ZTE calls foul over senators' 'xenophobic' letter ZTE, the Chinese telecoms equipment maker, has cried foul over a letter sent to the FCC by four US senators which suggests that Chinese companies should not be trusted with US contracts. The letter, which comes from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, names Huawei and ZTE as Chinese companies from …
...Just when you think there might be a Reg discussion about something that happens in the US without a paroxysm of knee-jerk jingoism...
Oh well. I guess I'll go back to shooting my bible and reading my guns - or is it the other way around? The ten-gallon hat must be overheating my stunted American brain.
The Chinese government owns American government through all the bonds, etc. it bought with the torrent of U.S. dollars it acquired by becoming America's production line.
Following the politico's theory we should therefore regard the American government with suspicion!
No, no, no. As a citiizen of (I presume) a Western democracy, you don't get to compare the US to China you little worm, at least not without taking a boot to your spuds.
Yes, the US do these things, and yes they do so to promote and further their nation's goals and ideals; but knowing what I know about the PRC's goals and ideals, I'd rather have the Septics in charge thank you very much.
American goals and ideals? Mind edifying us as to what those are? As far as they have been exported abroad, they appear to have precious little to do with democracy.
Ends justify the means? If you've checked lately on how well the US has actually furthered any of its _professed_ ideals in it's favourite foreign policy stomping grounds (whether above board or clandestine) you may find yourself more than a little disappointed...
Perhaps "as ye sow, so shall ye reap" is more apt given how the US is currently marooned in a quagmire of its own making over decades of interference in the middle east.
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trust the Chinese government any further than I could throw all 1.2 billion Chinese people at once, but their goal these days is much more transparently "we want what you've got, by whatever means is most convenient", than anything ideological, which seems fair enough if you try to look at it from their perspective.
The fact that they have taken some of the US' finest exports (ruthless political oppression, cynical exploitation, market protectionism, currency manipulation and unashamed environmental destruction) and effectively nationalised them as a tool for long-term economic dominance is an irony that would be doubly galling to you and most of your compatriots, if they could only comprehend it as they slide into un-genteel poverty, tea-party stupidity and increasing irrelevance.
Business the world over cry for a free market when they are kept out and for control when they are in. I think it seems worse coming from the US because for much of the world the US is the nearest thing to an imperialist overlord and:
a) A lot of powerful players are only now facing foreign competition on a level playing field and they don't like it.
b) In the US it's called 'hardball' and applauded, in the rest of the world it's called sharp practice and isn't.
c) There are some scary xenophobes there in positions of power.
They call us insular but they still practise the most vile deterrent to internatio0nal co-operation. Twas ever thus. It is the same with the internet, they have found methods to completely subvert the intention of the founders, British of course, and make it into am American funded and milked entity for base profit to individuals. As I read it the original intention was that it should be free of commercial enterprises and profits and for the benefit of all, not the free loaders of American commerce with their various aberrations of freedom. What else would you expect from them anyway.
Well, clearly both the USA and the Chinese have learned from the back-doors which Microsoft once shipped (and for all we know still ship? ) with Windoze.
The right non-protectionist answer would be to insist on open source, complete with everything necessary to compile it from the source, as shipped or with patches. (And of course, manufacturer patches to be supplied as source). As long as someone actually vets the source and rebuilds the binaries, there's far less likelyhood of anything nasty lurking therein.
Which just leaves the problem that these days it's quite feasible to implement secret backdoors in the hardware itself.
"... indicating that both companies have received loans from the Chinese government - the implication clearly being that anyone who accepts a loan will be in thrall of their creditor."
I have been saying this all along, about these very same politicians (and all the rest) whose campaigns are funded by corporations and special interests. Of course with the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which permitted unlimited campaign contributions by corporations and unions, all transparency about who funded what is now gone.
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