US Lawmakers Urge Canada to Snub China's Huawei in Telecoms
reuters.com
reuters.com
As a Canadian citizen, I urge Canada to snub Huawei too. Doing business with businesses based in China for any reason should be met with extreme criticism simply based on the human rights atrocities that are happening there all the time; not to mention Chinese government's dismantling of free speech in Hong Kong [0] and its continued aggression towards the independent and separate country of Taiwan [1].
China's businesses should fix China's government before they expect to be rewarded with lucrative international deals to the scale that Telus (and Apple, et all) is awarding them.
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/10/14/beijing-taking-hong-ko...
https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/10/11/exclusive-beijing-tell...
But China's operation appears to have the goal of wiping out Uygher culture and forcibly stripping them of their religious practices. This is all-out assault on the autonomy and dignity of an entire ethnic group. The scariest thing to me is that it might actually work[1].
[1] https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/zhukov/wp-content/uploads/sites/...
I know some of their cellular hardware is Huawei.
Bell is obsessed with Huawei last I checked.
You're missing Cogeco, Beanfield, Vidéotron, and loads of others. The market for integrated telcos in Canada is reasonably competitive, at least where costs are justified.
P.S. by definition three competitors (even if only, say, two are usually active in a given area) does not a monopoly make.
Ah, "let's punish the people of China for getting oppressed by their government", the strategy that made Cuba what it is today.
edit: https://business.financialpost.com/technology/nortel-hacked-...
There was a lot of evidence of the hacking [1][2]. What was unsubstantiated was Brian Shields' belief that "the extensive cyberattacks on Nortel contributed to its downfall" [3].
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203363504577187...
[2] https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400242,00.asp
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nortel#Hackers_had_free_access...
I've used a Huawei LTE router from a German telco before and thought it was a pretty solid product, but given the recent headlines I find it hard to judge what's a legitimite concern and what's just "red scare".
In the end, I think it's been very ill advised for the U.S. Govt to allow so much of its' essential communications and other technical infrastructure to be delivered by foreign entities given domestic capability. I think we're only now starting to realize how much risk has been levied and how dangerous this has really been. Not just to domestic businesses, but to our own security.
The advice to Canada isn't necessarily bad, however I'm not sure that I would trust U.S. entities any further given the amount of cyber-warfare coming from all sides, and spying all around. Larger countries should definitely work to at least form their own assembly plants for most goods if they're able to support that. It can at least minimize a lot of the risks.
The scale at which companies work with the government and how the government funds companies makes it very hard to trust any Chinese company.
It is a bit strange seeing the US yelling the warnings about China when really they just gained a peer doing the same things.
Not really. American companies can and do defy the American executive branch. Rule of law and an independent judiciary are things in America. They are not in China.
A rule of law that is profoundly flexible to achieve whatever the US government wants to do. From secret courts and directives that you can't talk about, to the wholesale capture of telco traffic (with telco complicity, of course). And that rule of law allows the massive US intelligence establishment to do virtually anything internationally (which is the context that we're talking about), from sabotaging systems, performing economic espionage and stealing trade secrets, to murder.
Virtually the same trappings and illusions of controls exist in China as well.
Both countries do the same thing, and to an international country are interchangeable. The overall context to these discussions, however, is that the US is somehow good and China is somehow bad, so it's different.
Secret courts are a shame. Secret directives, on the other hand, can be compatible with the rule of law and an independent judiciary, provided they're lawfully authorized and can be challenged in a court.
At the end of the day, a private citizen (or foreign government) can challenge the U.S. government on equal grounds in a fair court. That is not the case in China.
I presume you also forgot to add this before challenged in a court...
> ..., whistleblowers are protected, and can be ...
You see, because that's the thing with secret directives, they're redacted from the public eye. The only way we get visibility into them isn't with FOIA requests, it's with whistleblowers who feel the government is doing things wrong, and if they're not protected, they rarely come forward.
The West has this to some extent, but not at the same scale or connections. US companies are far more independent.
I understand the national security concerns, but it should be noted that real incremental costs will be incurred if Canada agrees, especially for Canadian carriers who already have Huawei RAN[1], Packet Core[2] or GiLAN[3] (or worse, an entirely E2E bundled deal) infrastructure in place servicing their current needs.
Huawei almost always has the lowest RFP bid prices, and through a combination of factors generally ends up on most RFx vendor short-lists. Their success is undeniable, and scares many.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_access_network
[2] http://www.3gpp.org/technologies/keywords-acronyms/100-the-e...
[3] https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/reference_arch...
I just want to know what these grave concerns are. If they are such a big deal then the details should be released to the public.
Details have been released. The Wikipedia page provides a good compendium of Huawei's intellectual property rights abuses, espionage and security concerns, workforce treatment issues and sanctions violations [1].
Canada needs improved cellular services and it needs them now. Canada's cell networks are much more regulated than those of the US. They cover vastly larger areas and are much more expensive to access. The insertion of national security politics will only slow progress.
Basing the response on school yard type diplomacy would be unwise.
The way I see it, the US may be erratic, but it's still a country with the rule of law. China is a massive unknown because it's a dictatorship run by competent but unconstrained (and therefore sketchy and unpredictable) group of people. Even worse now that Xi is going to a full single-man dictatorial model.
I see you've ignored nearly the entire Middle East and what the USA has done almost everywhere in the world throughout its history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magampura_Mahinda_Rajapaksa_Po...
Everywhere in the world throughout its history? That's a pretty amusing statement, given the US barely left its shores for the first 140 years of its history. The US didn't even have a serious standing military until after WW1, and more realistically just before WW2.
Demonstrably the US has done dramatically more good in the world than it has ill. In the era of the US superpower, the world has never been better off. It's just as absurd to ignore the vast good the US has been responsible for, as it is to ignore the mistakes it has made.
Not really. Canada's economy can be described as trade with the US and some other stuff.
The correct response is for Canada to remove its dependence on the US. The behavior of the current US government basically destroys their “soft power” for a very long time - who will trust treaties with the US when the next admistration can arbitrarily end them? How much of a sweet deal will countries be willing to give the US in treaties anyway?
I suspect the current behavior of the us administration is going to have very long term consequences - the biggest being a long term reduction in global influence as countries (like Canada) seek to reduce their dependence.
I say this with the assuredness of a random commenter on HN ;)
This would be reckless. Geography dictates the U.S. and Canada will be major trading partners. Population, resource distribution and topography dictate, for the foreseeable future, the U.S. will be the big sister in that relationship.
Smarter would be to hang low and wait for fairer weather.
> who will trust treaties with the US when the next admistration can arbitrarily end them?
I agree. Since "the U.S. has not withdrawn from a trade agreement since 1866" [1], there is disagreement over whether Trump can unilaterally kill NAFTA or if he requires Congressional approval [2][3]. Either way, it's not a good show.
[1] https://money.cnn.com/2016/07/06/news/economy/trump-nafta/in...
[2] https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international-affairs...
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-30/trump-boa...
That is the sensible thing for Canada to do. No one wants their economy to be dependent on a country that from one election to the next may choose to divorce itself from reality, or at a moments notice label long term allies as being “the enemy”.
Of course Canada will continue to try to maintain trade, but they recognize that in the long term that is no longer a safe option...
Installing Huawei telecom equipment would be a "cutting off the nose to spite the face" way of achieving economic independence. I agree that Canada should work to diversify its economy. But diversifying away from the U.S., instead of working to improve the relationship, would be silly given the geographic, cultural and linguistic proximity between the nations.
You can argue that there are many reasons that Canada has for maintaining that relationship, but the same thing applies to the US, and it threw that away. Basically: given the behavior of the US, what reasonable country would want to continue to have their economy be dependent on it?
Also, while Huwei may be producing compromised equipment, what reason does Canada have for trusting US provided equipment? Or any other country -- every country that manufactures any network, radio, satellite, or other technology has a spy agency. All of those spy agencies would happily take an opportunity to compromise each others equipment. The "correct" course of action is to design your secure systems to assume non -trustworthy network hardware.
Mostly don't buy cheap equipment from anyone, because it seems they always ship on day 1 with software that's 2 years old that somehow has like 3 years of vulnerabilities :D
In what way does Canada require improved cellular service? I'm nodding my head to the other points you've made but this one puzzles me. If you're talking about pricing, then I would agree there given more numerous and more transparent wireless competition in other countries.
Canada's mobile networks are generally comparable to advanced (but not cutting edge) cellular networks around the world.
Canada's distances also mean that there remain a great many communities without wired internet services. Satellite is very expensive, and increasingly difficult at higher latitudes. Cellular-based broadband is the only realistic option.
http://www.comparecellular.com/images/assets/coverage-maps/b...
Setting aside the north, take a look at how much of BC lacks any real cell coverage.
I will note that Saskatchewan (through SaskTel) seems to cover the province quite well even outside of Regina and Saskatoon.
Re. cellular-based broadband - while there is huge demand in rural regions, the pricing is challenging. Basically, cellular-based "broadband" usually operates at a loss, but at least it's a loss that more carriers are willing to shoulder, in (small) part due to the CRTC's renewed call for action to review "universal broadband service"[2] in 2019.
This makes no sense. Nobody argues for purchasing a product based on a manufacturer's history of security failings.
I'm not a fan of Huawei, but I am a fan of retaining our sovereignty. If the US wants the privilege of suggesting how we should run our country, then perhaps they should work on their end to repair the bilateral relationship. Currently, my vote is to tell them "Mind your own damned business."
This article is based on the comments of two Senators, one a Republican who ran against Trump and the other a Democrat, asking Canada to do something. Given how close the American and Canadian economies are, it is of American concern that information which crosses north of the border might become vulnerable to Chinese exfiltration.
EDIT: Clicked too soon.
American politicians calling the Chinese security threats just means they are in the same club as ourselves as well as our Mexican and European friends. Senators Rubio and Warner will accomplish little by insulting our guests.
Huawei's bid deserves to be considered and evaluated... By Canadians, on our terms, rather than foreigners with their own agenda.
I'll point out we haven't rejected the advice.
What Canadians on this thread have rejected, is Yankee carpetbagging.
In his own words, "At least Canada knows where I stand,". The message has been received loud and clear up North.
So I’d say they’re probably equal. At least China hasn’t tried overtly to collapse our auto sector.
Being overly dependent on "America First, Always" technology doesn't serve the Canadian interests.
You: "Mind your business!"
Stopping the use of Chinese telecon for core infrastructure is a matter of national security, not a trade war.
Do you know who makes the rules over what I can and can't buy?
Yes, that's right. Me.
U.S. Lawmakers don't get a say, sorry. I'll buy what I want, thanks.
The arrogance is astounding.
But, for Canada, being overly dependent on the US is much worse. I don't want this country to become a Northern Puerto Rico.
Nationalistic slights will get you banned here. Please don't do this again.
Edit: looks like we had to warn you about this once before.
There has been a lot of reporting on Huawei's sketchiness. The Wikipedia page [1] is a good starting point.