worst chemical weapons attacks...I think
since the Iran/Iraq war. This is the country that is stripping its citizens of
their rights based on an algorithm that takes into account everything they say
on the internet.

Every country commits human rights violations of some sort or another. No
group is perfect. That being said, the breadth, scale, and malicious intent
behind China's human rights violations beggars belief. These are not the
actions of a nation that wants the best for the international community. These
are not the actions of a nation that wants to integrate with the international
community, except to loot it while enjoying the protections and rights created
by that self same community of nations. Huawei is not dividing China from the
world; China has done that for itself.

~~~
stareatgoats
> The Chinese Communist Party is running an authoritarian, draconic police
> state

Agree. But don't you think it is weird that this did not register during the
time when moving production to China was at it's height? How come the whole
west were willing to look the other way at most if not all human rights
violations in China for most part of the last 3 decades, only to now raise
concern?

I believe an honest assessment of those questions reveals without shadow of a
doubt that humans rights violations in far off countries only become a concern
for the west when it is useful for geopolitical or simple profit reasons.

It has been that way since the opium wars and longer, and we fall for it every
single time.

~~~
xoa
> _But don 't you think it is weird that this did not register during the time
> when moving production to China was at it's height?_

There have always been skeptics and strong opposition to China, and full
disclosure I personally have long thought it was very foolish to sacrifice
both our societal ideals and the Free Market on the alter of Free Trade (which
as it's been used over the last few decades has been directly opposed to
both). However at the same time I think it's unreasonable not to acknowledge
that there were a lot of very smart people who were China doves out of a
hypothesis that economic development would actually be the best way to
peacefully and productively make China liberalize and become a strong, equal
and valuable partner in the international order. It was believed that economic
development would result in a growing middle class and in turn a demand for
more political freedom, that enormous authoritarianism would ultimately be
unsustainable, and that the _moral_ thing to do was to not be too hard on
these billion+ people most of whom were highly impoverished. And China also
put on a good act, toeing various lines or making the right noises or even
occasional actions, combined with carrots and sticks towards companies, while
they built up.

It has now become clear however that, at least in the short term, the idea
that economic development would inevitably lead to political liberalization
too has not worked out. Nor has a growing panopticon proved unsustainable so
far. It may be that these were simply never linked concepts, or it might
alternately be that technological and societal development has rendered the
modern situation fundamentally different to how the West developed and shifted
the power balance such that that window of history is firmly closed.

At any rate however, while there were certainly a lot of people motivated
purely by greed I think you are still overly uncharitable towards a lot of
genuinely good people who had good intentions. Remember, this was coming
directly off of the Cold War, a time of genuinely justified end-of-the-world
terror and polarization and confrontational approaches. Even if it was naive,
I can understand why some people, both exhausted by the CW and excited by an
imagined future where liberal democratic societies spread throughout the
world, thought building economic ties and giving China a lot of slack was an
alternative approach that could work.

But at this point consensus is no, regrettably it has not worked out. That a
lot of anguished doves are now changing tack rather then stubbornly refusing
to adapt is admirable, not bad, and will add some needed moderation and
variety to new strategies rather then letting the pendulum go all the way in
the other direction.

~~~
zozbot123
> It was believed that economic development would result in a growing middle
> class and in turn a demand for more political freedom, that ...
> authoritarianism would ultimately be unsustainable

For the record, this is pretty much what happened historically e.g. in South
Korea, and in Taiwan (which is culturally part of China). However, it did take
a higher degree of development than we see in the mainland today, for there to
be a real 'demand' for these sorts of changes.

------
mistermann
Good article, it touches on some of the more subtle but important issues at
play in this case in particular, but the rise of China overall. Due to a
historic lack of more balanced articles like this reaching a relatively more
mainstream audience, I think a lot of people seriously underestimate how
important the opinion of the average man on the ground is (or can be) when it
comes to international trade.

I've been very concerned about the rise of China for many years now, the rate
at which they're closing the technological capability gap with the Western
world coupled with their massive population and cultural propensity to hard
work and saving, wielded by an authoritarian pseudo-communist government poses
a very large risk to the future well being of the world. This isn't to say it
is _guaranteed_ to produce a bad outcome, but it certainly could, and it
doesn't seem terribly unlikely to me, at all.

It has been very interesting to observe the shift in public opinion on China
in forum discussions over the last several years, but particularly in the last
3 months or so. Here in Canada, 4 or so years ago typically only the most
hardcore "racists" would have something negative to say about China, and the
typical response would be overwhelming disagreement and downvoting, if not
deletion of comments and banning from the forum. Contrast that with today,
where I'd say strongly anti-China sentiments are at least 50% of the comments,
and _heavily_ upvoted and rarely moderated (suggesting a change in sentiment
even among moderators). Another example would be the typical discourse on
tariffs when Trump first started discussing them compared to now. At the
beginning, the typical comment was a hearty "oh my god, Trump thinks trade is
a zero sum game, what an idiot!", but I can't remember the last time I read
anyone saying that, suggesting that even the most anti-racist people out there
have somehow become more educated on the topic. And you rarely hear it
mentioned (it usually requires an access to information request by a
journalist), but this change in public sentiment on this and related topics is
definitely a serious topic of discussion behind closed political doors in
Canada.

Very interesting times, I hope it all works out in the end.

------
peisistratos
The English speaking West's relationship to China can be seen in a few things
in past years. One is the UK leaving Hong Kong in 1997. The British Empire, on
which the sun never set and the blood never dried, and which is causing
potentially bloody Brexit chaos in Ireland today, went to war with China in
1842 in order to force opium and heroin on its citizens. The US was junior
helper in these opium wars. The UK stole Chinese territory and stayed there
until 1997, and unbelievable affront of imperialism.

The US can be seen in having the Air Force play hot dog on the Chinese border
in April 2001 (the US military was too busy doing that to protect itself from
jihadis it had funded and armed in Afghanistan to overthrow Afghanistan's
secular government and then betrayed by occupying Arabia - they would strike
the US to end that occupation later in 2001). They crashed into a Chinese
plane, killing the pilot, then illegally landed on Hainan island without
permission. Then the US press and diplomacy became enraged that the Chinese
were actually inspecting the plane and were holding these military personnel
who killed a Chinese pilot. Then this is followed by human rights lover
Trump's recent campaign against China.

It is in this context that the demonization of China by English-speaking
Western liberals currently happens in. Liberals who are also attacking and
demonizing Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, and who applauded Obama's overthrow of
Honduran democracy several years ago with the US funded Honduran military's
overthrow of the elected leader. But the US attacks and bombs so many
countries, as does the UK, it's hard to keep up with who they have a campaign
against from day to day.

~~~
Theodores
Your comment was worth the down votes, but you can be ticked off for
mentioning off topic ideas such as Brexit.

The Bloomberg article was pretty good in my opinion, the writer had spent a
lot of time in China and taken time to see things from a Chinese perspective.

I thought his mention of 'IP' extending to the know how on how to setup
factories and such like was a very good point. I also believe that people here
who shoot off about China stealing IP need to look themselves in the mirror -
a few years ago, when they were starting in tech, did they not steal a copy of
Microsoft Office, learn Photoshop with a pirated copy and listen to some
stolen MP3 files whilst they were at it?

China has worked hard, Chinese people have worked hard. There is a higher
percentage of people actually working in China than in America, and Americans
in work do have not that many holidays, so there is no dismissal of Americans
as being lazy there.

Regarding Huawei, they are ahead. Yes, ahead. Their products are not cheap
knock offs of Western tech, their kit is really good. They are already there
with 5G and their latest smartphones do make me wonder why I would want a
Google or an Apple phone when I can have things like a 40Mb camera and
beautiful build quality. This is just an opinion, but I think the quality of
Huawei products is superb and that is where the problems are. If I was a
domestic rival I would be trying to get the government to stop them as
competing is not easy! There is also the small matter of five-eyes, they are
not able to cooperate with Huawei to the level they can with domestic kit
manufacturers, so again, spread some FUD - projection - about 'them spying on
us'.

Who on this thread has taken the time and had the courtesy to listen to
translated to English words uttered by the Chinese government? Or does
everyone just read how the media sound-bites what news comes from China? We
are familiar with weasel words from our own politicians, politicians that were
born with silver spoons and went to Ivy Leagues. The Chinese leadership had no
such easy start in life, they grew up under Mao and true terror. They have
perspective that Western leaders lack. Clearly Obama had humble origins but
there are few others in Western democracies that can claim the same. Angela
Merkel is another, after that I am struggling to think of others.

The aspect of China being a 'police state' with 'censorship' does not sound
too bad to me. I look in disgust at the lies printed in the press in the West.
I question why they must spit such bile and hatred on a daily basis, doing
their best to profit from keeping people divided. Even 'liberal' Western press
is far too keen to do-down the Chinese, Russian, Syrian, Iranian, Indian and
African man. They have strayed far away from reporting that wins the Pulitzer
Prize.

The true rulers of the Western world think that democracy is great. But
democracy far too often results in the most narcissistic useful idiots with no
understanding of history or philosophy getting into office, lured by money and
power. Our Western governments have told us about freedom but it is not
freedom for us, it is freedom for their backers money. The Western experiment
in neo-liberal capitalism has left us with two classes of people - the rich
and the poor. Our society is like a parasite that has devoured the host,
everyone including the moderately rich enslaved by debt. If you take mortgages
into account everyone is burdened by debt and the governments of the West have
debt that will never be paid off, the can kicked down the road for future
generations to pay.

China have some base or port in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, the U.S. has
troops on 50 of the 55 countries of Africa. It is hard to believe if you only
read the Western media (and easy to believe if you listen to what the Chinese
leadership have to say) but China does seek mutually beneficial, stable
trading partnerships with the rest of the world. China does not have a mindset
of exploitation. Of course there are those that speak of China's human rights
violations and persecution of minorities in Tibet and far beyond, but, again,
have any of these people so eager to tell us this been to any of these places
or shared a few words with people from these allegedly oppressed areas? No.
Hence they do not know whether they are being useful idiots, allowing
xenophobia to get the better of them.

We are all stranded on this small rock we call earth together, in the West we
must up our game to be as polite, courteous and diplomatic as our Chinese
neighbours, to learn from them, to be friends and to restore this planet to
the beautiful garden that it deserves to be. We must practice the art of
turning the other cheek and not getting fired up by media and politicians that
only have the interests of money at heart.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
> have any of these people so eager to tell us this been to any of these
> places or shared a few words with people from these allegedly oppressed
> areas? No.

Certainly there are people concerned about the recent news of massive Uighur
internment camps who have been to Xinjiang. I myself have, twice. That region
has, after all, been commonly traveled by overlanders going from Central Asia
on to China and Southeast Asia. Before the Beijing Olympics, travel there was
relatively hassle-free.

And yes, I did do a lot of talking with the Uighurs at the time (I was keen to
learn Uighur after already knowing closely-related Turkic languages of Central
Asia) and I heard nothing but complaining about the influx of Han Chinese.
Now, however, according to reports from travel fora, foreign travelers in
Xinjiang are being pushed through the region quickly by police and prevented
from any contacts with the Uighur population at all.

------
kuanyi
Why so many company of USA are blocked in China? Facebook, Google, twitter,
Reddit ... But any company of China can make money in USA whenever they want?
USA make CCP rich, but CCP wanna USA to die. These should not be tolerated
anymore.

~~~
some_random
The original idea was that if the West opened its economy to China, they would
inevitably liberalize. Many years later it's clear that was naive, but that's
why the incredibly one sided rules are/were tolerated.

~~~
gaius
I think it was probably self-delusional. The billion-consumer Chinese market
was dangled like a carrot, just give up all your IP to a local “partner”. But
the Party never had even the slightest intention of giving Western companies
access.

------
ngcc_hk
It seems the case built on lie to bank not just about export.

