
MIT cuts ties with Chinese tech firms Huawei, ZTE - gmishuris
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-huawei-tech-zte/elite-u-s-school-mit-cuts-ties-with-chinese-tech-firms-huawei-zte-idUSKCN1RG0FS
======
eob
I was a PhD student at MIT CSAIL a few years ago and recall an incident where
a visiting scholar from a corporation who had donated money had to be asked to
leave because he essentially scraped every piece of internal data and code in
the lab and sent it back home.

What was amazing to me was that he was allowed to return a few months later
with the explanation “it was just a cultural misunderstanding”

I want to be careful not to point fingers at a particular country or culture,
but that experience taught me that a grey-area version of corporate espionage
is _very real_ in academia — an environment that operates with all guards down
and no defenses against it.

[Edited to fix tappos]

~~~
ryacko
What grey area? It was bad enough they decided to send him home.

~~~
partiallypro
How was it bad that they sent him home? A spy is a spy. In China they would
have just killed him or imprisoned him if a student were sending information
"back home." If you don't believe me that China simply kills spies, look at
the spy purges in the Obama years after a breach in the CIA's communications.

~~~
jmts
Reread their post. They said their action was bad enough for them to be sent
home. Not that it was a bad decision for them to be sent home.

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om3n
Here's an anecdotal story.

My team was interviewing engineers last year. We had a Chinese engineer come
interview with us. She was in the States on a work visa, and her first job
here was for a state government project. She was on a team building a web
application that had public-facing and internal-facing UIs, and she was
apparently working on both of these.

Anyways, she comes in for the interview, and shortly after our conversation
begins she pulls out her work laptop, opens up her work project, and start
going through the code with us! I asked "is this open source?" and she said
no. I could even see slack messages coming up from her team mates.

I honestly couldn't believe it. We asked her to stop. As you can imagine, she
didn't get an offer from us.

~~~
StudentStuff
Sounds like a FOIA request should fix that "open source" problem. If its
software developed by or for a governmental agency in the US, we as citizens
have the right to access it as the public domain work it is. The recent ORCA
fare enforcement app shenanigans with Sound Transit is a great example, even
with a contracting company as a layer of indirection for developing said
software doesn't escape said code's FOIAbility.

~~~
Calib3r
>ORCA fare enforcement app shenanigans with Sound Transit

Can you please provide a source for the details?

~~~
StudentStuff
See Fare Enforcement Apps:
[https://www.muckrock.com/agency/washington-54/central-
puget-...](https://www.muckrock.com/agency/washington-54/central-puget-sound-
regional-transit-authority-sound-transit-6356/)

Edit: Litigation is here:
[https://kevin.wallace.seattle.wa.us/v/vix/](https://kevin.wallace.seattle.wa.us/v/vix/)

------
coldtea
This is what a commerce war looks like.

It's not about China being an oppressive state, spying, etc. The former didn't
matter all these decades, and the latter goes on forever from all sides and
nobody bats an eye.

It's about China catching up to (and surpassing in some cases) US tech, and
not being content to be the mere "factory of the US" but sell its own stuff.
Like Korea, Taiwan, and Japan each did in their own timelines decades ago
(from laughed at copycats and cheap foreign manufactures, to competitive
themselves).

Expect to see more of China as the "enemy du jour" going forward.

~~~
acchow
Japan caught up and surpassed the US without the corporate espionage or
subsequent commerce war.

~~~
Barrin92
You should brush up on the history of Japanese-US trade relations during the
Reagan era if you are seriously convinced that is a remotely faithful
retelling of history.

~~~
Balgair
Enlighten us?

~~~
Barrin92
The US felt extremely threatened by Japanese manufacturing in the 80s and in
fact most of the world had this cultural idea of Japan becoming the dominant
global technology force. As a consequence the US government imposed a 100%
tariff on Japanese electronics, accused the country of "currency manipulation"
(sound familiar?). And on the topic of IP Japanese faced the very same copycat
accusations that China does now.

Let's just take this fortune article from 1987 as an example:

[http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive...](http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1987/12/21/69996/index.htm)

Try and replace every occurence of Japan with China and see how it sounds.

It even seeped into fiction. There's a reason neo-tokyo imagery is at the
forefront of Gibson-era sci-fi.

~~~
gamblor956
The big difference is that while Japan was frequently accused of IP theft, the
actual occurrences were few and far between as the result of individual
corporate activity.

Chinese IP theft isn't just rampant--it's actively promoted and paid for by
the Chinese government, which even goes so far as to identify targets for IP
theft and provides governmental assistance in extracting stolen IP from the
victim country.

~~~
coldtea
> _The big difference is that while Japan was frequently accused of IP theft,
> the actual occurrences were few and far between as the result of individual
> corporate activity._

The accusations against Japanese companies at the time were including that the
Japanese government were assisting them, and that the IP theft was part of
national competitiveness policy. (And of course in Japan - as in S. Korea -
corporations and state go hand in hand, though not to the degree of China).

Not that the inverse was also not happening (then and now):

[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/31/national/wikile...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/31/national/wikileaks-
alleges-widespread-u-s-spying-on-japanese-government-major-companies/#.XKaAi-
gzbUI)

------
srndh
First off, I am not pro or anti USA or China. Just curious and hoping to have
a constructive dialogue.

What moral high ground is USA on in the Snowden era? Why trust Cisco or Apple
or Google or Facebook or Microsoft in USA's Prism? With the "Five Eyes", how
to trust Nokia or Ericsson or Blackberry? What ethical high-ground are the tax
evading tech giants on? Lets not forget how the pharma mobs are gaming the
patent system to run an extortion ring on life saving medicines like insulin
or the planned obsolescence when the world is rushing to reduce global
warming.

Its sad to see a place of learning is getting into politics & business. How
different is this from the patent battles between Oracle & Google or Apple,
Microsoft & Samsung? Google is poaching chips guys from various sources to
compete with Apple. Then all the poaching in AI & self driving & electric
cars. Lets not forget the "borrowing" done my Jobs & Gates from Xerox PARC
that founded the Silicon Valley.

As a consumer, due to Huawei & Mi. Samsung & other brands have started
lowering the price. Hope Google poached the right team to make a better chip
than what Apple has. Hopefully Apple also will start selling sensible priced
devices. MIT should instead be working for growing an opensource culture in
China. Which already seems to have something of that sort but limited due to
all being in Chinese language.

~~~
masko
I get what you mean but it has more to do with who's running those companies.

Google, Microsoft, and Facebook are American companies. In all honesty I'd
rather have an American company spy on American people, rather than a Chinese
company doing so.

China is catching up with tech and their government is totalitarian. Privacy
doesn't exist in China, and it could be scary to think what they would do with
data gathered from spying on us. I don't want any involvement of theirs in
American schools or companies.

------
mark_l_watson
Hmmm. From the article: "MIT is the latest top educational institution to
unplug telecom equipment made by Huawei and other Chinese companies to avoid
losing federal funding."

It seems like my government is pulling out all the stops trying to compete
internationally against Chinese companies in the 5G market. I understand that
other countries also pull out all the stops in trying to help their industries
compete internationally.

------
novaRom
I just finished reading 'AI Superpowers' and I hardly understand now if US has
any single chance to compete with China's Tech fairly, openly, democratically,
with respect.

~~~
eastendguy
...in what area is China actually leading? Catching up and leading require two
very different skill sets.

~~~
thrwawayw434
Do you follow ML ? A lot of big-impact papers in Computer vision has come
directly from mainland China and Hong Kong. MSRA, CUHK, Sensetime, and Baidu
have made quite a few advances in the field.DMLC a group of members composed
mostly of Chinese students basically wrote things like MXNET and Xgboost.

Granted most of these are collaborative ventures, but calling China 'catching
up' at this stage is ignorant.

~~~
m0zg
And yet nearly all SOTA research is done in the US.

Eventually folks in China realize they could easily be making $500K+/yr at
FANG and be financially independent in 10 years, so they leave for the much,
much greener US pastures, and stay here.

------
ianai
Is there any evidence that these two companies aren’t Chinese government
operatives?

~~~
escapecharacter
Couldn’t you count any US based company that takes major government contracts,
or has board members who were formerly high in government (eg.
Dropbox/Condoleezza Rice) as a “government operative”?

~~~
ianai
Nope. Presumably their former positions on their resumes are why former
government employees are on such boards/in such positions. Expecting/wanting
certain things on a resume are standard practice.

------
CodeSheikh
I wonder if US carriers can start discouraging consumers from using Huawei,
ZTE cellphones. They know the IMEI numbers.

~~~
gruez
How would this work? A monthly ZTE surcharge? The consumer already bought the
phone. Retroactively punishing them when they already gave money to ZTE isn't
the right solution. Just ban new phones from joining the networks.

~~~
penagwin
ZTE is super popular amount the more "budget" carriers like boost, cricket,
metro, etc. Not to mention their parent companies like Tmobile and Sprint
which I'd still consider semi-budget carriers.

Source: Work in phone repair. We don't repair phones that cost 100USD new and
have a non-existant parts market.

~~~
chrischen
What is a “premium” carrier and what are they offering for the extra price?

~~~
penagwin
Mostly just AT&T and Verizon, and Verizon is definitely the more "premium"
one. I consider them premium because they cost more, they don't try to be the
most affordable, they own other brands for that (cricket, etc.).

The biggest difference is their coverage. If you live in, and mostly travel
within a metro area you're fine with sprint/tmobile, but anybody who's ever
travelled will find that verizon is the only option if you work in, or go to
the middle of nowhere at all. Basically Verizon has towers everywhere,
including farmland that I can't figure out why they'd want to cover, but hey
you get coverage while picking blueberries!

(This only goes for the USA, and includes my experience living in Michigan
working in phone repair/retail, as well as my travels with other people/their
carriers outside of Michigan)

~~~
chrischen
This is true that Verizon (AT&T included) cover a lot more physical area. I
was in the middle of the forest in northern Michigan, and the only signal out
there was from AT&T. As it turned it turned out, T-Mobile allows you to roam
if there is no T-Mobile coverage, so I was getting AT&T coverage.

I don't think Verizon can be considered high end, at least not definitively.
Wherever T-Mobile does have coverage, their speeds are higher, and their
offering of international roaming and by-default unlimited data are clearly
geared to the "upper" end of the market of professionals that live in cities,
that travel frequently.

------
ycombonator
Ultimately the freedoms we take for granted here stand on preserving
sovereignty.

------
lordnacho
Is there any chance Chinese phones will stop working too?

~~~
chrisjc
As the owner of Huawei and Xiaomi devices, I would say the chances that they
stop working is extremely high.

------
monksy
I wonder how China will retaliate after this. This is a pretty public thing.

------
thaumasiotes
It could be argued that if the news needs to introduce you as "an elite US
school", you aren't really an elite school.

That's an odd conclusion to draw about MIT though. Who's the target audience
here? MIT really is internationally known.

~~~
espeed
Everyone in the West knows MIT. That's a clue the Reuters headline target
audience is in the East.

~~~
thaumasiotes
They know MIT in China too. They don't read Reuters much though.

~~~
ei8htyfi5e
I used to live there and they don't really know MIT in China. I'd say only
among the academics. Certainly not a household name.

~~~
b_tterc_p
Are you sure? Because there’s a bus load of fascinated Chinese tourists
clamoring to look at MIT every other hour.

~~~
richardw
I live in South Africa. One of my local malls has a busload of Chinese
tourists arriving not hourly but possibly daily. Not a special mall.

China is so big that even if a tiny percentage have any interest in you,
you'll think it's a heck of a lot. MIT can be a non-household name and still
attract hundreds of thousands.

------
techntoke
If US wants to compete and be a leader in tech, then they are going to have to
focus on an open-source mostly patent-free future.

------
PlayfulTrick
Lackluster outline of implicated strategy regards placement of a fore-settled
time-line(course of action); thoughts?

------
throw2016
There has been a lot of fud and scaremongering on China and Russia with very
little evidence and facts. This makes it look like the commitment to
competition, free markets and due process is hollow and self serving and the
moment it doesn't benefit you you try to change the rules.

China is now running into some of these invisible barriers and constraints
that have been in place all along and this brings them into light and exposes
the self serving hypocrisy of the current system to the rest of the world.
There are global mechanisms to take complaints with evidence yet this 'war' is
not being fought in the trade commissions but in the public press with
innuendo and smears and political pressure on allies.

How do we then even talk about words like competition, free trade and
innovation in neutral terms when companies like Qualcomm can succeed
unhindered while others like Huawei are politically demonized and constrained
in market access.

~~~
edm0nd
Without a doubt, China, Russia, AND the US are most certainly engaged in large
scale espionage and stealing each others intel and corporate R&D via any means
necessary by nation-state backed hacking and etc.

