Here's the inside story of how the ban was years in the making and all the effort it took. From someone in the government at the time the process started: https://twitter.com/JoshuaSteinman/status/159637064508835020...
At first I was intrigued about why did that guy call all this industrial protectionism act as something "professional", afterwards I saw that he is an active part of the industrial defence complex (he's a National Security Council staffer), so that started to make a little bit more sense.
I'm wondering though for how long will the MIC ghouls continue to have the upper hand in this. There are huge opportunity costs to be paid by the side that goes all "Corn Law League" on something as fundamental to our age as grains were ~200 years ago, but, then again, when said pro-protectionism side also controls the media, which means no Cobden [1] to take it all down, the US could be in for the long-haul.
It's a bit like buying communication equipment from the USSR. Maybe the equipment is fine! But accepting even such a thing as the US national emblem from the USSR proved to be... a decision detrimental to security [1].
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
We should not buy anything that is internet connected from a country we cannot trust.
We should not buy anything that has non-dumb components from a country we cannot trust.
We should not buy anything that is has high-performance materials that cannot be non-destructively tested from a country we cannot trust.
Overall, we should not be buying ANYTHING AT ALL from a country we cannot trust, as literally any trade merely supports their working against our well-being.
The grand experiment was done, and it failed miserably. We all thought that increased trade and information flow would bring free markets and democracy to the autocracies of the world. We could not have been more wrong — all we did was further empower expansionist/imperialist regimes. Russia is now waging a genocidal hot war in Europe and China is more actively threatening Taiwan than at any time in at least decades, and putting Uighurs in concentration camps - all funded by our purchasing. It is past time to embargo them.
Easier said than done when they are the dominant or at least major supplier of many strategic materials. It will take time to find economically viable alternative suppliers. Globalism is rapidly collapsing and China won’t for long be able to remain a reliable trading partner even if they desperately wanted to be, so we ought to be urgently securing sufficient alternative suppliers anyway.
That said, you are absolutely correct that it'll be a heavy lift to find alternate supplies of many materials and items.
That makes it no less necessary.
Germany had made apparently catastrophic reliance on Russian NatGas, and looked like a horrible winter. Yet they have extricated themselves within 10 months so much that even without that Russian supply, NatGas prices are actually falling going into winter.
It is necessary.
I believe there is very credible reporting on ccp-sponsored hacking of industrial, military, government dbs, etc. Even if we don’t have hard evidence of this type of hardware compromise, it seems to be wise to believe there are serious risks, and to take action until such risks are investigated.
Despite all the expertise on HN, i would guess almost no one here has a clue what kinds of elite military spy tech are being tested/used.
Further, the ccp has shown the world who they are - bad faith and anti-global-cooperation. Trust should be a two way street. I think we’re foolish to do any business with them.
The refutation is that the tech sector is one of the largest beneficiaries of globalization, and practically would not exist in any recognizable form without it.
With measures like this (but by no means only this measure), the US is in the process of rolling back globalization, and the tech sector will suffer for it.
Their biggest competitor within Telecommunications is a Swedish company.
I don't see how spending many billions on R&D to develop the most intricately hidden backdoors in human history (that no one has been able to offer proof for) and eating that cost to deploy them when it will all become worthless the moment the first one is detected, makes any sense at all.
Historians often site “The Great Illusion” which was written in 1909 and predicted there would be no more major or prolonged wars due to the new global and interconnected economy. Clearly that was wrong and yet the same argument keeps being made with regard to China.
China has made it clear they consider “the West” as an enemy. We should not trust any infrastructure to them.
"I don't see what they could possibly gain, all it would take is for one genuine case of a backdoor to be confirmed and then all that investment would be nearly worthless."
And your previous comment: "People used to say same exact thing about russian gas"
I'm struggling to find any analogous situation to a single verified breech of trust destroying billions of investments in the gas sector of Russia.
One shipment of contaminated gas (?) is not going to have any major effects on the gas trade.
Struggle no longer - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/kremlin-says-gazprom...
A commodity business with high transportation costs has different dynamics then from the electronics industry.
Yes, imported Russian nat gas is way cheaper. Until it isn't.
Not if war breaks out. If that happens, maintenance and support channels will be weaponized and/or sanctioned.
> unfettered access to the teleco networks of the countries that they themselves say are their greatest enemies?
Regardless of how they got their tech, that premise is the reason for blocking them.
Pans to black. “The whole thing was not under their control”. Cue “aways sunny in Philadelphia” theme
Of course it is but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the right call. Huawei & ZTE exist so Cisco doesn’t have to be used in China. It seems this is a blanket ban for sale in all of the US which strikes me as excessive without knowing why they’re a National security threat.
I’d like more expectations of parity. Maybe real estate.
Most Ukrainians don't want to kill Russians, but they were attacked. "Fight back" and "surrender" are the only two options.