So many articles have come out of China that view China as the victim, and the US has been picking on China and Huawei. In China this victimization is played up in the news and, with the absence of varying views, believed by most Chinese people.
On the surface they seem to have a persuasive argument: China is up and coming, the US is a “has been” country that refuses to step down, and therefore is trying to contain China’s rise. The US is racist. There is a clash of civilizations. The US is a bully. The US under Trump is against international trading and international order.
It is rare for me to comment about national security, and much less about the national security of a foreign country, in this case, the US. The US has not only banned Huawei from selling equipment in the US, but has also put Huawei and related companies on a list of national security bans, where US companies cannot sell of their technology to these banned companies. Foreign companies using US technology must also comply. I’ll try to talk about Huawei’s means, motive, opportunity.
Huawei, one of China’s large computer companies, has been accused of selling US computers to Iran. The US asked and planned with Canada to arrest Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, when she was on route from Hong Kong to Mexico. The arrest occurred on 2018 Dec 01. Shortly after this China arrested two Canadians in China fo “endangering national security”. They have not been heard from since. It is widely understood to be retribution against Canada by China for assisting the US for the arrest.
Abandon All Hope All Ye Canadians Who Enter Here. SCMP
The first arrest was Canadian ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig, detained in China today for unknown reasons. The second Canadian was Michael Spavor, who runs an NGO specializing in tours to North Korea.
Problem: China and Russia are eavesdropping on Trumps’s private calls. China specifically wants to know who influences Trumps so they can influence the influencers. This is standard practice for many countries and not just China.
China’s leader Xi Jinping, has asked Chinese people for total and utter loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP above all else. He has pushed this philosophy in all aspects of Chinese life.
Government, the military, society and schools, north, south, east and west – the Party leads them all 党政军民学，东西南北中，党是领导一切的 2017 Oct source
The implications of this philosophy on all and including international companies is that the CCP is part of the board and an integral part of the company. A Chinese company that does not follow the lead of the CCP cannot continue to do business and will eventually fail due to government policies or an outright bad on business.Therefore when it comes to resisting CCP pressures, companies really have no choice in the matter.
This plays out exactly the same in many countries, so one should not be at all surprised. A Chinese company wants to buy a foreign company, the foreign government blocks the sale, Chinese Government gets upset, calls the blocking racially motivated and implements trade sanctions on the foreign country. There are many cases in many different countries that I see this as one from China’s economic trade playbook.
China is a sovereign country, the same as any other independent and the world must respect this. What is unique about China is their willingness to use any means to exert their influence far beyond Chinese jurisdiction. I see that here in Canada, but there are reports of the same tactics being used in Australia and New Zealand.
Tactics include: Funding education programs that have a pro-Chinese viewpoint
There is great concern here in Canada about their funding tactics. While it is great to encourage the study of Mandarin language, China is using this platform to teach a pro-Chinese viewpoint to very young kids. More than worrisome, this is meddling in the internal affairs of Canada. The Toronto District School Board had signed an agreement with this group, but the decision was reversed.
Tried as I might, USB developer options were greyed out on this domestic China smartphone. I searched everywhere on the interwebs and found nothing. Here is my solution.
Plugged usb out, developer options still greyed out. About phone, tapped build number 7 times, developer options still greyed out, nothing.
Then I searched generically for a clue, and found a StackOverflow post at the very end, by sevensevens.
FYI My Motorola Xyboard had an “Off” icon at the top of developer options. Once I tapped that it worked.
