U.S. Accuses Huawei of Stealing Trade Secrets, Defrauding Banks
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
I heard from my Chinese friends who work in the US universities in the field of EE, CS, material, etc.. Huawei actually has personnel monitoring their university webpages. Add working project to your webpage, Huawei could call/email you the next day (in Chinese of course) if they find something they want to buy to get ahead.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-02-18/us-complains-other-na...
Reminds me of the movie "Firefox" [1] with Clint Eastwood. The plot? An all-American hero sneaks deep into the UDSSR to steal a new high-tech aircraft. And I'm pretty sure Hollywood is still pumping out ideological crap like that.
China - which has never come even remotely close to doing the lionshare of US manufacturing [1] - required enormous capital to be invested by US (and European) companies to build up their manufacturing base. That capital needed to exist first before it could be invested into Chinese factories. The US got dramatically richer from 1950 to 1970 (GDP went from $280b to $1t, during the strong gold dollar era), while it dominated global manufacturing. The wealth it built up in those decades of manufacturing hegemony is what in part enabled the US to deploy such immense capital into China in the following decades.
The US wouldn't have had the accumulated wealth and consumer base to utilize the USSR as a manufacturing offshore and make the necessary investments, minus the post war domestic manufacturing boom. Unless we're talking about doing that at the very end of the USSR in the late 1980s, after US manufacturing had already peaked and begun to decline. (obviously this is all fantasy, because the USSR's policies would never have allowed for the scenario, but it's an interesting thought experiment regardless)
Also, given the USSR's population ratio with China (~260m people in the USSR versus 980m in China circa 1980), it would have been impossible on a more practical basis, for them to output so much. The USSR's economy was never known for having world-class efficiency and scale of output. They never mastered high quality massive scale manufacturing. I'm skeptical the bureaucracy would have ever made it possible. It's likely they couldn't have output but a modest fraction of US manufacturing needs under any scenario.
[1] US manufacturing output was about ~$2.1 trillion for 2018. Imports from China for 2018 were something like $560 billion. Approximately a 4x difference.
Fair point on the comparison, but industrial espionage isn't a one-way street.
I'm fully aware that pretty much every nation uses it's capabilities to get an advantage, through any feasible means - that includes corporate espionage. I highlighted the Snowden leaks because they exposed the NSA's activity in that space, in response to a comment that painted the picture of "only the Chinese do this" and "it's a one-way street".
Specifically, in the US (and the west, more broadly) we ascribe a great deal of value to figuring out "what" to do commercially and "how" to do it technically. Most of our energy around IP are wrapped around this value and defending it.
The article had observed that for the Chinese, there was no additional value ascribed to the people or groups that paved that path, but rather that there was perceived merit/value in "doing" those things better. To use an example, identifying the market and technology and usage trends to develop a valuable product is no more important or meritorious than merely seeing/understanding that product and fast-following with some other advantage. And further, there is nothing inherently negative about re-creating someone else's work for personal benefit, after all, you still need to do the work of "doing" it.
One of the conclusions drawn was that this lack of value around creativity and direct inventorship makes the Chinese a super formidable second place in many arenas but without the skills or cultural DNA to actually take the lead or be the expeditionary force... There are pros and cons to all of that (and some pretty rebuttable presumptions in the analysis) but I thought it was an interesting take that (if valid) sheds light on what we have seen, are seeing, and will continue to see.
That's a bit much, don't you think? Pick any engineering discipline, then randomly pick any top US university and then count the number of post-grad researchers who happen to be of Chinese heritage, or people who were raised with, as you put it: this "cultural DNA".
I've always wondered how Detroit failed to see Japanese competition coming, but I now have a front-row seat to watch this Chinese STEM "misunderestimation" unfold.
Can you kindly provide an example of this? I searched "打破技术封锁" on Baidu and first page gives me advancements from research.
http://www.baidu.com/s?ie=utf-8&f=8&rsv_bp=1&rsv_idx=1&ch=&t...
That's not stealing? That's just acquiring interesting tech.
Beyond this, the level of information published on the Chinese web is amazing -- I did product research for a Fortune company in the US and the Chinese research published freely put them ahead.
10x the startups. 10x the millionaires made. Every. Year. Everyone else is tiny and stagnant by comparison.
In deed, “打破技术封锁” means to break the technical blockade, but by means of independent innovation, not stealing "trade secrets". Given China has the biggest force of engineers and scientists in the world, it is not so hard to understand.
Fact check, Huawei is the only full 5G solution provider in the world; whereas no such company can be found in the US.
So when you or your friends think the US has much to be stolen by China, think twice.
frankly, speaking Chinese makes you an expert about this as much as is speaking English makes you an expert about Google.
What I want to say is that this wasn't some cloak+dagger operation as the US media paints it. When I say US media one must also consider the amplification of these news from other FVEY members - especially Australia who were very vocal about Huawei being a security risk - all very heavily involved in amplifying this manufactured outrage.
Another reason why the IP-theft angle (as reported in the West) is true but still exaggerated is that from what I have seen at the standardization meetings (again since mid-2000 till today - which is when LTE/-a were conceived is that Huawei was unlike their Western competitors very aggressive in innovating. I can't say the same thing about the delegates from Ericsson, A/LU, Siemens, Nokia which sent (quite old) people that were promoted away internally to look after these bureaucratic process. Huawei outperformed all of them (especially in 4G, 5G, SDN and the Future-Netwerks/IGN even M2M/IoT topics). They invested incredible amounts of time and money in innovation (through the standards path) almost like a start-up, which can't be said for the others and set up bodies in China (CENELEC) to ensure being on par with ETSI regs.
What hurt the established (big) guys most is that they actually thought like a start-up. If you worked at Huawei as a junior in Italy and other sites, you were allowed to move across departments and fields getting a well rounded picture of how the telco-sector works. If you wanted to gain the same experience with the big guys you'd have to stay 15-20 years in the company as opposed to 3-5 with Huawei. This is why Huawei engineers are highly sought after by other telco firms.
Lastly Huawei has been always competing on price. I got downvoted for saying this before here because people only saw the price-tags of the latest UEs like the P-range etc, but this isn't what we're talking about when we speak about NEV's (and from a security pov the risk isn't so much in the handsets but the rest of the infrastructure that makes the lions share of the R&D work). Huawei kit was (and still is) the worst and most shoddy equipment you can get in terms of Interoparability. (IOT means "interoperability testing" in this context and the industry used to employ whole departments in this field of work). Despite the crap quality they could sell their wares very cheaply across Africa and emerging countries (often to questionable regimes, ... but so did all the others only that their prices eventually ended up being to high once Huawei entered that regional market). So if it wouldn't be Huawei selling custom-made Lawful-Intercept (LI) to these dictators it would still be the established players doing it ...
The only thing that has changed in this game is the perception of how China is viewed in the world. Trust is a fickle thing and once you start playing with protectionism and trade-war that trust is over and from a security POV you have no other choice than re-think your supply-chain. Also to be fair to the established NEVs: Huawei sold their kit across the globe and still operates R&D centers across Europe employing thousands, the established players entered China and moved a large amount of innovation into China, the playing field wasn't equal. Huawei could tap into the know-how overseas and back home, while the established players operating in China faced a lot of restrictions.
Damn this is getting long, last point: if you are able to undercut your competitor at a loss (because you're propped up by your own government) there is simply no way for the others to compete with you. This is the kicker IMO and not the topic of Huawei being a natsec threat (which only is a symptom once trust broke down).
EDIT: TL;DR I'm not saying they didn't steal things but the information is twisted the way it is reported. And if we speak about backdoors we'd have to equally speak about threat-models and here backdoors are only tangentially interesting since the vulns that stem from shoddy engineering (hello crappy ASN1 parsers) are much cheaper to harness than some hypothetical purpose-made backdoor that costs millions to implement and keep covered-up. (Occam's razor)
Interesting space and would love to know about how I can keep up (will shoot you an email if you do not mind)
A few semi-random thoughts: -Initially Huawei had that reputation of stealing back in the days when they were caught reverse engineering Cisco router OS code -They are also known to throw tons of people to any network issue including bespoke on the spot fixes (which would be a nightmare for support engineers, imagine a worst case where every client is running a specific version of code from all the hot fixes and custom patchs) -Growth in revenue has been unbelievable from the above. And yet their core equipment is banned in a few countries (US, Canada, Australia). A true Chinese success story.
Other thoughts: -NEV is a tough space, margin rates are so low yet your hip phone manufacturers are making bank $ -The patent wars are very real with a number of companies that are not not equipment makers (e.g. interdigital) that just collect royalties
please do, always happy to get mail from fellow HN'ers
> Initially Huawei had that reputation of stealing back in the days when they were caught reverse engineering Cisco router OS code
agree, they did that :( What always puzzles me is how the West keeps underestimating Asian countries / societies abilities to outperform them. They did not see this coming after the lesson from Japan (e.g. Toyota) establishing a beach-head in the West and by initially copying them, later they move to upmarket by perfecting what they have and beat them with confidence. My uncle bought a Mazda in the 80ies and he was ridiculed for buying such a cheap-ass car. (iirc the word "rice bowl" was used to make fun of the quality). When it comes to telcos/tech it seems that we are witnessing the same thing again. When I remember the outcries over moving sites to China and giving them access to our repos - with the only promise in return "that the market will eventually be opened to them", it seems obvious that the established NEV's made huge mistakes here. People in the lower ranks have been vocal over this but their cries were drowned out by those pushing for cost-reduction at all cost (since it meant short term gains in their balance sheet which the mgmt could cash in on). Especially in this field which is all carved up by big players and no room for small innovators the strategy has always been short-sighted. I could go on and on, ... Now they're all crying and pointing fingers at the Chinese boogie man when the root cause of this is their own incompetence. When it comes to vulns CISCO is probably an interesting case. They literally sold countless backdoors as undocumented features over the years. I don't know of any company that violated basic security principles as much as them.
> -NEV is a tough space, margin rates are so low yet your hip phone manufacturers are making bank $
it's really hard for NEVs and has been for years because operators are reduced to utilities. (the phrase "dumb pipes" has been thrown around in the industry ever since youtube/streaming took off). And they're all pushed to reduce costs while at the same time innovating. Within the NEV's the mergers were always justified with "Huawei is on the rise and this is the only way to compete". It started with the Alcatel + Lucent merger and the rest is history. Now it seems NEV's don't even think about organic innovation anymore and only view it through the angle of merge with the second largest to stay ahead of Huawei. There is very little IP that is created these days internally. At least when you compare their core R&D headcount to patents it's quite a joke. :-/
Getting back into this game today should nevertheless be much easier than it was when you were working on 2/3G. I had no knowledge of the stack yet they were somehow convinced they wanted to hire me. It was weird. I didn't have any connections either. It dawned on my only later that the move from CS to PS networks meant that my skills suddenly became interesting to them (before I did systems & security development for web companies). And with PS came the people who brought the agile mindset ... low and behold everyone in Telco now talks about virtualization, CI/CD and stuff you never heard the old guys talk about. In a similar way the Automotive landscape was transformed a decade later (a sim-card with wheels that is using Ethernet instead of CAN). @pmarca was right when he said SW is eating the world
I'd imagine it would be difficult finding a spot with the big ones, mentioned in this thread. They often have a hiring stop in many Western countries which forces them to outsource good jobs to external "suppliers". If you get a gig like this it is usually great money provided that you land in a department with a cool boss (always a gamble in these bureaucracies). Also being geographically flexible helps especially when you want to carve out your niche as a consultant. When they do eventually hire for internal jobs then they usually look to convert these "externals" into "internals" before they even announce it.
Another route is to closely follow a hot topic that you are passionate about at ETSI. (avoid anything that smells like Enterprise vaporware like their TLS middlebox clusterfudge and you should be good). At ETSI you can find small companies that are still innovating in areas which aren't considered the core-business of the big guys (public safety comes to mind). Also the good news is that the topics here (https://www.etsi.org/technologies) are widely applicable across industry silos. If you just focus on telco you might lock yourself in too much which defeats the effort (of doing the legwork required to penetrate these fields). In any case play the long-game otherwise there is no point (imvho).
EDIT: another thing ofc is virtualization. SDN, SD-WAN, and all that. If you're into this kind of turtles all the way down complexity it's a great selling point: https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9446-sd-wan_a_new_hop ... other areas I could think of is security and further automating delivery pipelines. I have so far not seen any web based (or even automotive) company that puts as much money into CI/CD as the big telcos do. Fines for downtime of a eNodeB are in the millions/day so the quality/automation angle always sells well. Reducing the time that it takes to map responsibility between a trace/bug-report to an actual developer/tester to look at the problem is real $ saved.
The same smug condescension is frequently on HN; the third comment right now reads in part ...this lack of value around creativity and direct inventorship makes the Chinese a super formidable second place in many arenas but without the skills or cultural DNA to actually take the lead or be the expeditionary force... If I were China, I'd encourage this attitude until I was good and ready - a little paranoia and an assumption of competence would help (come to think of it; this might be the whole point of the recent flood of China stories, if one were to put on their conspiracy theory hat.)
I'm convinced that this complacency, ignorance and attitude of superiority is also the kernel to their downfall and demise. The aging US/EU as a viable market simply is a joke when compared to the potential of the Asian markets.
I asked an Italian double Michelin star chef once where he had the best dish of authentic pasta ever. He said in Tokyo (but that it was closely followed by his mothers recipe).
Not saying that the Chinese are as quality obsessed as the Japanese, but there are countless similar points where the West just misses things because of ignorance and the Emperial feelings of superiority.
The kind of codebases you mention are actually good to have in the open :).
--
That particularly means avoiding nationalistic flamewar, even on divisive topics where it's hard to resist. Most of all on those topics actually.
Progress in technology is progress regardless.
I just watched a few episodes of Black Mirror so I'm in cynical mode. I'm not trying to be argumentative but it just felt more like a non-sequitur than anything...
Progress is good (mostly), though, right?
As for which economies that progress happens to bolster, well, let the chips fall where they may, I suppose.
I would substantiate the point a little more proof which missed in your claim:
To correctly understand an expression with some ambiguity it is necessary to put the expression under context for test. Here we have enough context for the common expression of “打破技术封锁”: When it is used in China media like TV, along with the expression are all the stories about how engineers work so hard and with their own innovations finally find good solutions. Never a single story about somebody steal an IP from others. I’m talking about the values that medias publicly promote. No society can become and sustain prosperity with a value of encouraging stealing.
On the other hand, we should also need think about how this kind of wrong and unfair bias comes from. There are reasons for that. A lot of wrong practice of Chinese companies during competition, (maybe including Huawei in early times in my personal opinion) lead to the strong bias toward Chinese companies today. The bias even it's unfair might be a pressure to force Chinese regulators to do better on making and enforcing IP policies which could benefit both domestic Chinese and foreign companies with better environment
There's a Chinese variant concept of open source called "Gongkai" could be helpful for technology advancement but that's another topic.
And..... they are also the only full 4G solution provider. None of the other telecom infrastructure companies have client side business. Arguably Samsung do, but that are relatively new. But that doesn't prove anything.
Credit where Credit's due Huawei has made fair amount of contribution towards 5G. But they don't own 5G like what the Chinese Media states, and they are not the number one in total 5G patents either as many Chinese Media likes to put it.
So when you want something you don't own, the only option is to steal? I find your logic so absurd. Then how much is the US stealing everyday?
It is funny you challenge me on logic and yet none of my reply intends or implies, their only option is to steal.
There's a reason nobody bothers to cite Chinese papers, it's because you should cite the original instead.
5G is a technology without purpose.
As a Chinese, you may also know the inherent hatred and despisement towards "foreigners" mainly the "white skinned pigs", believing that the "foreigners" deserve anything done to them, it's just payback time for what they had done to the Qing dynasty otherwise China would have "still" been the greatest and most powerful country, right?
And the "No matter the cat black or white, it's a good cat if caught the rat" kind winner-take-all, by fair means or foul, mentality is never more prevalent in today's China?
>full 5G solution provider
This refrain again, you really should read less Chinese propaganda, Huawei has always been mainly an assembler and modifier like ZTE, just because they have that cellphone SoC which itself is not that advanced and original and handicapped on GPU, so magically Huawei is now a tech giant?
Tear down what ever Huawei product and especially tele equipment and see how many key parts are "innovated" by Huawei? And how many are from the "foreigners"?
Even that overblown SoC is cobbled together with all kinds of licensed IPs and algorithms from companies all over the world.
Such an innovative and successful marketing company.
Next time whitewashing China, do your homework first, your nonsense works wonderfully in China, but not anywhere else.
>think the US has much to be stolen by China, think twice.
Sounds just like straight from the CCTV with a gigantic complex.
Also have a look at China's latest invention.
It's really shocking to see material this vitriolic on Hacker News. I hope everyone understands that it's totally unacceptable here, regardless of your views on geopolitics or whatever.
> you will find there are lots of Chinese nationalist stories about their hero technician / scientists steal western technologies. They are literally proud of it
is a blatant lie.
Sure, if you just want to feel superior, keep making blanket statements like this. But if you really want the West to outcompete China, you'd better spend more time on understanding the intricacies.
If you know more than others, post correct information so that readers can learn something. Even if you don't persuade the person you're arguing with, the fair-minded majority will benefit.
It's like if everyone was a farmer but everything harvested was immediately taken from the farmer. Why would any farmer put in effort to increase yield when they would not profit from their extra effort?
No, the idea is to prevent other people from profiting through 'claimed' innovations.
> If all new discoveries were the property of the state/public then there wouldn't be a high incentive to be inventive for any given individual.
Most innovation is not done for money. It's done by people with genuine interest in the subject, often earning less than an average professional in the field. The vast majority of valuable R&D for computer(s/ing) came, and still comes from the public sector.
> It's like if everyone was a farmer but everything harvested was immediately taken from the farmer.
Why is it that intellectual property proponents always try to make analogies using physical property? Copying != moving/deleting. If I was a farmer and along came some poor hungry people that saw me farming, learned from it, then went and farmed their own land, I would have no problem with that.
> Why would any farmer put in effort to increase yield when they would not profit from their extra effort?
If we're talking about innovation, then because it could make farming easier, safer, more enjoyable, healthier, etc.
The farmers needs are more than met under capitalism than under any other economic system people have thought up (to date). That’s why innovation happens more in capitalist societies.
Communism, as a counterpoint, is pinned on selflessness. Think of your brothers and your sisters! Work hard and freely give away your labor, for everyone will give you their labor. Think about the good of the nation! The irony is that this system minimizes innovation and maximizes a cruel society.
Why should a capitalist society, whose individuals act for the good of themselves, have a stronger societial fabric than a communist society, whose individuals act for the good of society?
Who knows, but I certainly am not willing to throw out such a proven system just because it’s raw “selfish” focus at the micro level makes people a little queasy.
So few steps to go here then; many (by far most) inventors do not have that little detail so they rely on their invention being monetized to give them that. People in open source or charity often just have enough money/time to do that on the side, but most people do not.
Needs basic income or working communism; both do not exist (yet or ever) so how would that work?
I think the solution is potentially a mix of automation providing cheap resources to everyone and government funding for useful research.
Yes, but then they'd keep their innovations secret as trade secrets or they would only innovate when it was cheap and unrisky.
The US metal producing industry has taken a huge hit and they were the ones to put the R&D money into the production technology.
I'm aware there is a lot of shades of grey around large commercially sensitive ore contract negotiations etc - see Stern Hu case https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-04/stern-hu-explainer-wh...
What would incentive a company to invest millions in new technology, like a new cancer drug, if they have to give up their secrets as soon as they do? No one would bother inventing any at all.
And what about nuclear weapons? Are we supposed to think that it's better if every tin hat despot could just download plans for an ICBM?
Well, the incentives around research are a bit weird. I'm usually all-in on free market capitalism, but I have to admit that historically government sponsorship has a pretty great track record for research.
For your specific question though, the answer could easily be because someone paid them up front to develop a new cancer drug. There is no question that companies that synthesise drugs are incentivised to research new products and deploy them as a stream of new and more effective drugs entering the market will cause it to grow in size and hence increase their profits. It is a question of debate about whether the current American IP system or natural incentives would give a better result overall.
> And what about nuclear weapons? Are we supposed to think that it's better if every tin hat despot could just download plans for an ICBM?
Splitting hairs, but it is debatable if building ICBMs is 'private knowledge' for the grandparent comment. That sort of tech is probably more of a grey-area public-knowledge style. It certainly isn't protected by the IP system, because then someone would be selling ICBMs to tin hat dictators. It isn't used in products that are sold to private entities either (I hope!).
You're likely to want to use anything you have to keep your power, including threatening to use your nukes if anyone tries anything. That threat is only credible if you are actually willing to do it.
So now we would just have a multitude of countries playing brinksmanship, seeing who can act the most reckless to convince everyone else not to mess with them because "I'll really do it, don't test me". Great, that sounds like a really wonderful world to live in.
Hopefully in the future metal 3D printing becomes common and cheap so we will be able to source replacement parts from torrent websites.
Of course, tacit know-how and first-to-market advantages will always exist to some extent. So, in a sense, we can't fully get rid of "IP"-like dynamics. But we can, and should, mitigate them.
Citations please.
These reports universally proclaim the protagonists‘ self reliance and preservation.
These reports might well be cover up of the stealing, but your statement is to me plain ridiculous.
Applying common knowledge, if Chinese nationals really is blatant to praise stealing on public news outlets, why do you still think any foreign company can make any money?!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater
> He memorized the designs of textile factory machinery as an apprentice to a pioneer in the British industry before migrating to the United States at the age of 21. He designed the first textile mills in the US and later went into business for himself, developing a family business with his sons.
Slater memorized these trade secrets, because any papers containing these designs would have been confiscated from him.
Consider also the brain drain, wherein educated professionals have, over the past few decades, been siphoned out of the developing world, attracted by higher remuneration in the West. This is not a dissimilar process, but it is operating in reverse.
Also, please drop name-calling language like "any sane person".
There's a very simple formula for getting your country caught up to the rest of the world. Steal as much as you can, until you pull yourself up to the level of your neighbours. Every developed nation has either done this, or piggy-backed off a bigger neighbour who has.
Just because we've already gone down this path, doesn't give us any moral high-ground for pulling the ladder up after us.
And it works, too. Look at the quality of life in China, compared to India... Or Vietnam.
Can't say for Vietnam as I don't know much, but quality of life in India is much much better than quality of life in China.
People in India have access to full Internet, have access to real Democracy, have freedom of speech, live free life, aren't afraid to speak their mind, minorities are not being thrown in concentration camps, Government has no control over their thoughts and so and so forth. Sure, they may not have as many life's luxuries, but I think most people will take a free-er life than a gilded prison.
Just no.
> People in India have access to full Internet
Internet penetration in India is 25% compared to China's 71%. I suspect most people would take censored internet over no internet[0].
> have access to real Democracy
I suspect this is one of those hierarchy of needs things. India. India has 21% of its population living on under $1.90 a day, where China has 0.7% the same. Perhaps they can eat their ballot papers?[1]
> have freedom of speech, live free life, aren't afraid to speak their mind
Really though? "[India] ranks poorly at 138th rank out of 180 listed countries in the Press Freedom Index 2018 released by Reporters Without Borders (RWB)". That's _terrible_ for a supposed Democracy, even if China is worse. At least their censorship is out in the open...[2]
> minorities are not being thrown in concentration camps
No, they're just being killed with mob violence instead[3][4]
> Sure, they may not have as many life's luxuries, but I think most people will take a free-er life than a gilded prison.
I think you've not met many hungry people.
[0] http://www.pewglobal.org/2018/06/19/social-media-use-continu...
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
[2] https://rsf.org/en/ranking/2018
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_violence_in_India#Mo...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste-related_violence_in_Indi...
I'd bet you have never starved in your life or found yourself sick without adequate medical help.
Maslow's hierarchy applies here. I won't start worrying about freedom of speech till I have food and stability. The fact that so many non-democratic countries transition to becoming democracies only after reaching some level of economic development (see Taiwan, South Korea) would imply that this is a trend in the world.
This isn't a 'Oh, China enjoys a few more luxuries then India'. Today, there are three hundred million people in China that are living nearly-western lifestyles, whereas twenty years ago, there weren't any.
There's nearly an order of magnitude in the difference of development, between the two countries.
Don't get me wrong - India has made a lot of great achievements over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. But if you were to ask - which approach to trade brings prosperity - the winner is pretty clear.
You're basically saying crime pays if you can get away with it. Everybody knows this, the thing is that eventually you can't get away with it anymore, which is what China is learning now as their economy gets crushed by tariffs and the world unites against them
Any country whose values contradict those values threatens me if they become the most economically powerful country. With this in mind, it's imperative that we pull up the ladder behind us if we want to maintain the lead that protects our values.
If/When China gets the lead, you can be certain that they'll pull up the ladder behind them, leaving us in a position of dependency.
I don't care if some podunk country does this. I do care if a country the size of China does this because my life is better so long as I'm on the winning team.
A big difference between the US and China, is that any foreigner can move to the US to contribute to and enjoy the benefits of being #1. If China becomes #1, that option won't be available in practical terms, because China is essentially a homogenous ethnostate with an almost impossibly difficult path to naturalization for those that were not born there.
I think your view of the last 50 years of American intervention in other countries is not based in fact. The U.S. has consistently subverted democratic principles. We’ve done this in Central America, Iran in the 1950s, Haiti, South Vietnam, South Africa, Cambodia, etc. The U.S. government frequently promotes regimes that are antithetical to the promotion of natural rights and democratic ideals.
It’s fine to want the U.S. to be number 1 and to want to prevent China from becoming number 1 but one should not believe that the U.S. has been anything other than a self interested hegemon the last 50 years.
The rest of your post recites the American Exceptionalist narrative, which a lot of people believe in like a religion (not saying you do).
But what evidence would it take to change your view? What if the main purpose of intelligence agencies was to conduct industrial espionage on behalf of US firms? What if government intervention in trade (forbidding private firms and individuals from free choice) was making the US worse off every year? What if China’s leaders are significantly more wise and judicious than our own? What if China’s people are actually more aligned with enlightenment values than most Americans?
The values you mention are found only in political speeches and propaganda messages. The US is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism worldwide, the biggest threat to peace, the biggest danger to our natural resources, and the most egregious violator of human rights in many many years.
Our leaders try to instill fear and skepticism about foreigners, but most Americans have much much more in common with the average Chinese person than we do with our own leaders.
I'm also not claiming the US is perfect. No country is. It's a lot better than many of the other 190 other options out there in many respects, but not all.
> most Americans have much much more in common with the average Chinese person than we do with our own leaders.
Completely agree. I'm not criticizing the average Chinese person and I agree that average Americans and average Chinese have a lot in common. My post wasn't about average people. It was about which leaders I trust more. I'm criticizing the leaders of China versus US leaders. I chose to live here because I trust these leaders the most, but I recognize they aren't perfect.
I wouldn't mind if the other countries I listed above become #1 because I generally trust the leaders of those countries as well. I don't think it's a controversial opinion by any stretch to look at some countries and think "Gee, I sure don't want them to have global power".
This is not true. There's, at a minimum, hundreds of millions of people who'd like to move here and can't.
You are funny. Nobody in the rest of the world cares how you live and what values you have. At least until you begin spreading your way of live and values through bombing.
No, but what he was doing was still highly illegal.
Defrauding four large banks into clearing transactions with Iran in violation of international sanctions.
Conspiracy to obstruct justice by moving employees out of the United States so they could not be called as witnesses before a grand jury in Brooklyn.
Conspiracy to defraud the United States by impairing, impeding, obstructing and defeating, through deceitful and dishonest means, the lawful governmental functions of an agency of the United States.
Money laundering conspiracy.
Conspiracy to steal trade secrets about robotics from a competitor, T-Mobile.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/us/politics/meng-wanzhou-...
If the charges are true, I hope Ms. Meng is extradited and prosecuted, and the company barred from operating in the US.
But if this is just a bargaining chip to be exchanged for a few worthless face-saving trade deal "wins" for this administration, it will be disgrace.
The indictment spans more than a decade; this definitely predates the current administration.
"President Trump had previously publicly toyed with the idea of granting Ms. Meng freedom if it would help secure a trade deal, much to the dismay of law enforcement officials."
Wire fraud is really serious. It looks like the government intends on going the full distance in this case.
Did authorities seize and image her devices at JFK?
If letting one person off the hook can benefit all americans through better trade, how is that a disgrace?
China has apparently offered to balance the trade deficit with the US within 6 years
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-18/china-is-...
their economy is also tanking rapidly based on what their government can't cover up, the quarterly reports of US companies
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-28/nvidia-cu...
So by basically any measure the US is winning the trade war
it's a disgrace for the rule of law and an independent judiciary.
Agreed
> an independent judiciary.
Not sure I agree, the US is pretty clear that the president has pardon power, that the executive gets to exercise prosecutorial discretion, and so on.
There's a Navy veteran rotting in Jail right now for taking a picture of his sub on his last day because it was technically classified info. Hillary Clinton is enjoying life despite having hundreds of pieces of classified info on her server
There are two tiers of justice in our country, get used to it. At least in this case it would benefit the average american
They were promising the impossible. To fix US deficit, just stop printing money so much money, and shrink government expenses. How can China do that for US administration?
As someone who likes to follow geopolitics, I can't help but wonder if the timing of this extradition request was strategic. When Meng was arrested, Canada was in the middle of NAFTA/USMCA re-negotiations and our Prime Minister was publicly musing about diversifying our trade partnerships, specifically focused on engaging with China. The automatic arrest of one of China's "royals" per our extradition treaty with the US was an extremely effective way of erasing our only major leverage on that negotiation.
IIRC the charge of bank fraud for business dealings in Iran was largely unrelated to Huawei's (sketchy) telco business. Kind of like how they got Al Capone on tax evasion.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/world/asia/michael-spavor...
Citations: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/30/672150010/usmca-trump-signs-n...
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/05/tech/huawei-cfo-arrested-cana...
Here's the Bloomberg article dated December 5th. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-05/huawei-cf...
That has since ballooned into a huge diplomatic crisis for Canada, which has had it's citizens arrested in China and subjected to sleep deprivation interrogation and who knows what else (can't find source. read somewhere). There are active calls for our national telco's to ban Huawei's tech in our 5G infrastructure. The latest round of controversy was when Telus, one of the three major cellular providers, publicly endorsed Huawei and confirmed it will be moving ahead with their hardware purchase.
So yes, for us it is old news.
I'm already familiar with the history of the case, I've been following it closely.
The stuff on the filing of formal charges is new. The (literal) date-stamp on the indictment is from Thursday: https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rIz2tT7h...
Since there's some redaction (and the flurry of posts on this exact same topic), I'm guessing it took until today for them to be publicly released.
Another thing that's new (to me at least) is that they indicted Huawei itself, not just Mrs. Meng. A lot of the previous reporting that I read focused on her actions exclusively (probably due to extradition hearing).
The significance is that before they formally charge her, there is room for face saving maneuvers. For example the US could have agreed to press lesser charges as a result of a backroom deal with China. After this new development, that is not an option for the US.
[0]https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/11/tech/poland-huawei-exec-arres...
Which just shows how much this is not a rational debate, and never will be, when nationalism is involved.
That's not the only leverage, the other one is PM's extradition veto, which they seem to be so quiet about.
If I were the chairman, I would've jumped out of the bed to fly to Canada and propose a trade pact the very moment Trump threw a tantrum at Canada, and EU.
Sealing off US trade access to their two biggest trade allies, that's priceless. Xi's passive, paralysed by fear, stance from the start has doubled the damage China took.
It's only a trade secret if you think the entire rest of the world is stupid
took measurements of parts of the robot and, in one instance, stole a piece of the robot
This is a crimial follow-up to that case.
I'm sure they will reward you handsomely for basically saving their relationship with western countries and saving so much time and effort.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: it looks like you've unfortunately posted a ton of unsubstantive and uncivil comments. If you keep doing that we will ban you, so could you please re-read the guidelines and fix that? You might also find these links helpful for getting an idea of the spirit of this site:
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html
Ill edit my comment to be nicer i guess.
Edit: Can't edit the post anymore, oh well people get it anyway, it got 7 up votes, IP theft actually benefits the person that acquires it and ill be willing to debate that anytime.
Edit: while I have you, can you please not post unsubstantive comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19032367 either? That's more bar slippage and we're hoping to avoid it.
Via a Canadian American extradition warrant that has existed for a loooong time before the arrest, and in such a way that Meng is protected from extradition if an independent Canadian judge doesn't think the case bears weight?
Not quite sure how this is considered overreach. There's a reason that criminals fleeing to places without extradition treaties with the US is a thing.
This isn't the first person Canada has extradited. Italy, China, Netherlands and Mozambique all make an appearance in the list of people worthy enough to also have Wikipedia pages[0].
European countries regularly refuse to extradite people to the US if they think they're at risk from the death penalty there.
America may be large and powerful, but a country asking one of its closest allies to extradite someone isn't an example of that.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_extradited_fro...
If that is how the act when they are considering themselves the underdog or developing countries, imagine what they will do when they are full evolved.
Note: Of course US and many other countries aren't Sane either. But the tone used by the Chinese have never been so strong. It is as if they were back to Tsing Dynasty.
However, I agree with you, the arrest of Meng did seem unreal.
I consider myself to be very patriotic and I want my country (USA) to do whatever it takes to be truly competitive: more money for education, tax credits for primary research, etc., etc. But I don't like the thing with Huawei because it seems like we are fighting an economic fight with bullying - and not what will help us long term which is building tech excellance.
I also understand the Chinese perspective. People and countries have stolen tech forever. The US has during development. Long game means steal it now and take a few knocks. People will forget soon enough but you'll have changed economic trajectory permanently.
It is one thing to impose American standards on places like Pakistan with the Osama assassination, since they can't really fight back in a meaningful way. It is a big deal to assert something like that against China, who is effectively a military and economic equal of America. If Chinese leadership decides the business with Meng it is a political act, the ramifications could be quite far reaching.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(international_relatio...
How often do countries admit they were wrong? Especially powerful nations like the U.S or China?
I don't know how well-funded the chinese IP theft program is, but I doubt it's much larger.
https://www.economist.com/europe/2015/06/27/i-spy-you-spy
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-nsa-scandal-economic-espio...
Laws are selectively applied all the time, juries can nullify written laws, prosecutors can make plea deals, cities can choose to not enforce federal laws, and a whole bunch of anti-terrorism laws can be used to hold people in quasi-legal detention centers. What the heck is a state of law?
Has it been proven that America did that? YES, unless you choose to dismiss Snowden's revelations.
Has China ever done that? NO, or at least it has never emerged.
These are the facts.
Is China a repressive regime controlling the digital comms of its citizens? sure thing, but what has this to do with what we were discussing above?
Basic logic, damn, basic logic.
It feels weird to me that this wasn’t a bigger deal?
HP will pay approximately $108 million to these two U.S. government agencies. HP also has agreed to undertake certain compliance, reporting and cooperation obligations."
https://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=1624...
US has sanctions on Iran, not China so getting around them is not considered a crime for them. Of course they will steal any technology them deem essential for their business.
Bank fraud is probably lying to banks about doing business with Iran, not cheating them of money.
Banks pay astronomical fines for evading sanctions.
Infographic -> https://www.refinitiv.com/content/dam/gl/en/documents/infogr...
And it's conspiracy to defraud the United States if you obstruct or defeat an agency of the US government.
Also money laundering, wire fraud, stealing trade secrets, etc.
But it is a crime in China, so I know I could be arrested and prosecuted if I do that there.
Doesn't matter if it's just a "means to an end", Ms. Meng knew she was committing crimes in the US.
Not necessarily. You could choose to pay taxes on that income to the IRS. The IRS provides a way to report illegal income and pay taxes on it.
https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17
> Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.
Does anyone pay taxes on income from illegal drugs? Probably not "street dealers", but I would suspect people who earn income from marijuana businesses that are legal in some states but illegal federally probably do pay tax on that income.
Furthermore, IRS tax returns are confidential. The IRS is generally prohibited from tipping off police about reported illegal income, though there are various loopholes: https://money.cnn.com/2013/02/28/news/economy/illegal-income...
The lines you include it in are general income lines, no explanation of the income is expected or required. It's not like there is a separate line item for illegal activities. So, no, you aren't certainly going to jail if you report it.
No, they are going to accept that you made $241,000 in regular income from sources that do not provide W-2s, 1099s, etc. The “dealing drugs” part is not part of the filing.
> Tax return is step one, if red flags are raised, it's audit time with explanations, witnesses, ledgers etc.
Red flags are more likely to be raised by living beyond the means suggested by your reported income as by reporting income with no apparent source; IRS audits and investigations are looking for evidence of concealed income or other evasion of tax liability, not satisfying curiosity about the sources of reported income otherwise, and the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination applies.
It's true that laundering money so that you can avoid both reported income with no apparent source and living beyond the means of your reported income is a common technique (though still technically usually tax evasion, since it usually involves concealing some part of the gross income which is expended in the scheme, and that income is taxable and you cannot deduct illegal expenses against illegal income, so the cost of laundering is not deductible.)
> No doubt in my mind that agencies talk to each other, formally or informally.
Well, they certainly coordinate in the direction that gets criminals who conceal the details of their other crimes well enough to complicate prosecution but evade taxation busted for the tax offenses. The direction you are concerned about is less evident, though.
Edit: are you really suggested that people like John Gotti and El Chapo declare income from criminal activities and detail how they made that once audited?
Stop engaging in criminal activities, I get as advice, but confess to the feds, I don't.
No, I'm suggesting one of the examples used in your premise is wrong. The legality of income has nothing to do with paying your taxes from the IRS's perspective.
And if they IRS finds out they are coming after you. They don't care that the money was made illegally.
Besides, these sanctions we're passed by the UN, not the US, and China is a voting member.
It isn’t fair to the honest, hard-working Chinese nationals who want to build a life outside their homeland.
But Wall Street has a frothing hatred of people who think beyond the next fiscal quarter. Just look at the sheer Tesla short ratio long after it was clear they were viable.
The undertone to all of this handwringing has always been the racist assumption that the Chinese cannot possibly be capable of succeeding in a fair competition, and therefore there must be fraud involved. All said and done, people always find evidence of what they insist on believing in the first place.
About one day before the exam, a friend of mine said he was offered the texts and it had circulated to pretty much anyone who wanted it.
I'm not sure how you're confused about relevance either.
That is racist. You probably don't see that, but only because your racism makes you less rational.
If you had tried to enlighten a discussion of e.g. an African-American executive at a tech firm with a similarly bizarre anecdote, you would have gotten far more complaints. The excuse you've given here, "I just haven't known many black people!", wouldn't count for much either.
Nobody is asking you to pretend your experiences didn't happen. However, people usually only include details in a story if they are relevant. Here, you're including (and emphasizing, by virtue of where you posted the story) the detail that the students are Chinese, which by implication is relevant to your story.
It's fine to have these sorts of biases against other ethnicities early in your life. I did. Honestly, it would be a miracle if you didn't, because overwhelming messaging in media and society (by stories such as yours) tells us these biases are justified and important. Nobody is born with fully-developed political opinions. Just take this opportunity to recognize a bias in yourself and move beyond it.