USA V China

[Leothebear]

This is in response to Snorvey's latest post of the 'Pic of the day' thread.

I think it's inevitable that China will supercede the US. All they have to do is bide their time.
The US is a decaying superpower. China has played a big part in this by becoming the economic powerhouse of the world.
With their enormous pool of cheap labour with few or no human rights they have undercut everyone in manufacturing industry.

The US spends something like $650 billion annually on defence. How will it maintain this level when they'll eventually realize they simply cannot afford it anymore?

Yes I think China is set to be the world's no 1 superpower. Fortunately I won't be around to experience it.

[UncleEbenezer]

This would be truly alarming if any western government tried to implement it.

That's OK. The West outsources such things. Some of our companies (like Experian) are established market leaders.

That inevitably leads you on to reading about China's 'Belt and Road initiative.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-trap_diplomacy


The term was first used by Indian academic Brahma Chellaney to describe a number of loans given by People's Republic of China to countries in South and South East Asia.[1]

Again, they're following where the West has led. Back in Victorian times we built infrastructure around the world, and in one way or another we've continued ever since. But in the 20th century we led the world on financialisation, and turned it into debt on governments that could never afford it. Gordon Brown famously wrote off some of that debt - but only really for selected countries that had no economy of their own and no prospect of paying anyway.

But our involvement in infrastructure around the world is now almost entirely that of city financiers and banks, and they want revenue-producing assets (PFI in this country, similar idea around the world). China has learned from us, and stepped into a gap.

So are our children's children destined to become mindless state controlled worker drones for the People's Republic of China?

Societies change. Don't expect either us or China to look much the same in a couple of generations. The big issue for future generations will be who survives when our planet's non-renewable resources are exhausted. Not least the petrochemical resources that support the agriculture to sustain post-1945 population expansion. What Malthus missed wasn't the famine due to overpopulation (which he saw for himself), but the ability to export population and import resources to fill that gap. Which is of course finite.

[gryffron]

Debt-trap diplomacy is a type of diplomacy based on debt carried out in the bilateral relations between countries. It involves one creditor country intentionally extending excessive credit to another debtor country with the alleged intention of extracting economic or political concessions from the debtor country when it becomes unable to honour its debt obligations.

Isn't that what the West have been doing since we gave/sold our Colonies their independence?

In another thread, I pointed out that political revolutions are rarely lead by the working classes. History shows they are driven by either the military, or an emerging middle class who have economic power, but no political voice. Worst offender on that score today? - China.

Gryff

[mike]

Interesting animation here showing GDP changes from 1960 to 2017.

The USA line at the top is always full width, even 2008/10, so it is a comparison. China's rise really is spectacular from 2005 onwards.

https://twitter.com/Ian_Fraser/status/1073357036283420672

Full screen it before starting.

[UncleEbenezer]

Huawei's crime is to be (significantly) ahead of its western competitors. Particularly Cisco: any significant technology being ahead of the US has to be a short-term blip. Make it happen - by dirty means if necessary. That applies even when the foreign competitor is a supposedly-close friend and ally - c.f. how they used pirates to kill off the Canadian RIM (Blackberry).

Huawei kit has been extensively analysed by Western experts, including an Oxford-based team in Blighty, who have failed despite best efforts to find anything incriminating. The allegations are of course a different story: no evidence nor even reasonable suspicion necessary.

A mildly interesting conspiracy theory here is to what extent Western governments are covertly forcing communications providers to insert backdoors for surveillance. Oz has openly legislated for it, but evidence (e.g. Snowden) points to much wider covert efforts.

[madhatter]

A mildly interesting conspiracy theory here is to what extent Western governments are covertly forcing communications providers to insert backdoors for surveillance. Oz has openly legislated for it, but evidence (e.g. Snowden) points to much wider covert efforts.

Bearing in mind that some western governments have leaned on tech companies to provide back doors, does it really seem likely that the Chinese government would not want to do the same thing, only with much more leverage available, stiffer penalties for whistle blowers, and a law requiring cooperation from Chinese companies?

[PinkDalek]

Quoting from Sky

... has said his firm does not spy for China ...

That begs the question, who do they spy for?

[UncleEbenezer]

Ren Zhengfei, the former People's Liberation Army engineer who founded Huawei, has said his firm does not spy for China, and that he would not help China spy on someone even if required by Chinese law.

Personally, I'm inclined to believe him.

But it may also be a promise he is unable to keep, even if he wants to. The state comes before everything.

Whatever might transpire, it's too late for any real remedy.

Huawei's 5G offering is streets ahead of anyone else's. Either countries install it, or set back their 5G development by years.

All of this was entirely predictable - and preventable.

<sigh>

I think I better brush up on the ol' Mandarin before too long.


https://news.sky.com/story/sky-views-hu ... l-11695739

Good summary of the background to the whole thing.

Just one very significant thing has changed. Modern encryption hands back to end-users the ability to avoid being spied on. We are increasingly using it to protect not merely sensitive information, but even things that really don't matter (lemonfool uses https ferchrissake)! While there may be ways to subvert that, they absolutely don't lie with the providers of the hardware and software that make up our network infrastructure.

Worry about the providers of your physical computer or phone, and its software, like Microsoft and Apple, Google and Facebook (particularly given the history of US government ordering them to cooperate, Aussie government legislation, and threats coming from various governments including the more totalitarian elements of our own). Worry about the providers of Digital Certificates, which are a genuine weakness in the Web today. But not about the providers of network hardware, unless perhaps you're sending your kiddie-porn in unencrypted email.

And above all, worry about governments obfuscating the issues. If the Huawei fuss is anything at all other than naked protectionism, it's a distraction from something our own governments don't want our media talking about. Most likely their own spying on us.

[UncleEbenezer]

We have a research institute in Oxfordshire that's been examining Huawei kit in much more detail than that for years, with full cooperation. The Germans have done huge amounts of such work, too. Which is why Huawei kit is so much more thoroughly scrutinised than any of its rivals.

But the experts are being treated in much the same way Bush&Blair treated Hans Blix and his team.

[scotia]

Why don't we do what they do. Buy the Huawei 5g stuff and install it somewhere benign- like the Outer Hebrides or similar and then reverse enginèer the gear for our own benefit.

A Reverse Chinese Copy! Getting our own back (and behaving like a 3rd world country).

[vrdiver]

Now Vodafone Group Plc has acknowledged to Bloomberg that it found vulnerabilities going back years with equipment supplied by Shenzhen-based Huawei

Gosh, vulnerabilities in software! Good job the USA's Microsoft isn't vulnerable to that sort of thing.

Oh, hang on....

VRD

[vrdiver]

In this case, I smell a rat.

In the spying world, when you crack the enemy's network, you infiltrate it and use it against them, you don't announce to the world what you've found. That behaviour just tells the enemy what your capabilities are and makes them work harder to build a better spying infrastructure.

In the commercial world, if you can throw accusations at your opponent, with little downside and a huge upside, that's what you do. Huawei have probably lost all sorts of sales in America and other pro-western regions.

Who stands to gain from this?

VRD

[UncleEbenezer]

Who stands to gain from this?

VRD

J P Morgan has an answer to that.

[Slarti]

For months, Huawei Technologies Co. has faced U.S. allegations that it flouted sanctions on Iran, attempted to steal trade secrets from a business partner and has threatened to enable Chinese spying through the telecom networks it’s built across the West.

Now Vodafone Group Plc has acknowledged to Bloomberg that it found vulnerabilities going back years with equipment supplied by Shenzhen-based Huawei for the carrier’s Italian business. While Vodafone says the issues were resolved, the revelation may further damage the reputation of a major symbol of China’s global technology prowess.



(Free subscription needed for full article)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ium-europe

10 years ago and patched then, according to what I've been reading.
And it was Telnet related, which is not open to the WWW


Bloomberg up to its old clickbait tricks again where tech articles are concerned?

Slarti

[GoSeigen]

Trish Regan of Fox News calls out Liu Xin of Chinese State broadcaster CGTN over the escalating trade war.

The debate is ON. Personally, I'd rather see it settled with bikinis and a large rubber paddling pool filled with baked beans....

https://mobile.twitter.com/thepointwith ... ade-war%2F

What a disgusting piece of video. Only managed about 30 seconds... did she say anything grown up after that?


GS

[BobbyD]

Trish Regan of Fox News calls out Liu Xin of Chinese State broadcaster CGTN over the escalating trade war.

The debate is ON. Personally, I'd rather see it settled with bikinis and a large rubber paddling pool filled with baked beans....

https://mobile.twitter.com/thepointwith ... ade-war%2F

What a disgusting piece of video. Only managed about 30 seconds... did she say anything grown up after that?


GS

Probably the next US ambassador to the UN...

[UncleEbenezer]

Probably the next US ambassador to the UN...

Damn. Les Patterson was ahead of his time ...

[Grumpi]

This Wha-Whey (Huawei) ........?

Judging by all the rumours that abound, I've always assumed Huawei was pronounced "Who are we?"

[sg31]

I suspect Trump will be happy to declare victory in the trade war with China even if he has gained very little. He will be more interested in his own political survival at the next election than the long term future of the country he leads.

[stewamax]

<hypothetical>
In a very few years’ time, a shady individual with an ill-gotten fortune to ‘invest’ ploughs it into a quantum computer dedicated to factorising large numbers into constituent primes.
He/she then offers such factorisation as a chargeable service over the internet: “Large numbers factored here. Wanna anything factored-while-you-wait, Guv?”
</ hypothetical>

And bang go the most common encryption and authentication schemes used in the Internet.

If this seems far-fetched, think of the bit-coin ‘miners’ who have set up large factories with rack upon rack of special-purpose dedicated computers eating up huge amounts of power and consequently spewing out large amounts heat – hence best in a country with cheap hydroelectricity and preferably a cold climate. Russia and parts of China are ideal (surprise) as well as Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Paraguay.