The difference of course is that we implicitly trust US tech companies, of course we do, nobody else has such a monopoly on CPUs and Operating System production. Not to mention web browsers and all kinds of technology. Avoiding the USA in your tech stack is quite literally impossible.
And we permit the US government (by extension the NSA and 5eyes) to do what ever they want to us without fear of repercussion because what course of action could we take? As long as we are not a US citizen we have literally zero protections.
it’s to the point that my EU based company is applying US sanctions (to Crimea for instance, where no EU sanction covers telecommunications) because we would fall out of line in many of our contracts from US tech companies.
It is clearly a double standard. But the answer is to hold the US to account. Not bring more of this hostile crap in.
Obviously in a perfect world none of the "bad" things happen, but I'd rather take the US government spying on me than the Chinese government spy on me.
The US on the other hand has replaced a bunch of democratically-elected governments in South America with dictatorships, taught torture classes to the people who tortured my grandfather in Brazil, and has taken the economical blockade of Venezuela over the course of decades to the current level of a humanitarian crisis and a disintegrated state, to which (surprise!) they'll have to "bring democracy".
> I don't like the false equivalence of what the US-lead western intelligence does and what the Chinese state does.
I agree, it's a false equivalence. The effects of US-lead western intelligence actions are objectively more perverse.
But it's a point that will continue to be made as long as the US diplomats continue to use Cold War cliches to describe the "enemy" while back-patting the US as a global sentinel for liberal values and human rights.
The USSR couldn't have dreamed of the kind of mass surveillance apparatus the US has.
Not everyone shares your opinion.
This line of argument is all about moral blame, and not related to practical outcome. Correctly morally blaming the US for its practices won't protect you from Chinese malfeasance.
> It is clearly a double standard. But the answer is to hold the US to account. Not bring more of this hostile crap in.
I mean, I think it's the nature of things like this that they are justifiable but not pleasant to suffer from. This is weaponry, not poetry; if theirs is better we suffer, that's it.
It's akin to economic dependence. The thought of Europe depending on Russia (or the USA) for energy/electricity is unfathomable, yet we allow the US in particular to be the "holder" of an enormous part of our economy. IT is literally used by every industry and in some cases is very central to it. (IE; power stations make heavy use of automation and computers with CPU's and Operating Systems living at the very heart of that.)
It's troubling that we don't do more to offset this, especially if you're right, and holding this industry is a weapon of sorts.
China v US dick-waving doesn't change the 'facts on the ground' for average people, which is that state surveillance exists, and many people don't know just how expansive it is. That's what people should be opposing, instead of cheering on two massive bureaucracies like they're sports teams.
The Chinese company is most likely right. But if you are a national carrier, do you then buy the product with the Chinese backdoors?
The only defense that wouldn’t kill their sales would be arguing for the opposite, that backdoors undermine the trust of their customers, and that they have the same incentive as Google, Apple or Cisco to push back on those requests.
There will never be a Snowden in China. You can guarantee their life, or their love one's life will be held hostage.
So not only does the "West" ( So to speak ) has a system in place protecting these people, they also have a system to vote them out and elect a new form of government should the ultimate worst come to play.
What can you do with the CCP?
The reason there will be no Snowden in China is primarily that China doesn't hide its spying, and secondarily becaue China does not maintain the pretense of moral superiority on international scale. Snowden-type leak from China would not change the way Chinese citizens perceive their government, and nobody else would care, much less exert outside pressure to change things.
Leaks and whistleblowers will happen, though - they do happen even in most oppressive of regimes.
(Also excuse me, but I don't believe US wouldn't try to exert pressure on you through your loved ones in a case like this.)
Because they don't have to, because they cannot be democratically removed from power and their people accept a high level of human rights abuses as status quo. US citizens do not.
Scooter Libby was prosecuted during the subsequent investigation and of course pardoned by Trump.
For an accusation like that you should always provide substantiated evidence, otherwise you're just flaming the anti-Chinese racial flames. Because as terrible as you may think the Chinese government is, it still has the legitimacy and support of a vast majority of the Chinese population.
Not the best coming from the Guardian admittedly, but still. Top result in google.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/26/chinese-activi...
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/21...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/10/liu-xia...
It take's a rather famous case to make it into the Western news, but I have a close Chinese-national friend who's under the strong impression that dissident activity would be bad for her parents.
Since you have brought up the subject of the genocidal CCP having the support of the Chinese population, let me ask you this: isn't it true that the feeling amongst Han Chinese is that they are superior to other races and and cultures, and are meant to rule them? Isn't that the policy CCP is following now?
Has anything changed after Snowden revelations? New form of government?
Insane diplomatic incident.
You are right, USA wouldn't kill him if captured. They would only psychologically torture him for years, like they did with Manning.
Snowden would have been in a US jail if Russia hadn't found him to be a useful symbol of US hypocrisy. Snowden originally went to HK but the authorities were ready to extradite him, as were most countries that didn't want the US breathing down their necks.
The fight then ends up being a squabble over power and who should have it. The US government is only saying what it says because it simply wants more power in its hands—nothing more. Same goes for the China side, although they're just trying to sell something. There's no way China can win this argument since it's just about power (unless they bend over).
I have no problem telling you who I am; I currently seem to have the top comment here[0] which makes me probably the prime target of this message.
What about my English is broken? I am British[1], I have been around for a long time[2] and I currently live in Sweden. I have no obligation to any US or China based tech company and no affiliation with China at all (other than the fact I work for a games company that is 5% owned by Tencent[3], but I am definitely not directly involved and I consider their efforts an intrusion).
If you think I'm a troll then I've been playing the long game, I have GitHub commits under this name since 2011.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19261105
[1]: http://linkedin.com/in/jharasym/
[3]: https://www.polygon.com/2018/3/20/17144094/ubisoft-vivendi-s...
This just won't fly for anyone concerned with the ethical issues. The point is not that Huawei should get away with anything but no one should. This not only makes a mockery of concern with surveillance but also exposes globalization and free markets as self serving political tools.
Huawei is a perfect example of how ethical issues are hijacked by vested interests with zero interest in the ethics to encourage an empty culture of jingoistic finger pointing that serve to distract and deny while advancing their own financial interests at the cost of everyone else.
The scale of state crimes are vastly different here.
