The issue is that we have to make a decision under uncertainty. And fast.
Context matters as well. Look how China treats its citizens, and those abroad who critique the CCP. Look how it has no ethical issue to control and spy upon every Chinese person within its borders. It has no state philosophy that would forbid it. Why would you think they would not spy abroad?
And again, CCP members controlling Huawei is a fact.
Look how the doctrine of ip theft has been pushed even in past plans like china 2020, and how often unlicensed and nearly identical products and tech showed up after being stolen by someone. And Chinese politicians masterfully promising betterment and market access to EU politicians and giving nothing in the end.
There will never be a smoking gun. But to say its based on lies without evidence is, i think, misleading.
For years all this has been happening. And the damage to non Chinese tech and industry has been huge.
That is why it needs to be up to every country to choose whether to make deals with Huawei and the CCP or not. Judge the evidence, and circumstances.
If you wait too long, the consequences are clear. The US has decided it has seen enough, and Huawei is not a sincere market participant.
THEN, you have to take strong measures. If there is ip theft. If there even is spying, THEN you can not fight it by half measures.
It doesnt work. Huawei denies and goes their merry way until it is untouchable.
> The issue is that we have to make a decision under uncertainty. And fast.
I'm sorry, this sounds like "WMDs in Iraq" all over again.
> For years all this has been happening. And the damage to non Chinese tech and industry has been huge.
Not really, it was a conscious decision by most Western companies to go and produce in China. Fully aware that they will (voluntarily and via ip theft) transfer knowledge, they still chose to do it because the profit margins were so enormous. The Chinese actually hacking and siphoning off IP is relatively new, something that previously was the NSA's monopoly.
> If there even is spying, THEN you can not fight it by half measures.
Are you suggesting the EU should go into a full out trade war with the US to convince them to stop the spying?
Hmm, recently on BBC a representative for UK's GCHQ said there was no evidence of that.
>"The report comes a day after U.S. President Donald Trump banned Huawei from buying vital U.S. technology without special approval and effectively barring its equipment from U.S. telecoms networks on national security grounds." (from article GP linked) //
There you have it, I think: Netherlands bought some deal from USA and supported their Huawei story with a "key finding" the following day. Smacks of propaganda.
> So a well known Dutch newspaper being bought or strongarmed by the Cia/Trump/Whoever.
"Allegations" aren't "strongarming". It's just telling somebody "off the record" that you heard something. Bloomberg recently claimed that Huawei had installed secret backdoors in equipment sold to Vodafone for use in Italy. Vodafone all but laughed in their face, saying it was a standard, obvious and not at all hidden telnet maintenance terminal that hadn't been deactivated.
It's possible I'm too cynical but I think here you're being too naive. De Volkskrant are cited as relying on "unidentified intelligence sources" which to me means their intelligence service contacted them and said "run this" (or some logical equivalent of that).
Occams razor is not truth producing, it's not capable of finding the truth. That said, either UK's or Netherlands intelligence are lying here as De Volkskrant refer to their being "evidence" and GCHQ (see my post history) said there wasn't (but were lots of holes that appear to be just bad coding).
The GCHQ spokesperson was a person interviewed on TV in a BBC interview, a noted rare occurrence.
The De Volkskrant source is anonymous with no evidence provided.
I guess you take your pick. Does GCHQ have cause to lie to promote Chinese intelligence activities that are proven to be actively operating in the EU? Or does USA have enough hold on Netherlands to get an "anonymous source says there's evidence but we won't show you what it is" pushed out by their intelligence service?
So, the day after Trump starts a propaganda war against Huawei just happened to be when Netherlands decided to make an anonymous no evidence comment?!?
That's not evidence of spying for the party, it's evidence of others spying for them...
I'm not sure whether someone in the Chinese intelligence services could easily get Huawei to assist with espionage if doing so might hurt the profits of someone higher up in the hierarchy.
Please don't fall for the transparent disinformation spread by some media, and unfortunately by some commenters on HN.