Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[CBH99]

Wow.

The image grab above is literally the visual representation of the CCP's worst nightmare come true, when it comes to their image both at home and abroad.


Great timing on the part of the photographer. 

 

[a_majoor]

More on the state of the Chinese financial system. I suspect they will be able to paper over the cracks for a while longer, but eventually the game of musical finances becomes impossible to sustain:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/williampesek/2019/12/20/chinas-13-trillion-problem-is-becoming-everyones/#61d9b9341445

China’s $13 Trillion Problem Is Becoming Everyone’s
William Pesek
William PesekContributor
Asia
I write about economics, markets and policymaking throughout Asia.



Chinese President Xi Jinping
Chinese President Xi Jinping, center, sings with performers during a cultural performance in Macau ... [+]AP PHOTO
China’s Xi Jinping probably tops any list of people who can’t wait to see the back of 2019.

These last 12 months produced the slowest mainland growth since the early 1990s, the biggest pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong’s history and mounting criticism of Beijing’s human rights record. By taking such an authoritarian stance, Taiwan has slipped further away from Beijing’s grip, while some political wags questioned whether Communist Party members were losing faith in President Xi’s governing style.

But Xi has an even bigger challenge on his hands, and not just Donald Trump’s trade war antics. Make that 13 trillion challenges.

This figure refers to the size, in U.S. dollar terms, of China’s onshore bond market. And generally, its growth and development have long been touted as a vital rite of passage for the second-biggest economic power. The trouble with debt markets, though, is they tend to expose cracks in financial systems.

Herein lies Xi’s biggest problem. Keeping growth north of 6% is reasonably easy for a command economy. Even amid the trade war, Xi’s party can order up giant infrastructure projects, slash taxes and cajole local governments to ramp up fiscal stimulus. It has its own ATM—the People’s Bank of China.

Today In: Asia
Trouble is, the more you borrow, the more investors can push back and the more even the most authoritarian of governments can lose control as punters vote with their feet. That risk is increasing along with a recent jump in private-sector debt defaults to a record high.

According to Fitch, 4.9% of private companies missed bond payments from January to November, up from 4.2% for all of 2018. When you combine state and private companies, China Inc.’s onshore defaults risks are growing apace—from none a few years back to at least $18 billion so far this year.

PROMOTED

There’s an obvious caveat here. We can only discuss the default risks we know about—the ones regulators in Beijing cop to, not those that are being papered over with public assistance.

Signs of stress are also emerging in the offshore debt market. So are this year, there have been at least $75 billion defaults. With well over $200 billion of debt maturing over the next 24 months, Standard and Poor’s warns of increasing missed payments episodes.

This trajectory collides with U.S. President Trump’s trade war. Ignore all that excitement over Trump’s “phase one” deal with Xi. It’s a polite ceasefire than won’t hold. With Trump getting zero from Xi in terms of re-ordering U.S.-China trade dynamics and facing the risk of removal from office, the odds of him lashing out anew at Asia are growing, not waning.

It means that Xi’s annus horribilis won’t end even as calendars switch to 2020. The year ahead may very well be the one in which China’s debt troubles supersede all else.

That’s saying a lot given the ongoing protests rocking Hong Kong and piercing the veneer of omnipotence Xi seeks to project. The same goes for next month’s election in Taiwan, where President Tsai Ing-wen, a China critic, is sailing toward a second term.

Tsai Ing-wen talks to the media.
Presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen, talks to the media after the first televised policy address in ... [+]AP PHOTO/CHIANG YONG-YING
The real problem, though, is that an increasingly unbalanced Chinese economy faces a third year of trade clashes. As the reviews of the phase one truce come in—tepid ones, at best—Trump may double down. That means even bigger tariffs, the White House targeting more mainland tech champions or pulling the trigger on 25% taxes on imports of cars and auto parts.

As Xi struggles to keep growth above 6%—his target for 2020—Beijing’s debt load and financial-system leverage will continue growing. Here, it’s worth noting recent comments from Ma Jun, an external adviser to China’s central bank. He told Securities Times newspaper that Beijing needs to reduce “systemic risks.”

Ma is particularly worried about excessive regional government borrowing setting off a “chain reaction” of defaults that unnerve markets. These local government financing vehicles, or LGFVs, have been at the center of the nation’s infrastructure boom. They’re the fuel driving the countless six-lane highways, international airports and white-elephant stadiums being built around the most populous nation.

The rest of the article is at the link. Missed bond payments is the most obvious issue going forward, and the cancerous growth of LGFVs "off the books" means that no one has any real idea of just how large the problem actually is. 2020 will be very "interesting" in the Chinese sense ("may you live in interesting times")

 

[The Bread Guy]

... once they are released, there shouldn't even be a debate about whether Huawei is allowed to build our network ...

That's the kicker - as long as the guys are prisoners, CHN still has the leverage.  And politically, it's becoming a hard-to-win for Canada:  reject Huawei, and they do other crap, leading to "WTF's the government doing?!?!?", and if Huawei is accepted, it leads to more "WTF's the government doing?!?!?"

 

[CBH99]

I agree with you on that, it really is pushing the GoC into a corner with zero truly good options.

Eventually, they will be released.  I imagine they will be put through a sham trial, found guilty, and then deported back to Canada & told they are never allowed to return.  This would allow the Chinese to save face, create the illusion of legitimacy in the proceedings, and move on from their end of things.

The Chinese aren't gaining anything from holding them prisoner, minus leverage to have Meng released. 

(Funny how the CCP can say on the one hand that Huawei isn't linked to the government, yet the government takes prisoners when something doesn't go the way Huawei wants.  Talk about hollow statements.)



Time for our government, regardless of political party, to take a good hard look at our relationship with China.  If between trade, human rights, influencing universities, pressuring or intimidating citizens, and trying to snake it's way into our communities via "Belt & Road" types of initiatives -- time to take a good hard look at who we do business with.

Lots of other countries need our agriculture exports, and due to the price of oil these days we aren't exporting as much as we used to.  Still plenty of countries that need that too, though.

 

[MarkOttawa]

And from Prof. Charles Burton (knows his China and his Chinese) on Huawei:

Why Canada should not let Huawei into our 5G networks: Debunking five myths – Charles Burton for Inside Policy

Some Canadian commentators have approvingly quoted a Huawei Canada spokesman’s recent claims that, “We’re not villains in an espionage thriller. We’re a telecom network equipment provider.”

If it was only so simple. Huawei might not be a villain in a Bond novel, but it is certainly not just a normal telecom network equipment provider.

If it really were just a normal company, would anyone really expect China’s aggressive response to Canada’s lawful detainment of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, in full accordance with legal obligations under our extradition agreement with the United States? China has unlawfully detained and charged Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, re-evaluated the case of Robert Schellenberg, sentencing him to execution on drug charges, and banned multiple Canadian agricultural products.

In what world does a country apply such pressure on behalf of a single business executive of a normal telecom company? If Canada had done something similar to an executive of Ericsson, Nokia, or Samsung, which are also providers of 5G infrastructure, can anyone imagine any of their home countries (Sweden, Finland, South Korea, respective) taking such action?

The fact that Meng’s arrest had generated such a massive overreaction on China’s part, and one that shows no sign of abating, should put to rest this notion that Huawei is simply a normal company. And those commentators who deign to mention China’s “inexcusable over-reaction” should frankly know better.

With that out of the way, it might be useful to counter some myths that have most recently been raised about Huawei:

Myth one – “Huawei’s lead in 5G”

Rather than simply celebrating Huawei’s achievements in 5G, we should instead try to better understand why the company is able to be so competitive in the industry. And that goes directly to the support Beijing offers to its “national champion.” Over many decades, Huawei benefited from the Communist regime’s preferential treatment and financial largesse, including hundreds of millions of dollars in grants, heavily subsidized land for facilities, buildings and employee apartments, bonuses to top employees, and massive state loans, such as a $30 billion credit line with China Development Bank inked in 2009.

Yes, Huawei’s equipment may be initially cheaper than its competitors. But that is precisely because Huawei is supported by the deep pockets of the Communist regime. Huawei is also not the only game in town. Other telecoms giants, such as Ericsson or Nokia, are more than competitive in 5G; the former having 76 5G contracts (31 being public) and latter with 50, compared to Huawei’s 60 contracts. And their involvement would not come with the attendant security risks associated with Huawei.

5G technology, one should recall, has hardware and component integration that is completely unique when compared to 3G and 4G, making Huawei’s involvement in the latter in Canada immaterial. Plus, 5G’s scope is massive – from driverless cars to refineries to electricity grids. This places a premium on ensuring that 5G equipment and expertise providers are completely trustworthy, even if this results in additional costs.

Myth two – “Canada risks losing out to G-7 peers — and China”

Merkel’s Germany has made some signals that it is open to allowing Huawei to compete as a possible supplier of 5G, albeit not without significant pushback. Her own party has even backed a motion allowing their Parliament veto on security criteria for 5G suppliers, and this security criteria specifically refers to the influence of a foreign country – a not-so-subtle nod to Huawei.

Meanwhile, the UK also appears more sanguine in their ability to manage the security risks posed by Huawei supplying 5G equipment. Yet this does not mean that Ottawa should mindlessly follow in the possible missteps of our allies.

One should recall that countries like the United States and Australia have moved to ban Huawei’s involvement in 5G. Japan has effectively done so as well. And New Zealand’s intelligence agency recently blocked a local telecoms operator from using Huawei’s equipment in 5G. Many countries in the EU are highly skeptical about involving Huawei in 5G.

And they are wary for good reasons – 5G’s complexity means it is exceptionally hard to certify that backbone equipment is safe. One can only manage risk, not eliminate it altogether. And it would be imprudent to assume that we can manage such risk indefinitely into the future. It is far wiser to eliminate such risk by opting for other 5G equipment providers

Canada’s position is also distinct. We are a member of the Five Eyes intelligence network, and not just any member – our communication networks are closely integrated with that of the United States, beyond even other Five Eyes partners. This is to say that Canada’s greenlighting of Huawei’s involvement in 5G would pose a unique risk as far as the Americans are concerned. Washington is unlikely to regard with equanimity a Canadian back door to our vital North American security-intelligence sharing for the Chinese Communist regime.

Myth three – “Huawei’s commitment to Canada”

If the issue was only about economics, the argument that Canada should accept Huawei’s involvement in 5G might have a case. It is cheaper to use Huawei. Their jobs can be well-paying. And they do employ many people in Canada.

Of course, we should also remember that Huawei has also been credibly accused of technology transfers and intellectual property theft from top tech companies like Cisco, Motorola, and Nortel (before its demise in 2009). Yes, Huawei now partners with many top-level Canadian universities in research, “obtaining millions of dollars in government grants.” However, in many cases, Huawei owns the intellectual property of the research, which gets transferred back to China. Those who cheerlead about the supposed benefits should also confront an uncomfortable reality: what about the economic consequences of allowing Huawei in 5G?

In any event, it is not simply an economic issue that can be addressed in isolation. Huawei’s involvement carries national security implications that cannot be ignored. There is a reason why the government undertakes national security reviews of foreign investment – as a means to protect against security threats, a requirement that must supersede the narrow economic interests of a company or sector.

Myth four – “Huawei and cyber-security”

It is clever to claim that there is no “tangible evidence” that Beijing has asked Huawei to spy. On one hand, it is immaterial. China’s own National Intelligence Law would allow Beijing to compel Huawei to support its intelligence activities. Notwithstanding Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei’s claim to the contrary, given the extent to which Beijing has helped subsidize its “national champion,” is there any doubt that Huawei would do what is demanded?

Simply put, we don’t need to have a smoking gun of Beijing asking Huawei to spy in the past. They have the absolute authority to compel Huawei to do so at any time.

And moreover, the claim that Huawei is completely above suspicion is simply false. Huawei has been credibly accused of a host of questionable activities – from enabling espionage and creating cyber vulnerabilities to IP theft or misappropriations. And then there are its many ties to China's state security services. Indeed, there is some evidence that Huawei is not the independent, employee-owned company that it presents itself to be – that Huawei Technologies is actually owned by a holding company, Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd, which is 99 percent owned by the CCP’s own Trade Union Committee (and 1 percent owned by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei).

With this in mind, it is easy to infer that Beijing has sanctioned Huawei to spy in the past – and it certainly can compel it do so in the future.

Myth five – “Huawei is a pawn in the US-China trade war”

The Trump administration may have tried to justify its steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada on the “specious grounds” of national security. And these tariffs did end following the successful negotiation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Yet it would be a mistake to simply assume that Washington’s hardline approach to Huawei is on equally specious grounds or that it is simply a bargaining chip in the Sino-US trade war.

There is a bi-partisan consensus on the need for a tougher approach to China, including seeing Huawei’s involvement in 5G for what it is – a national security threat to the United States and its allies. It is one supported by the US military and its intelligences services, and those in many of its allies. Indeed, it was Australia that was the first country to raise concerns about Huawei and 5G.

Of course, President Trump remains ever erratic, and it is not within the realm of possibility that he’ll use Huawei as a bargaining chip in his dealings with Beijing. Yet that does not mean that the administration’s reasoning when it comes to Huawei is at all flawed.

Much as Canadian policy-makers had done with the broader China trade agenda, it is easy to look at Huawei and focus only on the potential economic benefits of giving Huawei free reign with 5G. Yet Huawei is not a normal telecommunications company, nor is 5G a normal communications network. Canada’s national security is at stake – and the federal government must be willing to make the hard choices to protect our security, even if this rocks the boat and disrupts the economic interests tied with Huawei and China.

Charles Burton is Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad. He is a former counsellor at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing.
https://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/canada-not-let-huawei-5g-networks-debunking-five-myths-charles-burton-inside-policy/

More on Prof. Burton:

Charles Burton is Associate Professor at Brock University specializing in Comparative Politics, Government and Politics of China, Canada-China Relations and Human Rights. He served as Counsellor at the Canadian Embassy to China between 1991-1993 and 1998-2000. Prior to coming to Brock, Charles worked at the Communications Security Establishment of the Canadian Department of National Defence.

He received a PhD in 1987 from the University of Toronto after studies at Cambridge University (Oriental Studies) and Fudan University (History of Ancient Chinese Thought Program, Department of Philosophy, class of '77). He was an Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Post-Doctoral Scholar in Political Science at University of Alberta, 1986-88.

He has published extensively on Chinese and North Korean affairs and Canada-China relations and has been commissioned to write reports on matters relating to Canada's relations with China for agencies of the Government of Canada. Charles is a frequent commentator on Chinese affairs in newspapers, radio and TV.
https://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/experts/charles-burton/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Not something any Liberal government will do, one suspects (Conservatives?):

Canada can learn from Taiwan on relations with China: Marcus Kolga in the Toronto Star
The determination and clarity with which Taiwan has confronted the challenges to its fragile independence and democracy are encouraging and can serve as an example for Canada and its allies, writes Marcus Kolga.

Few cherish the fragility of democracy more than the people of Taiwan. Located perilously close to an adversary seeking to undermine its sovereignty and democracy, Taiwan has developed remarkable resilience to China’s ongoing threats. This resilience will be put to the test on Saturday as voters cast ballots in Taiwan’s national elections.

Canada is no stranger to China's bully diplomacy. Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig are entering their second year of arbitrary detention in China in response to the legal arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition request. And just last month, Chinese Ambassador Cong Peiwu threatened retaliation if Canada imposed Magnitsky sanctions on Chinese officials who are responsible for human rights abuses.

Beijing’s aggressive influence operations within Canada have targeted elected officials at all government levels and riding level political party structures are under increasing threat of being compromised by groups connected to China’s local consulates and the United Front [emphasis added]. Platforms such as Facebook and WeChat regularly used by Beijing to spread disinformation about Canada, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Even Canadian corporations operating in China are overtly threatened in Chinese state media if they don’t toe Beijing’s line.

Taiwan’s success in resisting China’s influence lies in the fact that they have developed defences against China’s objectives — namely, aggressive expansionism and the subjugation of smaller nations to Beijing’s direct influence.

As such, Taiwan has taken diversified trade, bolstered domestic defence industries, and reinforced democratic institutions to directly address China’s influence and information warfare.

This dedication to democracy has been put into action by Taiwanese Minister Audrey Tang, who is Taiwan’s first transgender cabinet minister and among the first anywhere in the world. She has developed an innovative open government policy that allows all citizens to directly contribute to the country’s policy-making process.

Tang is also responsible for overseeing the development of Taiwan’s countermeasures against Beijing’s disinformation attacks — without negatively affecting personal liberties, including freedom of expression.

When I recently met with Tang in Taipei, she explained that the Taiwanese government has developed a protocol for “working toward disarming disinformation that does not involve infringing of journalistic freedom.”

Within two hours of detecting a disinformation attack, the relevant Taiwanese ministries are required “to roll out clarification of 200 characters or less and at least two pictures.”

Tang says the Taiwanese counter-disinformation system is “now good enough that most [ministries] can deliver the clarifications within 60 minutes.” This rapid response is designed to defuse the disinformation narrative by getting ahead of it and stopping its spread on social media.

Through a unique agreement with Facebook, the company has agreed to adjust its algorithms so disinformation attacks no longer reach user news feeds. “You have to scroll for two hours to see [the story],” says Tang. “It’s like moving this into the spam folder: once they do that, it stops spreading.”

According to a Pew Research study, nearly half of all Canadians receive their daily news from social media, demonstrating our vulnerability to disinformation. While Ottawa introduced significant measures to address disinformation before the 2019 election, it fell short of publicly exposing disinformation campaigns. Nor did the government achieve agreements with social media platforms to protect the Canadian online information environment.

In December, Taiwan took the additional step of banning foreign funding and backing of political parties by “hostile external forces,” while Australia has passed legislation that requires individuals or groups that are acting on behalf of “foreign principals” to register with the government.

Despite Beijing’s efforts to undermine Taiwan’s elections and threats to unite Taiwan with mainland China by force, Taiwanese leaders are digging in. Former Taiwanese Minister of Defence Andrew Yang suggests Canada do the same, urging us to wake up by reminding our leaders that “Beijing does not conduct business abiding to international rules.”

The determination and clarity with which Taiwan has confronted the challenges to its fragile independence and democracy are encouraging and can serve as an example for Canada and its allies as they struggle to address their own growing problems with Beijing.

Marcus Kolga is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
https://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/canada-taiwan-relations-china-marcus-kolga-star/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

And from Prof. Charles Burton (knows his China and his Chinese) on Huawei:

More on Prof. Burton:

Mark
Ottawa

Piece mainly on UK with Germany noted--how long can Canada stay largely under the radar?

Key Republicans seek ban on intel sharing with countries that use Huawei

Key House Republicans have introduced a bill that would bar U.S. intelligence sharing with countries that allow telecom giant Huawei in their next-generation wireless networks.

The Jan. 27 bill would potentially downgrade America’s “special relationship” with the U.K., which is reportedly expected to grant Huawei some access to its nascent 5G network. Such a move by London would be a loss for the Trump administration, which has aggressively campaigned against the company, arguing Chinese governments links to the firm mean it poses an espionage threat. (Huawei denies the allegations.)

“I think that if they make that decision that they have Huawei in their 5G, then we have to recalculate and reassess whether or not they can continue to be among our closest intel partners,” Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the bill’s sponsors and the No. 3 Republican in the House, told reporters Monday.

“I would urge the administration to go through and look at that. I think it would fundamentally alter the relationship we have with the U.K.,” if the U.K. adopts Huawei in its 5G network.

As Washington works to maintain America’s technological edge against China, it has been wrestling with just how to shape the role that Huawei is playing in developing 5G networks worldwide. Several China critics on Monday ― Cheney, Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis. ― met with reporters to argue the lure of cheap telecom equipment, subsidized by the Chinese government, is not worth the risk of Beijing gaining access to the vast amounts of data that would travel over nations’ new networks.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to decide as soon as this week whether to abide public and private warnings from President Donald Trump and other American officials. Johnson has, according to the Financial Times, been looking at imposing a market share cap on Huawei, which would allow it to provide non-core telecom gear, like the antennas and base stations seen on rooftops.

In Germany, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, Berlin’s top security official, was quoted Jan. 25 as saying Germany must be protected against espionage and sabotage, but estimated that shutting out Chinese providers could delay building the new network by five to 10 years [emphasis added].

“I don’t see that we can set up a 5G network in Germany in the short term without participation by Huawei,” Seehofer told the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung...

Though Banks, the lead sponsor of the House bill, predicted Monday it would attract bipartisan support, even some key Republicans were unprepared to take such a hard line against the U.K., a member of the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence network ― which also includes the U.S., Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

“Let’s wait until they make the decision and see what the decision is,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said Monday of lead British officials. “Our intelligence sharing, not only with Great Britain, but the ‘Five Eyes,’ and a handful of others is really critical. They’re dovetailed together, and they’re really important.”..
https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/01/27/key-republicans-seek-ban-on-intel-sharing-with-countries-that-use-huawei/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[CBH99]

I still don't understand why building 5G networks is really all that urgent.

In the article above, Germany had said they need to be protected from espionage & sabotage...BUT...by shutting out Chinese providers, they may be looking at 5yrs before their 5G network is built.

Who cares?  Honestly, why the urgency?


We get it.  5G is "soooooo amazing" - yeah yeah, the same way 4G and LTE were "soooooooooo amazing" when they came out a few years ago.  Woopy.  Faster internet connections, faster upload/download speeds, and more applications for future technologies.  I still don't see an urgent need to get them built 'tomorrow' so to speak.  :dunno:

 

[FJAG]

I'm still working on a 3G phone. It sucks with data but works just fine as a phone and for messaging. I really don't need to send out pictures of what I had for lunch or see videos of some cat falling on it's ass.

I'm with you CBH99. No big whoopy although it can make certain business applications work better. That said, I don't see a five to ten year delay if Huawei is frozen out. Technology works a lot faster than that; even on that scale.

:cheers:

 

[CBH99]

You mean you don't need to take a picture of every meal and post it to 3 different social media profiles?

FJAG, I appreciate you so much more now  :cheers:

 

[tomahawk6]

With the deathtoll at 100 Chinese companies are telling workers to stay home. This may help to limit exposure. Of course prison labor might see a spike in deaths.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51260149

 

[MarkOttawa]

Piece mainly on UK with Germany noted--how long can Canada stay largely under the radar?

Mark
Ottawa

Justin and His Compradors must be praying BoJo can sell his approach to Huawei/5G to Americans and that we then can get them to accept something similar for Canada. Meanwhile delay, delay, delay a decision:

UK will allow Huawei to help build its 5G network despite US pressure

The British government said Tuesday [Jan. 28] that it will allow China's Huawei to help build the country's next generation of super-fast wireless networks, a decision that could undermine trade and intelligence ties with the United States.

The announcement follows months of public debate in the United Kingdom over how to respond to concerns raised by the US government about potential national security risks posed by Huawei components and the threat of Chinese cyber attacks.

UK mobile operators will be able to use Huawei equipment in their 5G networks but the company will be excluded from "security critical" core areas, according to a statement from the government.
The Trump administration had been pressing for a total ban on Huawei products, alleging that Beijing could use the equipment for snooping. It had warned that US-UK intelligence sharing could be put at risk.

Under Chinese law, Chinese companies can be ordered to act under the direction of Beijing. Huawei has consistently denied that it would help the Chinese government to spy.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has come under intense pressure, including from within his party, to agree to the US demands on Huawei. He discussed the issue with President Donald Trump in a phone call on Friday. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted Sunday that Britain faced a "momentous" decision on 5G.

Huawei already has a significant presence in UK wireless networks, and has been operating under supervision by government security agencies since 2003.

"We've always treated them as a 'high risk vendor' and have worked to limit their use in the UK and put extra mitigations around their equipment and services," Ian Levy, technical director of the National Cyber Security Centre, said in a blog post [emphasis added]...

Huawei, which is a leader in 5G technology and also one of the world's biggest sellers of smartphones, has seen its business targeted in a concerted campaign by the United States. But its products are often described as superior and cheaper than those sold by European rivals Nokia (NOK) and Ericsson (ERIC). Some experts say that Huawei owes part of its success to favorable loans from the Chinese state, an assertion the company disputes.

The UK government said "high risk vendors" like Huawei will be excluded from all safety critical infrastructure, security critical "core" functions of the network and sensitive locations such as military sites and nuclear power stations.

The company will also be limited to supplying 35% of network equipment and base stations, or carrying 35% of network traffic [emphasis added].

"The government is certain that these measures, taken together, will allow us to mitigate the potential risk posed by the supply chain and to combat the range of threats, whether cyber criminals, or state sponsored attacks," the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said in a statement...
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/28/tech/huawei-5g-uk/index.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[tomahawk6]

Australia will quarantine citizens on Christmas isla.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51290312

 

[MarkOttawa]

Justin and His Compradors must be praying BoJo can sell his approach to Huawei/5G to Americans and that we then can get them to accept something similar for Canada. Meanwhile delay, delay, delay a decision:

Mark
Ottawa

What do Aussies understand about Huawei/5G that Brits, and likely our gov't don't?

1)

The man who stopped Huawei: A former spook speaks out

In late 2017, one of Australia’s top intelligence officials selected a team of his brightest telecommunications and cyber experts and assigned them a high priority task.

Simeon Gilding’s job at the Australian Signals Directorate was one of the most secretive in the agency - no mean feat in a place in which even the lowest order business is marked "classified". He was in charge of the people trying to launch attacks on Australia’s adversaries by hacking into phone and computer systems.

In an interview with The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, Gilding says he asked his team to work out how a foreign adversary could attack Australia’s 5G network based on one critical assumption: that this adversary was able to assert control over the company that was actually supplying and maintaining key components of the 5G network.

Next, Mr Gilding told them to figure out what defences could be put in place to prevent such an attack.

The answers he got informed Australia’s stunning 2018 decision to block Chinese firm Huawei from bidding to build the nation’s 5G network. It also throws into stark relief a decision made this week in Britain when, on Thursday, the UK government announced it would not follow Australia’s lead. Gilding's counterparts in British intelligence had produced a very different assessment to that of Gilding’s ASD officers: in the UK, Huawei will be welcomed to participate in the 5G rollout.
The internet of everything

This technology, literally the fifth generation of mobile broadband, will be a crucial component of the "internet of things". It will connect every appliance in our homes and will carry the massive flows of data when trucks, trains, cars, power stations, hospitals and water utilities are automated and driverless. If a network is compromised, those doing the hacking could potentially infiltrate a host of critical infrastructure.

Gilding, who left ASD last year, insists he directed his team to find a way to mitigate the risk that the Chinese government could compel Huawei to compromise these digital superhighways in Australia.

“We wanted to come up with a package of mitigations to let Huawei in, and we put our best people on it,” says Gilding, who has never before been interviewed by the Australian media. “But we found we couldn’t.”

As it stands, cyber offensive teams run by spy agencies in places like China, the US and Australia must expend considerable time and effort to penetrate a secure network. “The costs are very high and it takes a huge amount of work by a big team,” Gilding says.

But if a cyber offensive team — government-employed hackers — can compel the actual company that is running the network to follow its orders, then the task becomes much, much easier.

Huawei argues that despite being headquartered in an authoritarian country where the Chinese Communist Party’s intelligence and military apparatus reign supreme, it operates free of government influence. But Gilding doesn’t buy this. He also insists his problem is not with Huawei, but with the Chinese state’s record of cyber attacks on Australia - and the fact that it has the power to direct private firms to follow its commands.

“We are not anti-China by any means. It is just that China has form over a decade of large-scale hacks of our networks.”

Mistaken assumptions

The British decision to involve Huawei was, according to Gilding, based on the mistaken assumption that a country can apply “traditional” defences to stop a cyber attack launched with the help of a company running part or all of a 5G network. Gilding says this underestimates the capability of Chinese state hackers, who he calls “top tier.”

In carrying out Australia's assessment, his own team concluded that if they could coerce a network controller such as Huawei to insert complex code during a system update, they could gain control of parts of a 5G network and never be detected.

“They [the British] think they can manage the risk but we don’t think that is plausible given Huawei would be subject to direction from hostile intelligence services.”

Huawei Australia’s spokesman Jeremy Mitchell says ASD’s assessment relied on at outdated understanding of how 5G will work. He argues that multiple vendors can help run parts of a 5G network, mitigating the risk of compromise.

“We think the UK decision has been based on a long investment in finding how this technology works” by Britain’s intelligence experts, says Mitchell. “ASD had relied on a old version of 5G technology.”

Mitchell also says that if ASD’s concern is really about China, then it should equally apply to the other key players in the 5G debate, Nokia and Ericsson, as both manufacture in China and could also theoretically face demands from the government. Huawei is hoping the British decision will be replicated across the world and may even force a rethink in Australia and the US...[read on]
https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-man-who-stopped-huawei-a-former-spook-speaks-out-20200131-p53wi6.html

2) More from Australian Strategic Policy Institute (by the Simon Gilding quoted above):

5G choices: a pivotal moment in world affairs

It is disappointing that the Brits are doing the wrong thing on 5G, having not exhausted other possibilities. Instead they have doubled down on a flawed and outdated cybersecurity model to convince themselves that they can manage the risk that Chinese intelligence services could use Huawei’s access to UK telco networks to insert bad code.

5G decisions reflect one of those quietly pivotal moments that crystallise a change in world affairs.

This is partly because the technology itself promises to be revolutionary, connecting not just humans but every device with a chip in it with super-fast, high-bandwidth and low-latency communications. That means if you have the keys to 5G networks, you will be trusted with the nervous system running down the backbone of every country which uses your gear and contracts you to service it. That includes critical infrastructure and safety-critical systems on which the lives and livelihoods of our citizens depend—traffic, power, water, food supply and hospitals. You get to be ‘The Borg’.

But 5G is also a touchstone for the coming age because it is the first in a line of revolutionary and highly intrusive emerging technologies in which China has invested heavily. Through means fair and foul, China has built world-leading companies with high-quality, competitive offerings for everything from video surveillance and industrial control systems to artificial intelligence and internet services via hyperscalers such as Tencent and Alibaba. So any decision to exclude Chinese companies from 5G is a threat to China’s economic and strategic positioning.

Having been caught off guard by BT’s decision to use Huawei equipment in the core of its network, in 2010 the UK government set up a Huawei-funded cybersecurity transparency centre ‘to mitigate any perceived risks arising from the involvement of Huawei in parts of the UK’s critical national infrastructure’ by evaluating Huawei products used in the UK telecommunications market.

Australia has taken a different approach and reached a different conclusion. I was part of the team in the Australian Signals Directorate that tried to design a suite of cybersecurity controls that would give the government confidence that hostile intelligence services could not leverage their national vendors to gain access to our 5G networks.

We developed pages of cybersecurity mitigation measures to see if it was possible to prevent a sophisticated state actor from accessing our networks through a vendor. But we failed.

We asked ourselves, if we had the powers akin to the 2017 Chinese Intelligence Law to direct a company which supplies 5G equipment to telco networks, what could we do with that and could anyone stop us?

We concluded that we could be awesome, no one would know and, if they did, we could plausibly deny our activities, safe in the knowledge that it would be too late to reverse billions of dollars’ worth of investment. And, ironically, our targets would be paying to build a platform for our own signals intelligence and offensive cyber operations...[read on]
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/5g-choices-a-pivotal-moment-in-world-affairs/

3) A Canadian intelligence history expert (he really is, but cyber stuff?) on our following UK's lead:

Britain has let Huawei in. Will Canada follow?

Wesley Wark is an expert on national security and intelligence and currently a visiting professor at the Centre on Public Management and Policy at the University of Ottawa. He provides consultancy advice to Canadian universities on strategic policy for cybersecurity research.

The British government announced on Tuesday its long-simmering decision on Huawei and next-generation 5G telecommunications development. This is a decision that will ring around the world – in Beijing, in Washington and in Ottawa.

The British authorities have decided to identify Huawei as a High Risk Vendor (HRV) but allow it a “restricted role” in building 5G networks. The security restriction is meant to keep Huawei equipment and software out of the more sensitive core elements of the network, which involve data management, storage and routing, while allowing Huawei to contribute to periphery hardware elements (antennae and base stations) – an essential but less sensitive part of the system.

Under the new British rules, Huawei equipment will only be allowed to constitute a maximum of 35 per cent of the total network periphery. Network providers will have three years to sort this out. Huawei will also be prevented from contributing any telecommunications gear to sites deemed to be infrastructure critical to national security (government operations, military bases etc.).

The decision is both expected and surprising. The previous Conservative government of Theresa May had come to a similar decision but was stymied by media leaks, which led to the downfall of a cabinet minister and a virulent political debate. No one could guess whether Boris Johnson would follow in Ms. May’s tracks and especially whether he would feel able to resist the intense U.S. pressure campaign to have Britain ban Huawei altogether. That campaign featured visits by high-level U.S. security officials, briefings on secret dossiers and even, according to media reports, a personal call between U.S. President Donald Trump and the Prime Minister. A pressure campaign targeting a close Western ally doesn’t get any more intense than that.

The threat raised by the Americans was loss of trust in Britain as an ally and, in particular, a cut-off from the vital intelligence-sharing arrangement known as the Five Eyes, which dates back to a postwar agreement signed between the two countries in 1946.

The British decision may mollify Beijing – or that at least must be the hope in London. Post-Brexit Britain will be looking to enhance its trade with China. The Chinese government, as Canadian officials know well, has deemed Huawei a “national champion” and exemplar of China’s new technological stature in the world.

The partial ban on Huawei will not mollify hard-liners in the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, but the British government hopes that it will be understood and supported by the U.S. intelligence community and private sector. What Mr. Trump will do in response to the failure of his pressure campaign will be fascinating to watch.

In Ottawa, all eyes will be on the British decision and on Washington’s reaction. Britain’s 5G announcement has long been awaited and may be considered a shield by the Liberal government, should it consider adopting a similar policy on Huawei.

Public Safety Minister Bill Blair, who plays a key role in the 5G decision, has indicated that Canada will base its policy on national-security calculations, but will also consider economic and geopolitical factors (read: U.S. and Chinese reactions).

The British decision provides a model that sensible Canadian policy should quickly follow to ensure that Canada does not lag in 5G implementation. 5G will ultimately revolutionize lives, at least in major urban centres. All advanced countries will want to be leaders and innovators, not laggards.The model is one of identifying security risks and mitigating them, not practising blanket bans with serious economic costs more for political and ideological purposes(and pleasing fair-weather allies) than security reasons.

If the Canadian government does follow the British path, there will be lots of work to do to adapt the philosophy of risk-management to Canadian circumstances. Decisions will have to be made on how exactly to define restrictions on companies like Huawei, how to establish security standards for all 5G providers, how to test and monitor compliance with security protocols, and how to regulate and protect data flows and try to erect some walls around Canadians’ privacy in a 5G world. Big government – at least in the sense of regulation, law and monitoring – will have to find ways to deal with potential Orwellian 5G Big Brothers.

A 5G decision, taken on its own security terms, may also provide an opening for the Canadian government to apply additional pressure on the Chinese government to release the two Michaels; Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor have now been detained for more than a year. This is not linkage politics or an appeasement-style “prisoner exchange” but a simple message to say that Canada makes its own sovereign-security decisions, is not a cat’s paw of the U.S. and is not animated by anti-Chinese sentiment.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-britain-has-let-huawei-in-will-canada-follow/

Clever bit of quietly playing the racist card in the last sentence. Of cource Canada should not be "animated by anti-Chinese sentiment"--but we certainly should be animated by anti-Chicom sentiment.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Then just remember this from 2012--US concern about Huawei long-standing and nothing to do with Trump:

Former Nortel exec warns against working with Huawei
Brian Shields, former Nortel security adviser, alleges Huawei hacked company for 10 years

Canadian companies should not work with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, a former security adviser at Nortel warns.

Brian Shields, who was the senior systems security adviser at failed Canadian telecommunications company Nortel, says working with Huawei is too big a risk. Shields alleges Huawei spent years hacking into Nortel's system and stealing information so it could compete with Nortel on world markets.

"These kind of things are not done by just average hackers. I believe these are nation-state [kinds] of activity," he told the CBC's Greg Weston, blaming China for the hacking.

"It was on behalf of Huawei and ZTE and other Chinese companies that could have used this information to compete against us in the marketplace. It gave them a strategic advantage. How can you survive when you have a competitor basically right there knowing all your moves, what you're doing, what you see as the future products?" Shields said.

The U.S. intelligence committee warned in a report Monday of the risk of spying that comes with working with Huawei and another Chinese telecommunications firm, ZTE. The committee said U.S. regulators should block attempted mergers and acquisitions by the firms, and that the government should avoid using components from those firms in their systems.

The head of the U.S. intelligence committee, Mike Rogers, told CBC News that Canada should also be wary [emphasis added].

The world’s second-largest telecommunications equipment supplier, Huawei is already providing high-speed networks for Bell Canada, Telus, SaskTel and Wind Mobile.
'It can't be trusted'

Shields says Canadians should be reluctant to let the company build systems and provide parts to companies here.

There's too great a potential for monitoring or breaking into companies with otherwise good security — or even the government, he says, "because the telecom's backbone that's being used to provide this communication, the hardware or software that's running, it can't be trusted."..
In a separate interview airing Thursday on CBC Radio's As It Happens, Shields alleges Huawei spent 10 years hacking into Nortel's system. He's now advising Canadian companies not to work with the Chinese company.

"Absolutely they should not. If they care about the core infrastructure of the Canadian communications, this is a huge risk," Shields said.

"Remember, they've got this Communist Party over there right in their corporate offices. What are these people doing? Why is it such a close relationship with the Chinese government?"

Shields says there was a major change in the economic environment, which he believes was due to the hacking, which allowed Nortel's competitor to use information it otherwise wouldn't have had access to.

"When 2000 came along, then it was a downward slide. And that coincidentally is the year when Huawei started selling on the international market. How coincidental," Shields said.

Shields has previously blamed Chinese hackers for Nortel's demise [https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nortel-collapse-linked-to-chinese-hackers-1.1260591].
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-against-working-with-huawei-1.1137006

Plus this post from 2014 about Huawei in Ontario:

Huawei’s Bigger Way in Canada
...

...
https://mark3ds.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/mark-collins-huaweis-bigger-way-in-canada/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Further to this,

...
Despite Canadians’ negative feelings about China, Beijing’s jailing of the two Michaels on spurious allegations, and the stiff trade sanctions that China has slapped on Canadian agricultural imports, Ottawa remains hell-bent on its China First Policy. Prominent Canadians who have had close business ties to China, such as former prime minister Jean Chretien and Ottawa’s new ambassador, Dominic Barton, continue to rally Canadian business leaders to cash in on the bonanza over there [emphasis added]...
https://milnet.ca/forums/threads/2941/post-1591481.html#msg1591481

now near the start of a post:

Dominic Barton, or, is Canada's Goose Being Cooked by the Dragon?
...
Our recently-appointed ambassador to China, Dominic Barton (a serious exemplar of Canadians of the comprador persuasion), testified February 5 before a special House of Commons committee on Canada-China relations that the opposition parties forced PM Justin Trudeu’s unwilling minority government to establish. Samples from three news stories...
https://mark3ds.wordpress.com/2020/02/06/dominic-barton-or-is-canadas-goose-being-cooked-by-the-dragon/

Update: And note the US', er, laser focus here (and serious concern long predates Trump) to which Justin Trudeau's gov't should truly pay great heed:

FBI Director Slams Chispies; Attorney General Slams Huawei
https://mark3ds.wordpress.com/2020/02/06/fbi-director-slams-chispys-attorney-general-slams-huawei/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

The start of a post that I hope summarizes the current Canada/Huawei/5G situation, based on excellent Globe and Mail reporting:

Huawei's 5G vs Canadian National Security, or, Do Our Cringing Capitalist Compradors Win?

Further to this post,

FBI Director Slams Chi-Spies; Attorney General Slams Huawei

here’s a nicely leaked story in the Globe and Mail. The newspaper has been admirably on the Chicom case for quite some time (see from 2015: “Spookery in Canada: China, CSIS and…the Ontario Government“); overall this coverage firmly illustrates the need for well-staffed, well-paid and smart media (whatever the platform) if a democracy is in any sense to make informed and intelligent decisions:

Canada’s military wants Ottawa to ban Huawei from 5G

...
https://mark3ds.wordpress.com/2020/02/10/huaweis-5g-vs-canadian-national-security-or-do-our-cringeing-capitalist-compradors-win/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[a_majoor]

Possible shape of the economic reset after the Coronavirus fades or burns out:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4323286-china-brutal-post-coronavirus-economic-reset

China: A Brutal Post-Coronavirus Economic Reset
Feb. 11, 2020 6:11 PM ET|3 comments  | Includes: CHN, CN, CXSE, FCA, FLCH, FXP, GXC, KGRN, PGJ, TDF, WCHN, XPP, YANG, YINN, YXI
Albert Goldson

Summary
China’s post-coronavirus economic landscape will look far different from today with profound political, economic, and social changes.

Chinese and foreign businesses will reduce operations while developing the type of emergency protocols and disaster recovery plans reserved for politically volatile countries in the extraction industries for future similar.

China’s government lack of credibility and inability to act rapidly to national emergencies may have planted the seeds of Hong Kong activism amongst the Mainlanders.

The coronavirus crisis continues to be highly fluid, and for this reason, the ability to accurately quantify its current and near-time economic impacts on the Chinese and world economies is impossible. To put it bluntly, the figures thrown around are nothing more than "back of the napkin" assumptions. Regardless, the current and near-future best guess financial figures for every industry are dire as everyone is in crisis management mode. Notwithstanding, let's take a beyond the horizon look at a post-coronavirus China.

The good news is that once crisis eventually comes to an end, the ensuing economic, financial and social damage will lead to steps to recovery.

The widespread mandatory lockdowns encompassing almost 60 million Chinese inhabitants mostly in the province of Hubei where the virus emerged in the city of Wuhan perversely serve as an economic cleansing - a pause and then reset - that will provide the fast-forward of what China actually looks like based on economic fundamentals.

After the coronavirus is contained, Chinese and foreign businesses will undertake a deep assessment of how to move forward. For sure China-specific contingency plans will be developed for future crises such as the coronavirus. Everyone was shockingly unprepared because a Black Swan calamity in the # 2 economy in the world was remote. An explanation might be that not only was the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak considered "ancient history", it never resulted in mass quarantine or adversely impacted an exploding Chinese economy.

Demand Destruction Dilemma
The challenge now is post-coronavirus China with respect to economic growth and its impact domestically and internationally. I believe that the coronavirus serves as a catalyst to its other troubling crisis that I articulated in my 31 January 2020 SA article China's Crisis Management Stress Test that fast forwards China to its actual economic growth figures as dictated by fundamentals and exposes and confirms embarrassing flaws in the system.

With every business adversely impacted by the coronavirus outbreak, it's unlikely that any of them will want to return to pre-outbreak levels because of unprecedented demand destruction across all industries. Recovery and ramp-up will be painfully slow, and businesses will be justifiably quite cautious because it will be impossible to assess the cross-section of inter-connectivity and their unique industry-specific operational and financial abilities and needs. The challenge is that businesses usually face a supply issue, rarely a demand collapse which makes it difficult to project growth. No business is bad business.

Globally, the IMF has unofficially reported world economic growth at about 3% in 2019. As the coronavirus progresses, China, as the world's #2 economy under lockdown, will certainly put downward pressure on global growth towards 2.5%, which the IMF considers as recessionary. Domestically, China's 2020 growth GDP could fall to 4% or even lower contingent on the virus's strength and duration.

On the micro-level, businesses and private citizens realize the harsh realization that government protection with accurate and timely information is not forthcoming with respect to personal survival, not economic well-being. Chinese governmental leadership will not change its approach to handling this or any other future crisis and will continue to operate within the same rigid political protocol framework.

Chinese businesses may be more pragmatic and put in place internal protocols to handle future problems up to the point that it doesn't make the government lose face with respect to their inability to handle such dilemmas. The threshold will probably be not to distribute any future protocols rather they will be held privately by a tight trusted circle of executives.

Foreign businesses operating in China will reduce operations, develop emergency protocols and disaster recovery plans usually reserved for politically volatile countries. Employee evacuation plans are par for the course typical for companies operating in the extraction industries and will henceforth become standard procedure in China, the # 2 economy in the world.

During a protracted lockdown with respect to the coronavirus, China's heavily indebted enterprises (governmental and private) may not be able to retain their workers and be forced to lay them off. This could create and exacerbate social instability; a quickly manifesting threat because it's an issue of life or death, survival not political freedom like in Hong Kong. Few in the current generation know about economic hardship are accustomed to a high standard of living.

On the street, this crisis has indelibly changed the Chinese citizens' opinion on the government's ability to protect them. The future mindset will be one of self-preservation de facto future urban preppers: food, medicine and survival necessities. It's the Chinese government's worst nightmare: losing credibility in the medium to long term for immediate control - and ironically pushing the citizenry towards potential Hong Kong activism but on a higher level - literally life or death survival vs political freedom. It's a potential powder keg if the crisis worsens.

From a political perspective, regardless of whether democracy or autocracy, the "high table" leadership is rarely agile and doesn't engage in behavior modification even if it means their long-term survival. They deal problems exclusively with a blunt instrument. In China, dissent is politically dangerous because there are too many powerful interests endemic throughout the economy.

Long article, but well worth the read

 

[The Bread Guy]

10 Feb 2020, USA DOJ:

A federal grand jury in Atlanta returned an indictment last week charging four members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with hacking into the computer systems of the credit reporting agency Equifax and stealing Americans’ personal data and Equifax’s valuable trade secrets.

The nine-count indictment alleges that Wu Zhiyong (吴志勇), Wang Qian (王乾), Xu Ke
(许可) and Liu Lei (刘磊) were members of the PLA’s 54th Research Institute, a component of the Chinese military.  They allegedly conspired with each other to hack into Equifax’s computer networks, maintain unauthorized access to those computers, and steal sensitive, personally identifiable information of approximately 145 million American victims.

“This was a deliberate and sweeping intrusion into the private information of the American people,” said Attorney General William P. Barr, who made the announcement. “Today, we hold PLA hackers accountable for their criminal actions, and we remind the Chinese government that we have the capability to remove the Internet’s cloak of anonymity and find the hackers that nation repeatedly deploys against us. Unfortunately, the Equifax hack fits a disturbing and unacceptable pattern of state-sponsored computer intrusions and thefts by China and its citizens that have targeted personally identifiable information, trade secrets, and other confidential information.”

According to the indictment, the defendants exploited a vulnerability in the Apache Struts Web Framework software used by Equifax’s online dispute portal.  They used this access to conduct reconnaissance of Equifax’s online dispute portal and to obtain login credentials that could be used to further navigate Equifax’s network.  The defendants spent several weeks running queries to identify Equifax’s database structure and searching for sensitive, personally identifiable information within Equifax’s system.  Once they accessed files of interest, the conspirators then stored the stolen information in temporary output files, compressed and divided the files, and ultimately were able to download and exfiltrate the data from Equifax’s network to computers outside the United States. In total, the attackers ran approximately 9,000 queries on Equifax’s system, obtaining names, birth dates and social security numbers for nearly half of all American citizens ...

13 Feb 2020, Chinese military media (links to archive.org capture of article):

“The Chinese military has never engaged in any form of cyber theft. The US accusation is groundless and totally hegemonic,” said Senior Colonel Wuqian, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense, in a written statement published on Thursday.

The US Department of Justice recently announced charges against four Chinese military members for hacking a US credit reporting agency in 2017. In response, Senior Colonel Wu Qian said on Feb. 13 that the US accusation is groundless, totally hegemonic and judicial bullying. China firmly opposes this and strongly condemns it.

Wu Qian pointed out that China is a staunch defender of international cyber security. The Chinese government has always firmly opposed and cracked down on illegal cybercrimes in accordance with the law. The Chinese military has never engaged and participated in any form of cyber theft.

He said that it is an open secret with irrefutable proof that the US has long been violating international law and basic norms governing international relations by conducting large-scale, organized and indiscriminate cyber espionage, monitoring and surveillance activities against foreign governments, enterprises and individuals. From the case of WikiLeaks to Edward Snowden, the US still owes an explanation to the international community ...

 

[MarkOttawa]

Getting real hard to see an early resolution the Meng Wanzhou/Huawei/Kovrig/Spavor matters:

U.S. charges Huawei, CFO Meng Wanzhou with conspiracy to steal trade secrets and racketeering

The U.S. government on Thursday [Feb. 13] filed a superseding indictment against the Chinese smartphone maker Huawei Technologies Co and its Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou.

The indictment was filed in the federal court in Brooklyn, New York.

The superseding indictment charges Huawei with conspiring to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and conspiring to steal trade secrets from six U.S. technology companies in order to grow the company.

It also contains new allegations about the company’s involvement in countries subject to sanctions, such as Iran and North Korea.

The trade secret theft relates to internet router source code, cellular antenna technology and robotics.

Neither Huawei nor a lawyer for Meng immediately responded to requests for comment.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/us-business/article-us-files-superseding-indictment-against-huawei-technologies-cfo/

Mark
Ottawa