> The government does not by any means micromanage or control even a tiny fraction of companies in China
This is a straw man argument. No one accused China of micro-managing companies. It's never that overt. For example of how this works in the real world, look at Vladimir Putin in Russia and the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky [1]. He was, at the time, one of the most richest and powerful oligarchs in Russia. By imprisoning him, Putin sent the message that no other oligarch was safe and if they wanted to continue to exist they had to fall in line, which they did.
> How tightly connected is Silicon Valley to the US government?
I'll assume good intent here and that this isn't simply "butwhataboutism". US companies need to obey US laws of course. This includes, for example, the FISA court nonsense. You can argue that Chinese companies are simply following Chinese law. While that's technically true, it's a question of degree.
US companies are more independent from the US government than Chinese companies are from the Chinese government.
> First of all, these partnerships were not theft.
I beg to differ. For example, look at the case of ASMC and Sinovel [2].
> ... and as of last year, Tesla was the top-selling EV car manufacturer in China
Now to much this year [3].
> China is one of the largest markets for Boeing and Airbus.
Yes, because China currently cannot make commercial aircraft at scale to compete with Boeing and Airbus. I guarantee you that's a problem they're working on and they're going to be aided by the boards of both companies giving away the keys to the kingdom for access to that market.
> US companies are more independent from the US government than Chinese companies are from the Chinese government.
It's not just a small difference. Facebook doesn't give data over to the US gov, sometimes not even law enforcement requests They do sometimes, but rarely.
Contrast that with data laws in China, there is no need for the state to ask for data, it's already being handed over to them.
> Erm, what? We know Facebook and Google cooperate with NSA since Snowden.
NSA collected by breaking their security (not good), but that's not the same as handing over data. Both of these companies vehemently deny any kind of information sharing agreement with the government (and no evidence of such a program has ever been made public).
Wow that's a lot of misrepresentation. There is a secret court called FISA, which we all know about and therefore isn't secret. NSA collects on everyone but by breaking in, which while not ideal (and might not be legal) is not the same as an information sharing agreement, which is what we are discussing. And of course America still has laws about such things, even if they aren't always followed.
Domestic state intel (FBI, DHS, etc.) have 0 privileged access to American companies and their data. In China, the law is literally "the state doesn't even need to ask, it's just given".
Recall that the NSA was given an unconstitutional[0] general warrant in secret by the FISA court to spy on all Verizon customers.[1]
> Do you honestly not see the difference?
The difference I see is that there has been extensive, proven, unconstitutional surveillance of Americans by US intelligence agencies, but there is, to date, no evidence that Huawei has spied on Americans.
0. Read about "writs of assistance," a type of general warrant used by the British in colonial America, and which inspired the 4th Amendment's ban on general warrants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writ_of_assistance.
> The difference I see is that there has been extensive, proven, unconstitutional surveillance of Americans by US intelligence agencies, but there is, to date, no evidence that Huawei has spied on Americans.
I can't tell if you are hopelessly native or arguing with typical cynical flippancy. Huawei is a global tool for Chinese espionage. And while global espionage occurs in the US, they don't compel US companies to help them. In China, there is literal legislation that compels every Chinese company to treat their data as property of the state. Either you don't understand that difference, or you are so hopelessly partisan in the matter you'll argue the cultural revolution was fake news.
> Recall that the NSA was given an unconstitutional
Yes it was a giant scandal and they have since stopped. Just a story wouldn't even be a story in China, and such actions continue today, legally.
> Read about "writs of assistance," a type of general warrant used by the British in colonial America
Oh ffs.
You never answered my previous question btw, does your work involve Chinese state industry in anyway?
The only problem is there's no evidence of this at all. The entire claim is hypothetical.
> Either you don't understand that difference, or you are so hopelessly partisan in the matter you'll argue the cultural revolution was fake news.
I just regard the proven, illegal mass surveillance of Americans by the US government as more concerning than the completely hypothetical spying by the Chinese government on Americans. I also think that if the Chinese government were carrying out anything approaching the level of surveillance of Americans that the US government conducts, it would have come out by now.
> Yes it was a giant scandal and they have since stopped.
We really have no idea if they've stopped, and I rather doubt it. The first time around, in 2005, Bush's warrantless wiretapping program was retroactively legalized by Congress, and the telecom companies that had participated in the illegal domestic spying program were shielded from liability. I'm sure that this time around, the NSA has made some sort of superficial changes to formally avoid some of the illegality they were previously engaged in, but I very much doubt that they've given up on mass surveillance of Americans (not to mention their surveillance of the rest of the world).
> Just a story wouldn't even be a story in China, and such actions continue today, legally.
I very much admire the rights to privacy and confidentiality set out in the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution. Those are certainly important rights, which people in China do not have. I just wish that the US government would not blatantly violate those rights (and in secret).
> You never answered my previous question btw, does your work involve Chinese state industry in anyway?
You should know that insinuations that people are shills are a violation of HN's commenting guidelines.
Ignoring evidence doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it means you look silly in public arguing black is white, up is down, etc.
> I just regard the proven, illegal mass surveillance of Americans
You so effortless change subjects I wonder if you even realize you're doing it. The topic at hand is foreign espionage. And even comparing the dystopian nightmare that is Chinese warrantless spying on their own citizens to any other country is the height of absurdity: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/business/china-surveillan...
The Wikipedia section you linked is a collection of evidence-free "concerns." I think most people at HN are aware of the basic situation with Huawei: there are hypothetical "concerns" but no evidence of Huawei ever having engaged in espionage. You can say that it's black and white that Huawei is a tool of Chinese espionage, but you're just speaking from your priors, not from the evidence.
> the dystopian nightmare that is Chinese warrantless spying on their own citizens
Now who's changing the subject? If you're in China, yes, the government has enormous power to surveil you. If you're outside of China, there's no evidence that the Chinese government is using Huawei to spy on you. Given the level of interest in Huawei, I think we'd have heard by now if there were concrete evidence. Instead, all we get are endless hypotheticals. If you're in the US, it's simply a fact that you're much more likely to be surveiled by the US government than by the Chinese government.
> If you're outside of China, there's no evidence that the Chinese government is using Huawei to spy on you.
The level of naïveté you need to believe an authoritarian government building a dystopian surveillance state at home (including targeting and funneling undesirable ethnicities to prison camps) wouldn't extend that collection to foreign countries via a de facto state controlled company...well I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Great price, get in touch.
But of course you know better. You aren't a liar, you are cynical. You say things you know aren't true, in the service of protecting your greater worldview. The other word for that is "troll" - which means I won't waste my time here any longer.
Not to mention the Chinese state is using this data provided by "private companies" (in China increasingly there is no such thing) to target their own citizens for harassment, arrest, and worse: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/09/china-big-data-program-t...
This is a straw man argument. No one accused China of micro-managing companies. It's never that overt. For example of how this works in the real world, look at Vladimir Putin in Russia and the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky [1]. He was, at the time, one of the most richest and powerful oligarchs in Russia. By imprisoning him, Putin sent the message that no other oligarch was safe and if they wanted to continue to exist they had to fall in line, which they did.
> How tightly connected is Silicon Valley to the US government?
I'll assume good intent here and that this isn't simply "butwhataboutism". US companies need to obey US laws of course. This includes, for example, the FISA court nonsense. You can argue that Chinese companies are simply following Chinese law. While that's technically true, it's a question of degree.
US companies are more independent from the US government than Chinese companies are from the Chinese government.
> First of all, these partnerships were not theft.
I beg to differ. For example, look at the case of ASMC and Sinovel [2].
> ... and as of last year, Tesla was the top-selling EV car manufacturer in China
Now to much this year [3].
> China is one of the largest markets for Boeing and Airbus.
Yes, because China currently cannot make commercial aircraft at scale to compete with Boeing and Airbus. I guarantee you that's a problem they're working on and they're going to be aided by the boards of both companies giving away the keys to the kingdom for access to that market.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Khodorkovsky
[2]: https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/25/technology/china-us-sinovel...
[3]: https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/10/investing/tesla-china-sales/i...