As someone who doesn't live in the US I'm not sure that that's not any different than the recent Crypto AG news, or the similar back doors that have been discovered in Cisco hardware over the years, including the ones provided for US 'law enforcement'.
The only real answer though is not to worry about this stuff, use the cheapest switching hardware you can find (sure use Huawei if they're the cheapest) and own your own privacy, don't trust anyone and do your own end-to-end encryption.
Both the American and Chinese governments have bad track records when it comes to abusing civil liberties, privacy intrusion. I would say that the Chinese government is worse, but that doesn't really matter from my perspective for this particular thing.
As an American, I expect that the US government, if it wants it enough, can obtain access to my communications (at least while using US infrastructure), assuming they're not e2e encrypted. Hopefully such access would be gated by a warrant, and I expect in most cases that's how it works, though I do expect there are abuses here and there.
The Chinese government, however, should not have any kind of access to any of my communications (unless I am visiting China, using their infrastructure; or perhaps am communicating with someone in China from abroad). In addition, if the relationship between the US and China ever sours to the point of war, presumably the Chinese would have no problem using any possible backdoors to disrupt US telecom networks.
Given this, I would much rather the US use US-built telecom infrastructure than Chinese-built infra. I think an argument over which government is more moral or trustworthy is just not useful here.
If I was living in America, I'd much rather have the Chinese government spying on me than the American government, and vice versa if I were in China. Obviously that's me as a selfish individual - it does indeed make more sense for America as a whole to not want other nation states snooping on them.
Real choices (if you live in America) are (1) American government only or (2) American and Chinese governments both. As a resident of Canada, my choices are (1) Canadian and American, or (2) Canadian and Chinese.
The scary thing about this attitude is that if it's widely adopted and results in Huawei being welcomed (or something that facilities spying), it puts the people who do push back against the Chinese government in the crosshairs.
Well, the reason I bring it (the moral judgment) up is that in the comment I replied to we see the usual "whataboutism" being invoked, and that leads naturally to the domain of moral judgments by implicitly strawmanning the opposing position that the Chinese government is bad and the American government is good so we should accept the latter doing shitty things but not the former.
I mean, why else would you bring it up at all? No shit, governments are going to spy on people ... it's still useful and interesting to know which governments are doing the spying, and how, and who's accusing who of what (which is obviously not the same thing). It's newsworthy even without moral judgment. But the whataboutism drags morals into the picture.
I agree with your comment in the sense that it is a reasonably accurate description of reality and some notions of "should" in the (very fuzzy) [international] legal sense.
On the other hand, assuming that future people will have to live under both regimes, and given that "cyber-intrusions" are moves in a greater conflict that is likely to escalate and has profound implications for the future shape of human society and thought, I think it's quite useful to bring morals into the picture if one of our goals is to maximize good outcomes and minimize bad outcomes for other humans.
Not going to pretend the US is perfect. But in a world where the future is basically a choice between one of two super powers to throw your lot in with, imma go with the US.
The US is the one with a track record of hostile aggression outside its own borders. So far, China seems to focus more on domestic issues than on international assassinations. As a person not living in China, Chinese spying seems less dangerous to me than US spying, at least for now.
I think that my point above is that spying is bad, we're forced to choose between two evils and rather than choosing sides we should armor ourselves against evil
Which isn't that easy, since the world isn't black and white. And do I even care about morals, or mostly just about my personal data?
As an American it's probably easy to make a choice here, but as a 3rd party I'm not so sure. The US has definitely wreaked more havoc across the globe during the past century, from overthrowing democratic governments to bombing the shit out of countries. The Chinese are reckless whenever they see someone threatening their authority, but egoistically speaking, that 99% applies to Chinese nationals or people living in China. Not my problem.
If my country would go with US equipment, I already know they will get all my data because of things like the patriot act and all the niceties Snowden revealed the NSA et al have.
The Chinese probably have the same, but we don't know anything definitive, which makes it more scary, also they are evil commies. But then again, having access to telco infra only means they get meta data, since traffic is all encrypted nowadays, while the US still gets all my content thanks to Facebook/WhatsApp, Google/Gmail, Amazon, ..., no matter what the 5G equipment is. So is it safer to then say you better buy the 5G stuff from the US so only one party can steal all your data?
I don't think I implied it's easy. I commented because whataboutism drags us into moral territory, and having been so dragged we should attempt to form robust moral judgments rather than making do with hey, man, like, it's all relative, you know?
Didn't mean you said it is. Just wanted to go further with that thought from my perspective, because I assume the majority of users on here are from the US and thus might not immediately see why this whole situation isn't as easy to decide on for everybody. Thus I just tried to lay out several aspects you might consider as an "outsider", and hopefully I didn't make it look like there is a final conclusion to that.
It's wrong I think to imply the equivalence of the use of backdoors by the US and China because they would be used for totally different purposes, with only some minor overlap.
The other issue regarding 5G is China's leveraging of the IP system to protect its own agency abroad, while not allowing any meaningful competition within its own borders.
Additionally, they're using a massive financing scheme to almost bribe carriers into buying equipment on extremely good terms with super low-interest rate loans.
I think it's much better to 'worry about it'.
There either has to be some very rigorous inspection scheme or, equipment can only be made by certified players (like Eriksson) because there's too much risk otherwise.
The West should consider completely ignoring China's IP on 5G, and frankly, using their IP. When China complains about being 'ripped off' we simply use the same deferential language they use on us.
Certainly, government-backed financing should be banned within any kind of trade deal. The equivalent would be the US government using the Treasure and literally the Federal Reserve to fudge currency to, among other things, provide super-cheap financing to customers around the world. Or maybe the US should just do that? Invest $10B in a new equipment maker, and then print $100B at the Fed to provide cheap financing to said companies customers?
It seems like maybe I'm beeing 'tongue-in-cheek' by making such preposterous and radical solutions?
The thing is I'm not ... in fact, what I'm describing parallels exactly what China does as part of their national strategy.
Our policy towards China usually reflects the kind of actions modern states might take among one another, but they are playing a completely different game, and it's as if we're collectively naive to it all.
These are big, serious games that involve massive intelligence issues, massive industries, massive industrial and IP control.
All of that said, maybe there is a nifty way to obviate the problem by using some kind of networking technique to render such back doors moot - that would be cool!
But what you describe (encouraging people to buy your stuff by making it cheaper to them) is, um, "capitalism", I'm pretty sure that "capitalism" is also still available in most western countries (except of course ones that are banning competition by banning some vendors, or by setting up trade barriers and tariffs)
'Dumping' isn't 'making stuff cheaper', it's illegal in most countries. [1]
Second, it's not 'capitalism' when the government intervenes with massive subsidies, or worse, leverages the financial system and central bank to support an initiative.
You basically can't have any reasonable kind of trade with countries that engage in these practices. This issue is fundamentally why trade deals take so long: nations go to lengths to make sure the other side doesn't 'cheat'. One area of constant contention is agricultural subsidies. Because food production is seen as a 'strategic issue', countries feel the need to subsidize, but those subsidies aren't the same in each nation, causing serious competitive issues.
China plays the game to their advantage, fair enough - but the West should not simply allow China to have arbitrary leverage. It'd be better in the long run if everyone played fair, but so long as they want to play with shenanigans, those shenanigans should be returned in kind
It isn't different without taking a moral stance on both China and the US' intelligence habits over the years.
The simplest answer to all of this, seems to be - when it comes to technology, international trust is at an all time low, and we need systems that are trustless.
However, these standards are intentionally kept weak, so that any determined actor can break a door down if they don't have their own. (ala stingray).
For "national security" reasons, and if that doesn't work, to catch pedophiles. Because both of those force politicians to not stand against whatever is being proposed.
You do agree there’s a difference between Enlightenment principles and authoritarian governments? Not that the US is perfect but they at least acknowledges the concept of natural rights. Relativism is a rather dangerous worldview.
Ask folks in Chile, Greece, the Philipines, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, or Nicaragua - to start with a short list - how American "Enlightenment principles" played out with US support for various dictatorships in those countries.
The only real answer though is not to worry about this stuff, use the cheapest switching hardware you can find (sure use Huawei if they're the cheapest) and own your own privacy, don't trust anyone and do your own end-to-end encryption.