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Comment by ddoolin | Hacker News Reader

Huawei and China will have a hard time finding any sympathy here, considering the companies they outright ban or block, or even just cut the legs off. Have any such US companies responded like this? It feels childish/immature to me, particularly given the circumstances & context.

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Which foreign company has China destroyed using it's foreign policies? What China is doing is limit foreign company access to it's market. The equivalent would be US saying Huawei cannot sell in the US, which is totally fine. But this case is not. Huawei is stricted from doing business with any US entity. This order is essentially designed to completely destroy Huawei and damage Huawei in other countries whom might not side with the US or shares US concern. Keep in mind that in the situation where Huawei buys a component from a company not under US control, say a chip from TSMC, if said component contains any US IP or made component, Huawei still cannot buy it. In the world of technology, this is crippling. Regardless of which political camp people are on, I think this case demonstrates regardless how much US companies sell themselves as global and trusted, they are still US companies and beholden to US politics, and can be used as weapons in advancing US political agenda. Second, this also demonstrates as digital technology becomes as fundamental as electricity, water and air in each of the world's society, a lot of it is monopolized by the US and you are under the hands of the US to use said technology. I think it's very important for each Nation to develop it's own digital technology and true open source systema(hint Android for it to be truely useful is not as open as people think). I think technology people should focus on providing every person on Earth equal access to technology to improve everyone's lives.

Did you ever do business in China? I can tell from experience that doing business in China is much much harder than doing business in for example the US or EU. First of all you cannot do business in China without a local partner. Obtaining licenses in China requires bribery and is hardly possible. Copyright and trademarks are not respected. Copycats everywhere. Chinese legal support is hardly possible without having a Chinese passport. The list is endless. It is absolutely not a fair situation for US companies in China versus the other way around.

I agree with you that China has placed restrictions on foreign company doing business in China and not Chinese companies doing business in China. This is a big issue and I think China should reflect on this. But what I am saying is China at the government layer has not targeted an existing foreign company with billion dollars sales and many employees whose livihood depends on the company and limit it in a fashion that it cannot function. Huawei employes 10000+ people and many local economy depends on the company. What if the company goes under because of US influence right now? People lose their jobs their homes and etc? Would you say that through US actions it has directly negatively affected the civilian lives of another country? I think one has to consider the severity of ones attack. It's one thing to put obstacles and roadblocks, but it's another thing to kill another all together.

Very little chance it goes under just because of the US. The US is only 4% of the world population. Facebook and Google are banned in China and are doing fine without 20% of the world.

Except good luck building a cell phone without android or various chipsets from Qualcomm, etc...

4% of the population but a ton more when weighted with economic power and control of trade secrets and technology rights.

It's a bit of a canned response considering the context of what your parent comment is saying.

Something comparable in scope would China breaking your shipping business in the UK because you can no longer maintain your fleet of US manufactured trucks since China blocked US access of an engine component.

Pelamis

I wasn't really asserting that the two were equal but that it likely will not be viewed as unequal by a layperson. Comparing just these two specific policies, maybe it is, but if you look at China's actions on a large scale, it changes the picture. The US, too.

I agree. From another perspective, China has been a blatant power in the theft of IP from all over the world and we have been turning a blind eye to it for quite some time.

A lot of people joke about 'Chinese knockoffs' and the 'chinesium' metal alloys that permeate the knockoff/shoddy products but it has some serious problems.

This pushback is long overdue and frankly needed.

Did you even read the interview? Yeah China blocks many companies, but that's in CHINA, one market only. It never goes out of its way to try to strangle a company, forbids Chinese company to supply a foreign company downstream. You always have the options to not enter the Chinese market. Not in this case, that's not comparable at all.

I may be misinformed, but I have never heard of China specifically targeting 1 company like this. Sure, China blocks Facebook and Amazon, but its not a targeted hit. China blocks everyone. I am not claiming that this makes it fine, merely that it seems different.

Doesn't it make China worse?

US bans a company because it's problematic, not because "It's part of the evil west"

China limits all foreign companies from accessing it's market. The true reason is to provide a safe heaven to allow local companies develop it's own technology and capability before killed off by foreign companies. During 80s when China is start to open up the market, China has literally no private enterprises with good capability on it's own. Foreign companies from US and Europe have too advanced of technology and scale simply because they have been developing much longer while China was being war ravaged. These companies would easily take over the china market and kill any local enterprises. Look at the affect of the ban, China now as pretty good technology on it's own and local companies with the scale that can compete with foreign companies. Foreign companies now entering China find difficulty partly because of the regulatory environment but also because of local competition is much stronger. I would argue that Apple sales decrease in China is not mainly from regulation but competition from Huawei xiaomi and oppo. Now contrast this with Europe and Canada, especially in the tech market, no one has home grown technology companies that are big enough to compete with the US. Many homegrown companies went away because of it cannot compete with the US. Is would surely damage local economy right? I think the advantages and disadvantages to free market must be carefully balanced.

I had the impression they would do it to keep control of their citizens.

It is also duplicitous when China closes its market off. Insofar as the point that it's cutting off foreign companies is so that it can filter in the control it has over it's population. You try to dance around that fact which is why you need to reconsider your angle on all of your comments. The actual truth is that this is a move necessary on a multitude of facets: Chinese spying, Nearly cutting off American technology supplies to China implying a HUGE blockage of intellectual property as well as devices and chips, Starving the state proxy Huawei, Creates a dialogue of concessions China could make, etc. This has created a chokepoint where American interests can act more nobley to circumvent a totalitarian state. Your slant could read as anti-American but more accurately I think it is more pro-Chinese or perhaps you are just missing the bigger picture.

distinction without a difference

China has definitely done targeted hits. Did you forget the GitHub DDOS in 2015?

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/04/ddos-...

China doesn't block Amazon, FYI.

No foreign company has enough exposure in China for China to destroy them.

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