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Comment by Mikeb85 | Hacker News Reader

So basically strongarming everyone into using hardware that the US government has a backdoor into.

Not going to lie, simply based on historical US international interventions, I'd rather be spyed on by the Chinese. They're less likely to start a war or overthrow governments.

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Really? Do you think the US government would use your information in a more or less restricted way than the Chinese? Would your answer change if you were: a) a citizen of the US, b) a citizen in China, c) a citizen of a country where china has massive influence, d) a citizen of a country where the US has massive influence, e) a citizen of a strongly independent country?

Your answer is so baffling to me that I checked whether you're a real person, and you seem to be. I'd be surprised if either China or the US launched a war because of your personal communications so the question seems to come more down to who you trust to abuse the information more/screw you in an unaccountable way.

Well I live in the UK and am more concerned with Five Eyes monitoring me than China.

China might be able to hack my servers or steal from my PayPal account, if they cared. Five Eyes can ruin my life and leave me destitute, or imprisoned. Or just have me SWATted if I am particularly troublesome.

So that's a fair point, you're more concerned re UK/US because you are citizen/in a controlled country. I think that might be how a lot of people feel, and I agree. But can you see how for the equivalent guy living in someone firmly under China's influence they would be more scared of Chinese surveillance than you are of Five-Eyes? And that it would be further reaching in terms of what sort of actions might lead to repercussions?

Canada. Well, the US is using national security as a reason to urge people to drop Huawei. Meanwhile it's an obvious economic as well as soft power play.

In recent years we've had several trade disputes with the US, illegal immigrants pour in to our borders from the US, and US sponsored environmental activists have disrupted many of our natural resource industries.

So can't say I'm too keen on the US attempting to restrict our trade with China who, for all their faults, haven't been a bad partner.

Well, they aren't exactly an equal partner, but it isn't bad. Your PM signed a mutual extradition treaty with them and you accept any investment they want to make while they don't need to make any concessions to you so they have no reason to be.

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