
The U.S. is charging Huawei with racketeering - crivabene
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/13/the-u-s-is-charging-huawei-with-racketeering/
======
throwawei
Using a throwaway to share our $0.02 relating to this. AMA I guess.

We're a US-based startup that does about $100-200k in business annually with
Futurewei (Huawei's R&D subsidiary). I've never dealt with Huawei proper. I
can say they're genuinely investing in R&D, and trying to build a product
unlike anything being offered right now. We're working with tech that's
floating around the academic conferences, but no one else commercially will
touch.

This in contrast to our experiences with established US companies which, a)
don't want to deal with early-stage research, b) wouldn't work with us as a
new, small company, and c) gave bad IP terms (ironically).

Not excusing other activities, but for us it's been above-board and
beneficial. If they want to pump their profits into the US ecosystem, I see
that as beneficial.

~~~
jorblumesea
But, don't you see the connection between their risk high investments and the
IP they've stolen from US companies? If anything, Huawei made its name of
stealing from Nortel, Cisco, etc. Not to mention, questionable ties to the
CCP. If they have R&D money to burn, it's because they've saved billions on
R&D because they stole it.

To see them as "good actor" because of a token $200k, while stealing literally
tens of billions is missing the forest for the trees. Strategically, feels
penny wise, pound foolish.

~~~
throwawei
I think the stealing instead of R&D thing is somewhat misled. These guys are
definitely spending billions on research as well.

I get the concern, and fines and punishment is all fine. But I think they
might also have got caught in the geopolitical crossfire. It's a messy world;
Samsung and Apple are stealing eachother's billions everyday, Google and
Facebook are spying on us, DOD is killing people. I don't know who it's
morally permissible to do business with anymore, but we're trying to get by.

~~~
WoahNoun
They stole IP from western companies so they could reach the bleeding edge and
then spent billions on R&D research to get ahead. Without the decades of IP
theft, the R&D achievements never happen. No western company should trust
their 5G equipment.

~~~
bennyelv
I don’t see how your conclusion follows from the premise. I don’t think anyone
really doubts that they’ve stolen IP, but it doesn’t follow from that that
their 5G equipment is therefore untrustworthy. That conclusion requires its
own evidence, and also presentation of the wider context about why we should
trust equipment from other manufacturers instead.

~~~
tekknik
It does follow. Question why they would steal it and realize the Chinese
government can force them to do whatever they want. Given they’ve been
stealing IP it’s clear this is already happening. Then start questioning why?
It’s a very interesting position to be in to have built a majority of the
worlds wireless networks, especially with that type of gov.

------
djrogers
About a dozen years ago I was working for a small-ish hardware company
($350-400M revenue), which was acquired by a bigger company. BiggerCo had a
Joint Venture with Huawei (let’s called it JVco).

About 6 months Post acquisition one of our employees found that Huawei was
selling a 100% complete rip-off of one of our products. JVco had access to
some of our development resources, but Huawei was never supposed to see any of
that per the agreements.

The box looked, acted, and functioned the same - all they did was localize the
language, _barely_ rebrand it, and repackage our weekly updates for their
customers the day after we released them.

Legal from BiggerCo got involved, and it was all papered over as a
‘misunderstanding’ by the Joint Venture company. Haven’t trusted a thing with
their name on it or any company that does business with them since...

~~~
totalZero
Kind of makes you wonder why Boeing would build a finishing plant in Zhoushan
and Apple would put so much of its iPhone production in Zhengzhou and
Shenzhen.

~~~
Fragoel2
Because its cheap, if you only look at the immediate profit without
considering the long term implications

~~~
addicted
The long term implications have been that American companies are richer than
ever before.

~~~
mauflows
What about longer than that. In GPs case what if Huawei outcompetes with
stolen IP?

------
anonobviosly
My previous employer and my current one (both Fortune-50 tech companies) each
had quiet policies that prospective job candidates who had Huawei on their
resume needed extra clearing before they could even interview. Reading through
the indictment makes the policies seem less paranoid or perhaps even not
paranoid enough.

~~~
allovernow
[deleted]

~~~
filoleg
While I hear your reasoning, and parts of it make total sense, it is
explicitly illegal to discriminate against someone due to their citizenship
(yes, citizenship as well, not just national origin or anything like that)
during the recruitment process (exceptions apply, i.e., if they are in the US
illegally or if the position requires some sort of security clearance).

Imo the only way it would work is if there was a separate law passed that
addresses hiring workers who have Chinese citizenship specifically (with no US
citizenship at the same time, obviously, as dual nationals are a thing), but
that would never happen unless the situation escalated dramatically way beyond
what it is now.

------
nostromo
> The DoJ alleges that Huawei and a number of its affiliates used confidential
> agreements with American companies over the past two decades to access the
> trade secrets of those companies, only to then misappropriate that
> intellectual property and use it to fund Huawei’s business.

These American companies thought they could build their products for a
fraction of the price in China and increase margins. They didn't stop to
consider that by teaching China how to build their products they were creating
a new low-cost competitor. And they've since lost their manufacturing ability.
Oops.

It's hard to feel too sorry for these companies. It's not exactly a secret
that this is how China operates and has operated for a very long time.

~~~
AsyncAwait
> It's hard to feel too sorry for these companies. It's not exactly a secret
> that this is how China operates

You mean every developing nation? Just look at U.S. industrial espionage in
Europe during the 18th-19th century when it was developing.

Pretending this is somehow how _China_ specifically operates is disingenuous.

~~~
K0SM0S
I attended a top 5 business school in France at the turn of the century. We
had partnerships with similar schools in NYC, Tokyo, Sydney, you name it.

It was taught in first year of international business classes that outsourcing
abroad was functionally equivalent to a transfer of technology — so you always
had to factor in the time it took for your magic low-cost solution to fade out
and become your competitor, essentially, but not just them: by then the whole
market has access to that cost structure, so you have to keep finding new
lower-cost solutions, and keep innovating on your technological part (HQ in
Europe, USA, Japan, etc).

It's just international business 101, really, and has been for at least 20
years in my personal experience — but I'm pretty sure I read articles from the
1970s describing this process, because Japan was the first one to pull it off
brilliantly.

People focus on China because somebody is waiving that name a lot and his
voice carries a lot through the media; but this is definitely just how the
world works, and has been forever — if you ask workers from the next village
to come and help build stuff with your super tech, it won't take long before
they replicate the process over there.

And that's called culture, knowledge, it lives and grows and moves like
populations of viruses or molecules, it's been modeled for some time in
anthropology at that macro-level.

~~~
jariel
This is a misleading narrative in the context of the charges against Huawei.

To somehow equate the direct theft of IP and innovation as just 'shared
culture and knowledge' completely avoids the material criminality at hand.

Huawei is charged with literally incentivizing their employees to steal
knowledge and IP, and of directly copying designs, on a systematic and
widespread scale. These activities are instituted far beyond just Huawei.

This is not a situation of the natural flow of industrial knowledge, it's
direct theft.

~~~
sneak
The concept of IP is a relatively recent invention, created by legislatures to
prop up specific industries hurt by copying of data, and, as is being
demonstrated, not everyone agrees that it should be treated the same as
existing systems of physical property.

You wouldn’t download a car. But I would. I don’t think it’s possible to steal
information.

~~~
jariel
This history of IP is not relevant. China knows the rules and they broke them.
Therefore, there must be consequences.

~~~
dependenttypes
> China knows the rules and they broke them

So did Turing.

------
busymom0
Here’s the DOJ statement:

[https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-telecommunications-
co...](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-telecommunications-conglomerate-
huawei-and-subsidiaries-charged-racketeering)

Also here's Huawei Technologies Chief Security Officer Andy Purdy talking to
Maria Bartiromo:

[https://youtu.be/iPczYamcruo](https://youtu.be/iPczYamcruo)

~~~
jkelleyrtp
That was a terrible interview - are they all like that? She was just shouting
at him and every time he tried to elaborate on their testing mechanisms she
just called him a communist. He asked for the evidence and she said that she
doesn't need evidence... ??? !!!

As much as I assume that Huawei and co have backdoors in foreign electronics,
I can't get over the racism and hatred for China shared by her and the comment
section.

Are the comments real? Everyone is claiming that he's a traitor, a "Clinton
friend", a liar, a commie, and that he should rot in hell. And the videos
already got 80k views and a near perfect like/dislike ratio. Am I crazy for
thinking this a bad interview, or does half the United States really feel this
way?

~~~
Aperocky
It will get worse before it’s better.

Sometimes I wanted to get off this planet so I can get away from humans and
all of those irrationality and hatred. But in retrospect I probably just need
to get rid of the part of me that are engaging the same.

------
thorowawaytoga
In a small town in Israel, called Hod Hasharon there was a company named "Toga
Networks".

This company was paying as twice as you currenly earn, if you work at Cisco or
Juniper. Just like that, as twice as, just ocme work with us.

One year went by, and it turned out that Toga Network is no other than Huawei.

So I do not know about stealing source code, but I know they looked after its
IP which is in people's mind.

~~~
Aperocky
> IP which is in peoples mind

I think a general term for acquiring that IP is called employment.

~~~
thorowawaytoga
when you target crowd from 2 specific companies and offer 2x market value
salaries it is more aggressive than just "employment".

~~~
IMTDb
Yep, it's called job poaching.

------
KingMachiavelli
While this doesn't directly have to do with the CCP having backdoors in Huawei
products, it does seem a bit too coincidental that the DOJ is just happening
to go after them since corporate espionage is a common theme when dealing with
China.

Hopefully this reflects a changing of the tides when it comes to enforcing IP
laws in China rather than just an excuse to target a single company. I don't
even like IP laws but if we are going to hold the rest of the industrialized
world to the letter of the law then at some point China will have to be
brought into the fold.

~~~
DiogenesKynikos
I think the perception that people commonly have of IP protection in China is
out-of-date by several years.

From what I've read, the level of IP enforcement has increased dramatically
since about 2014, to the point where there are more IP cases heard in Chinese
courts now than in any other country. Likewise, more patents are now filed in
China each year than in any other country. It's also not as if local companies
always win disputes - foreign companies apparently have a very good track
record in Chinese courts.

There's a description of the changes in recent years here:

1\. [https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/05/07/rapid-changes-
chinese-...](https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/05/07/rapid-changes-chinese-
legal-system-attractive-venue-ip-litigation/)

2\. [https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/chinas-progress-on-
intellect...](https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/chinas-progress-on-intellectual-
property-rights-yes-really/)

Back when China was in the earlier stages of industrialization, it really
didn't care much about IP. But things aren't the same any more: China spends
about as much on R&D as the US, and it has its own IP to protect. IP law was
not on their radar before, but it very much appears to be now. But you can
imagine how difficult it is to set such a system up. They've had to create an
entirely new legal system, train judges, etc. China has changed so rapidly
that it's difficult for these sorts of systems to keep up.

~~~
sounds
China protecting their own IP does not preclude China conducting industrial
espionage in other countries; for that matter, the US NSA conducts industrial
espionage in other countries for the benefit of US companies.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON)

~~~
DiogenesKynikos
Parent comment asks when China will start respecting IP. I addressed that.

------
thorwasdfasdf
> "Huawei is alleged to have stolen source code for Company 1’s routers, which
> it then used in its own products."

I've never really understood how IP theft works. I've been a software engineer
for a long time and I know that Reading and making sense of an existing
million line code base is a hella of a lot harder than just writing new code
from scratch. Why on earth would anyone want to steal source code from a
competitor?

~~~
lostmsu
Million lines of code from scratch is not easy in any way. Especially if you
are talking about battle-tested code, which had already faced and accounted
for many corner cases.

~~~
carlmr
Maybe the best way is to write it yourself and when you face an issue you try
to see how they solved it? It's fairly doable to understand a small part of
the code until you see what they needed to do. I wouldn't call it reading all
the millions of lines,I agree with OP that that would most likely take longer.

------
euix
I think the train on Huawei has already left the station. The most likely
scenario is a U.S. maybe a few states highly dependent on U.S. security
assurances vis-a-vis China toeing the line and everybody else using some
combination of Huawei and Nokia/Ericsson in various combinations within their
infrastructure based on how close they align with the U.S. or China.

This whole thing looks just like AIIB a couple years ago where the U.S. made a
huge stink about not joining the club and in the end everybody but Japan and
Taiwan signed up.

------
pbhjpbhj
>Charges also Reveal Huawei’s Business in North Korea and Assistance to the
Government of Iran in Performing Domestic Surveillance //

Surely evidence would reveal that, but this DOJ press release doesn't appear
to be concerned with that.

>As revealed by the government’s independent investigation and review of court
filings, //

Mwah-ha-ha-ha! They know how to tell 'em.

>the new charges in this case relate to the alleged decades-long efforts by
Huawei, and several of its subsidiaries, both in the U.S. and in the People’s
Republic of China, to misappropriate intellectual property //

Aren't new charges a new case? Aren't these extending speculations rather
leading for a case that is in process, shouldn't they make the allegations and
present any evidence - if they wish - rather than make extended claims
bracketed by "allegedly". I can't believe that this has been written as
anything other than a chance to make unsubstantiated claims ... have the
courts hear the charges and then expound at length about the conviction.

I thought these sorts of things from one of the main parties involved (the USA
government) were strongly decried by courts as they tend to colour juries and
judicial bodies; aren't the DOJ perverting the course of justice here with
such a diatribe?

>"Huawei’s efforts to steal trade secrets and other sophisticated U.S.
technology were successful. Through the methods of deception described above,
the defendants obtained nonpublic intellectual property relating to internet
router source code, cellular antenna technology and robotics. As a consequence
of its campaign to steal this technology and intellectual property, Huawei was
able to drastically cut its research and development costs and associated
delays, giving the company a significant and unfair competitive advantage."

That may all be true, but if you're currently prosecuting a case and have to
determine if it's true it would be nice, as a DOJ, to not making statements
that -- despite legal ass covering -- is clearly intended to presuppose the
guilt of the defendant.

When USA decided to go after Huawei to bolster their own telecoms companies, I
wondered if they realised they'd end up stooping so low?

~~~
apsec112
All indictments are written like this. Of course the prosecution thinks the
defendant is guilty, that's why they're bringing the charges. In an
adversarial legal system, it's their job to make the case for guilt.

------
jhallenworld
Huawei clearly is on parity with western technology. The evidence is here:

[https://www.eetasia.com/news/article/Integrated-5G-Chips-
Unv...](https://www.eetasia.com/news/article/Integrated-5G-Chips-Unveiled-by-
Samsung-Huawei-Qualcomm)

And in particular, with its 5G modem:

[http://www.hisilicon.com/en/Products/ProductList/Balong](http://www.hisilicon.com/en/Products/ProductList/Balong)

Some news about this:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-09/huawei-
an...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-09/huawei-and-samsung-
s-new-5g-chips-designed-to-threaten-qualcomm)

And also for the base stations:

[https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/huawei-s-5g-ran-
port...](https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/huawei-s-5g-ran-portfolio-
beats-ericsson-nokia-and-others-report-says)

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
It's clearly ahead in some respect and behind in others. Particularly ahead in
5G where it's the clear world leader, behind in video recording though. The
P30's EIS is seriously garbage compared to iPhone.

~~~
jhallenworld
Well here is one comparison:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yvtfl3gp0M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yvtfl3gp0M)

iPhone 11 and Pixel 4 do seem better, but I would be careful declaring it
"garbage". I just think they have reached parity- where each vendor could
leapfrog the others for any particular feature for successive generations.

------
sandoooo
>In one case, a technology company looking for a partnership with Huawei sent
over a presentation deck with confidential information about its business in
order to generate commercial interest with Huawei. From the indictment:

> Immediately upon receipt of the slide deck, each page of which was marked
> ‘Proprietary and Confidential’ by Company 6, HUAWEI distributed the slide
> deck to HUAWEI engineers, including engineers in the subsidiary that was
> working on technology that directly competed with Company 6’s products and
> services. These engineers discussed developments by Company 6 that would
> have application to HUAWEI’s own prototypes then under design.

Well, _yeah_ , what the hell else are you supposed to do when some supplier
sends you a highly technical slide deck, except discuss it with your engineers
working on the same thing? I seriously can't fathom why anybody involved here
would have any expectation to the contrary.

------
jonathaneunice
Copying successful technology is a goes-around, comes-around cycle. In
1780-1850, the USA was the premier pirate, stealing the world's premier
technology and know-how, from Britain. By 2050, the Chinese will be fighting
the very same battle with someone else (Nigeria and Angola maybe?), and
bitterly bemoaning IP theft in the same terms.

------
crmrc114
<quote>and using proxies such as professors working at research institutions
to obtain and provide the technology to the defendants</quote> You know this
talk about using American Professors as proxies for exfiltrating information
reminds me of this:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00291-2](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00291-2)

------
ReptileMan
Any lawyer that can pitch in? I don't think that this fits the spirit of the
RICO laws.

~~~
protocolture
Since when do lawyers care about the spirit of a law, instead of what the law
makes possible.

~~~
thewileyone
Which is their billing rates.

------
sunstone
Pretty clearly Huawei is now the cow that the US and China will be fighting
over. Meng is now likely to be caught up in this as well regardless of how the
current charges go. The US standing right up to China and punching it the
nose. It's an inflection point for the world economy.

------
thatiscool
It is all about backdoor.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/us-german-
intel-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/us-german-intel-owned-
swiss-crypto-used-by-dozens-of-countries/)

------
jbduler
This another example of what is called the Master-Slave dialectic from Hegel,
an 18th century philosopher. Something that I studied in a philosophy class
and had a profound influence on my understanding of work. Please take 10' to
understand it and it applies to the relationship between engineers and
salespeople, to the relationship now between China and the USA.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_dialectic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_dialectic)

~~~
qtplatypus
Can you explain how this relates to this story?

------
thrownaway954
so what does this mean? do they haul all the executives and workers into
court? what happens if they are found guilty? do the executives go to jail, is
the company forced to shutdown, or do they just have to pay a fine and all is
good. hell, do they even have to pay the fine?

so many questions :(

~~~
A4ET8a8uTh0
Well, I am not an expert on that particular subject, but Huawei's CFO was
arrested in Canada by the end of 2018. It seems US upped the ante a little and
really decided to bring her in to face charges.

Now that would bring some fireworks. I am not convinced China would not
respond in kind.

~~~
emptybits
> I am not convinced China would not respond in kind.

Indeed. In diplomatic retaliation, China responded to the Huawei CFO's arrest
in Canada by quickly arresting two Canadians on charges without evidence or
explanation. Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. These Canadians have been in
Chinese detention for over a year without access to a lawyer or the ability to
speak to family or loved ones. Canadian pawns in a USA-China game.

[https://globalnews.ca/news/6410460/michael-kovrig-china-
cana...](https://globalnews.ca/news/6410460/michael-kovrig-china-canada-
detention/)

------
pastime
Something seems off.

If China steals all the US IP, why are US technology companies still so
valuable?

For example, Apple is a very valuable US technology company that also has
extensive dealings in China.

~~~
totalZero
I see it this way, apologies if it seems off topic or judgmental but....

The third world is a place where many people have an idea of astuteness that
differs from intelligence.

Intelligence is the ability to design, build, create, manage, or otherwise
achieve something in a novel way.

Astuteness is the ability to take an advantage when one presents itself. Think
Diego Maradona, or Aladdin.

US technology companies have a great deal of creative intelligence,
institutional knowledge, trust from customers, access to talent, and freedom
to execute on corporate strategy.

But even the company you mention, Apple, is arguably being outdone by Samsung
(moved production out of China) and Huawei (Chinese).

------
mzs
>The superseding indictment also includes new allegations about Huawei and its
subsidiaries’ involvement in business and technology projects in countries
subject to U.S., E.U. and/or U.N. sanctions, such as Iran and North Korea – as
well as the company’s efforts to conceal the full scope of that involvement.
The defendants’ activities, which included arranging for shipment of Huawei
goods and services to end users in sanctioned countries, were typically
conducted through local affiliates in the sanctioned countries. Reflecting the
inherent sensitivity of conducting business in jurisdictions subject to
sanctions, internal Huawei documents allegedly referred to such jurisdictions
with code names. For example, the code “A2” referred to Iran, and “A9”
referred to North Korea. edit from this superseding indictment itself:

>For example, an official HUAWEI manual labeled “Top Secret” instructed
certain individuals working for HUAWEI to conceal their employment with HUAWEI
during encounters with foreign law enforcement officials.

>Beginning in or about 2000, the defendants HUAWEI and FUTUREWEI
misappropriated operating system source code for internet routers, command
line interface (a structure of textual commands used to communicate with
routers) and operating system manuals from a U.S. technology company
headquartered in the Northern District of California (“Company 1”), an entity
the identity of which is known to the Grand Jury, and incorporated the
misappropriated source code into HUAWEI internet routers that FUTUREWEI sold
in the United States from approximately April 2002 until December 2002. Toward
this end, HUAWEI and FUTUREWEI hired or attempted to hire Company 1 employees
and directed these employees to misappropriate Company 1 source code on behalf
of the defendants.

>In or about July 2004, at a trade show in Chicago, Illinois, a HUAWEI
employee (“Individual-3”), an individual whose identity is known to the Grand
Jury, was discovered in the middle of the night after the show had closed for
the day in the booth of a technology company (“Company 3”), an entity the
identity of which is known to the Grand Jury, removing the cover from a
networking device and taking photographs of the circuitry inside. Individual-3
wore a badge listing his employer as “Weihua,” HUAWEI spelled with its
syllables reversed. In official correspondence with Company 3 shortly after
this incident, HUAWEI claimed that Individual-3 attended the trade show in his
personal capacity and that his attempted misappropriation occurred “without
Huawei’s authorization.” According to a purported official statement published
in Reuters, HUAWEI claimed, “This is a junior engineer who had never traveled
to the United States before. His actions do not reflect the culture or values
of Huawei.” Notably, a resume that Individual-3 submitted to the U.S.
government in approximately 2012 stated that he had been a “senior R&D
Engineer” at HUAWEI from 1997 until July 2004, the time of the incident.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22320499](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22320499)

------
rickety-gherkin
US political and militarized forces protecting corporate interest for the sake
of...what again? Upholding ridiculous IP law?

Is it naive to think that IP law should be disintegrated? How would the world,
and more specifically the digital landscape, look if there was no concept of
IP.

~~~
totalZero
There'd be little incentive to invest in long-term R&D projects. Where's the
profit in research on a new drug if you'll have to immediately compete with
other pharma companies in selling it?

------
secfirstmd
I wonder when the US will start charging Israeli companies for IP theft?....

------
killjoywashere
Here's my question: which American companies are so insanely dumb that they
actually thought sharing any version of any of this made any sense? are these
the organizational consequences of rich people not actually managing the
companies that the engineers are working for? Maybe the engineers are like
"Just to hell with my country, my company, my neighbors my family and futire
myself, I'll do whatever it takes to get my raise. The left-wing folks at
Berkeley are right, everyone's here for the common good, we just don't really
understand the Chinese. We should share more, and gain their trust."

~~~
mrunkel
Is it truly so hard to understand that what is the best action for oneself
isn't necessarily the best action for the community (however one defines
community)?

American companies want to sell their products in China. Quite often that
requires them to base some part of production in China.

As for the last, yes, there is a large cultural gap between the US and the
Chinese and frankly that gap exists mostly on the US side. I'd argue that
without understanding the language, you'll never really understand another
culture.

Sure, you can base your understanding on a few people that do understand the
language, but your understanding will always be skewed by their prejudices.

In my lifetime, I've dealt with business people from a variety of cultures.
Some are honest, some aren't. Some are cheap, some believe you have to spend
money to make money. Some are successful, some aren't. None of that aligns
with any particular culture.

We assign attributes to remote cultures based on reports of the extremes
(because the day to day doesn't get reported). When the same behavior gets
reported in our own cultures, we simply say well, it's those guys that were
bad, not the entire culture.

------
jariel
"A ‘competition management group’ was tasked with reviewing the submissions
and awarding monthly bonuses to the employees who provided the most valuable
stolen information."

Just wow.

How could any nation, let alone any company, allow any employee of Huawei
anywhere near their operations?

Literally, they are incented to steal whatever they can from you, out in the
open, systematically, with nary much effort to cover it up it seems.

------
Dahoon
So Huawei is coping US companies and still creating better equipment than
those it copy from? Ask anyone (well maybe anyone outside the US) in the tele
industry and they'll tell you that Huawei is cheaper, better and also faster
to fix a problem in both software and hardware. At least I have never heard
anyone state otherwise outside of anon people on a forum. So, ask a real
person and see.

~~~
otterley
The argument goes that Huawei would not be able to "create better equipment"
had they been unable to wrongfully copy others' work in the first place. If
the allegations are true, Huawei enjoys a position that resulted from unlawful
and immoral behavior, and their ill-gotten gains should be confiscated from
them.

Who knows what would have happened had Huawei done all their own R&D in the
first place. Maybe they'd be in the same place as they are today; maybe not.
But when you start from a position of copying someone else's work, the
presumption is that everything you added since is tainted, and any profits
should be someone else's, not yours.

~~~
sand_castles
relax bro,

we all stand in other's shoulders.

also, you in what army ? are you going to invade Asia ?

~~~
otterley
There are two ways to stand on another’s shoulders. One is with consent; the
other (to mix legal metaphors) is assault.

It would be one thing if Huawei said, “do you mind if I use this?” and
received permission. But if they had to use deception to gather information,
that’s a pretty clear indication that it’s wrong and is done without consent.

~~~
sand_castles
The entire legal system that exists as of today is mainly to benefit rich
folks.

You should read the book "Code of Capital".

The CCP has made it clear that "rule of law" as stated by Mr. Obama is about
favoring western capital interests.

I think it's a bigger crime that 6 billion people do not get to enjoy the same
standard of living as the 2 billion people on top.

By having no brittle IP rules, the CCP makes sure Chinese businesses stay
dynamic and continue to dominate.

------
cityzen
Irony that a country led by Donald Trump is charging companies with
racketeering. Shows what a joke we have become.

------
plandis
What the fuck is up with these comments? Are you all really okay with blatant
lawbreaking with no consequences?

~~~
protocolture
laws =/= morals

------
kimsant
All low level geopolitics from Trumpist USA.

The message is, you Chinese can do some tech but don't grow too big! Facebook,
Microsoft, Intel, Amd, Google, AWS, Cisco. Those big must remain American.

Mobile World Congress suden cancelation because Huawei represents half of
it... Same same

------
jorblumesea
Isn't this what TPP was supposed to solve? It's ironic that the Trump admin
killed Obama's China containment strategy, only to try to implement it in a
half assed way without any allied alignment. Also doesn't help Trump is a
highly polarizing figure.

Pretty much describes the Trump admin in a nutshell. Whatever Obama did, get
rid of it, regardless of its value, then implement a worse solution instead.

~~~
mdorazio
I'm not sure how TPP was supposed to be a China containment strategy. I've
heard this said a few times, but the explanations for how it was supposed to
work always seemed like hand-wavey versions of "well, it would make US
partnerships with non-China countries stronger and that would somehow contain
China".

~~~
nl
The TPP was absolutely designed to be a China containment strategy.

The idea was to reduce trade barriers within the Pacific region, which would
make trade there cheaper and hence more attractive vs China.

Specifically, lower wage countries (Malaysia, Vietnam, Mexico) would have been
more attractive as outsourcing locations compared to China, and in return good
and services from high wage countries would have been cheaper in those
countries making them more attractive compared to Chinese competitors.

As a specific example, most industrial machinery imported to Vietnam is
subject to a 20% import tariff[1]. This means US companies like Caterpillar
and GE are relying on political intervention to win deals[2], instead of being
more competitive on price.

[1] [https://www.customs.gov.vn/SitePages/Tariff-
Search.aspx?port...](https://www.customs.gov.vn/SitePages/Tariff-
Search.aspx?portlet=DetailsImportTax&language=en-
US&code=40118021&searchTerms=englishDescription%3dmachinery)

[2] [https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/nation-and-
world/us-...](https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/nation-and-world/us-
companies-general-electric-co-and-caterpillar-inc-sign-billions-in-deals-with-
vietnam-20170531)

~~~
mdorazio
Right, but you need to show that knocking down tariffs like the Vietnam one
would actually directly result in more non-Chinese trade. I can pretty much
guarantee that even without the 20% tariff, US imports would still be far more
expensive than Chinese equivalents. Do you have any economic analysis articles
or papers you can point me to that model the expected impacts based on actual
market prices and labor costs?

~~~
nl
Sure. Here's one on a potential free trade agreement between the US and
Malaysia[1] (which is another TPP nation) that calculates direct changes:

 _As shown, following a free trade, the Malaysia’s export to the USA would
increase by USD 30984 million or 7 percent and the US export to Malaysia would
increase by USD 16051 million(22 percent). The substantial increase in the
volume of export between two countries is due to removal of trade barriers.
The higher increase in the US export to Malaysia relative to the Malaysia
export to the US is because Malaysia currently has a higher tariff than the
US._

Worth noting that it's absolutely unclear _if_ it would have worked, but _how
TPP was supposed to be a China containment strategy_ is clear (which was your
original question).

[1]
[http://www2.southeastern.edu/orgs/econjournal/index_files/JI...](http://www2.southeastern.edu/orgs/econjournal/index_files/JIGES%20JUNE%202013%20yaghoob%20&%20Jamal%2010-27-2013%20R1.pdf)

~~~
mdorazio
Thanks! I'm still looking for an analysis on how this would impact the Asia
region in general, and China specifically. For example, from the paper, the
net result export impact outside the US-Malaysia trade relationship would be a
decline:

"Further, the export of Malaysia and the US to the world is expected to
decline by 0.8 percent and 0.1 percent respectively."

But it doesn't break out "rest of world" into groups, so it's not clear what
the impact to China would be, if any. To me, the implication is that without a
corresponding drop in imports from China, the net result is zero.
Unfortunately the tables at the end are garbled, so I can't see in Table 2
what the import impacts would be from their dataset.

~~~
nl
Yeah I agree entirely. I don't know where to find this analysis.

I'd also argue that most analysis is likely to be incorrect given that the
rapid growth and specifically industrial expansion of China into new
industries is unprecedented.

Having said that, all analysis is incorrect at some level, but some is still
useful.

(Also, someone is going an downvoting all my comments on this thread! I'm not
sure why - I'm not making an argument for or against TPP, just trying to
explain how it _aimed_ to contain China. Someone even downvoted my comment
pointing out that China is TPP participant Australia's biggest trading
partner, so it was never designed to cut off all trade to China, just make the
region less dependant on it. It's pretty annoying really)

------
resters
Ironically, this is an attempt by the Trump administration to steal IP from
China. US firms are behind in 5G because they have sat on the sidelines while
Huawei engineered the chipsets.

It's tremendously ironic that these charges will likely allow US firms to
steal money and/or IP from Huawei through what is for all intents and purposes
the Trump administration's fiat.

Worse yet, as has been the pattern with the Trump administration so far, many
aspects of the economy that were relatively stable and allowed planning and
investment have been destroyed, like when a child throws a tantrum and upsets
a board game sending the pieces onto the floor. Many international agreements,
standards, and trade and diplomatic relationships have been set back decades
by the administration.

Note that the major claims have all been false so far:

\- The daughter (a journalist) of the Huawei CEO was harrassed and detained
without cause, in what was essentially a kidnapping for ransom/extortion. How
did the American people not feel outrage when Trump did this?

\- There have been repeated accusations of backdoors into 5G hardware, but yet
no example of a device that has been hacked by the US or any private sector
researchers.

\- US officials have (quite inappropriately) tried to foment xenophobia and
hatred of Chinese immigrants in the US. This combined with Trump's xenophobic
comments show the US's hand quite clearly. China is now a rival and no dirty
tactics are off limits.

As an American, I am so deeply embarrassed by all of this.

~~~
totalZero
Hold up, hold up. Did you just describe Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei, as "a
journalist"?

If you're gonna peddle a biased narrative, put some effort into making it
appear reasonable.

~~~
resters
My narrative had one factual problem, Meng's job title, but it is not biased.

------
ep103
You can charge a company with RICO? Maybe we can charge a political party
then.

~~~
tharne
U.S. law says corporations are people. People can be charged with RICO. It may
be weird, but it's consistent.

~~~
Ididntdothis
Corporations are people mainly when it’s convenient. I am not aware of a
company being sent to jail or sentenced to death. Regular persons can’t always
settle things by paying a big (or small) fine.

~~~
kube-system
The corporate death penalty (i.e. judicial dissolution) is a thing in the US,
but is very rarely used.

[https://www.nytimes.com/1889/11/08/archives/against-the-
suga...](https://www.nytimes.com/1889/11/08/archives/against-the-sugar-trust-
decision-of-the-supreme-court-general-term.html)

------
tibbydudeza
I have a Huawei phone and home gateway ... oh dear.

I wonder how much GM and Boeing depends on the Chinese home market , two can
play that game since the soybean tradewar went so great they had to bailout
oops sorry "aid" the farmers.

