Trade deficit in goods tops $1 trillion in 2021 for first time as U.S. gobbles up imports

[VicBee]

That's not just about preference for one phone over another. Hauwei is part of the CCP as the CCP is part of every Chinese company. There is a national security risk there and the US is not alone in banning their products. For that reason, I'm surprised that TikTok has not been banned yet.

You might want to switch channels, or simply stop regurgitating Breitbart or Fox crap.
Huawei is as much a "part of the CCP" as AT&T is part of the US government. Think about that one for a second.
Chinese companies are subject to Chinese government rules, just like US companies are subject to US government rules. How is that complicated to understand? Their government's rules are motivated by other than corporate interests and businesses have to work within sometimes difficult regulations imposed on them. Sometimes corporate interests have no concerns for how their businesses impact greater society and environment other than profit from the sale of their products.
I don't know enough about China to judge their corporate to government relations and frankly don't care much since I divested all of my shares in Chinese companies.

 

[ET180]

You might want to switch channels, or simply stop regurgitating Breitbart or Fox crap.

Or a mainstream source such as the WSJ:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-xi-clampdown-private-sector-communist-party-11607612531

Huawei is as much a "part of the CCP" as AT&T is part of the US government. Think about that one for a second.

You don't have full time government employees paid by Disney working inside Disney telling Disney how to run it's business to promote national objectives. You can have an NBA coach in America go on American TV and trash talk the US, but try bringing up concern for the Ughur community while standing on American soil on Twitter and risk getting the NBA thrown out of China. No, it's not at all the same as this right-wing institution also claims:

https://hir.harvard.edu/rated-c-for-censored-walt-disney-in-chinas-pocket/

Yes, the US government has asked Apple to unlock a phone or release records. In the past, Apple has refused. An American company is allowed to stand-up to the US government and there is a legal process for dealing with those issues. Not so in China.

 

[VicBee]

Or a mainstream source such as the WSJ:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-xi-clampdown-private-sector-communist-party-11607612531

Mainstream? WSJ is a conservative business media which speaks for and on behalf of corporate interests. Nothing wrong with that, as long as that's clear when trying to get a better understand of perspectives.

You don't have full time government employees paid by Disney working inside Disney telling Disney how to run it's business to promote national objectives...

Why do you switch corporations to make your point? You brought up Huawei, I gave you AT&T as a valid counter argument:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/25/nsa-att-intercept-surveillance/
https://fortune.com/2015/08/18/att-nsa/
https://www.att.jobs/category/secret-clearance-jobs/117/74680/1

Disney, not promote national objectives?!? You might want to do some reading on that...
http://www.academia.edu/1006642/Walt_Disneys_Defense_of_American_Culture?auto=download
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2081916
https://www.wired.com/2002/02/disney-4/

Yes, the US government has asked Apple to unlock a phone or release records. In the past, Apple has refused. An American company is allowed to stand-up to the US government and there is a legal process for dealing with those issues. Not so in China.

I'm not sure this is a good point to bring up because it is such a double edge sword. You're saying it's a good thing that corporations can overrule government. I would go further and say, not only corporations, but military and police forces meant to uphold the rule of law overrule government in America.
This is a flawed, anti democratic argument often pushed by business, the far right and libertarian anarchists. It flaunts the most fundamental element of democracy, the election of their representatives by the People. These groups under Trump have succeeded in sowing the seed that elections are flawed, somehow stolen from the legitimate leader despite all proof to the opposite. By delegitimizing the election process they encourage the legitimacy of dictatorship.
Understand that the key difference between China and all other dictatorships from the right and the left and America and other democracies is NOT that we can stand up to government, it's that we decide who is government. Democracy stands above all other forms of government because if we aren't satisfied with the work of our reps, we can vote them out and elect new ones. Our jobs a citizens and minders of the election process is to ensure free and fair elections, then abide by the collective choice until the next cycle of election provides us the opportunity to or . That's what the Chinese people and the Russian people and the millions of people from dozens of countries still cannot do in 2022.

 

[ET180]

Mainstream? WSJ is a conservative business media which speaks for and on behalf of corporate interests.

WSJ is a mainstream financial source. It is considered to be centrist by a large survey of people. https://www.allsides.com/news-source/wall-street-journal-media-bias

Now it's probably not going to trash a given company because the writers there know their audience might have a financial interest in the company. But it's still possible to be objective without being biased. Just because they are not pro-communist doesn't make them conservative.

I already brought up Hauwai in post #10. The difference between AT&T and Hauwei is that the CCP can order Hauwei to build in remote control and espionage capabilities into their products which are sold all around the world and you'll never know about it. If an employee at Hauwei tries to whistleblow about those capabilities then they know they and most of their family will be short some organs and all disappeared within a week. If the US government tried to order Apple to build in remote espionage and control into their iPhones, you would hear about it. AT&T is a carrier. Everyone knows that the government can (hopefully with a warrant) get phone records and e-mails from US citizens. I doubt AT&T has the capability to listen in on phone conversations happening in China between two Chinese citizens as I suspect that China will not let AT&T operate networks in China for security reasons. But if the espionage and remote control is built into the product, it can be activated anywhere.

Regarding the Disney links, TLDR, just give me one example of Disney promoting national objectives other than wokeness in general.

These groups under Trump have succeeded in sowing the seed that elections are flawed, somehow stolen from the legitimate leader despite all proof to the opposite. By delegitimizing the election process they encourage the legitimacy of dictatorship.

That gives me some insight as to why you think the WSJ is a right-wing source. Your own sources must be so biased to the left that they completely omitted Biden doing exactly what you criticize Trump of doing just this past week. Here's what he said:

"I'm not saying it's going to be legit," Mr Biden said when asked about the possibility of fraud in the forthcoming elections that will decide the balance of power in Washington.

"The increase in the prospect of being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these reforms passed," the Democratic president continued.
(https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60063594)

Of course, what he did not realize is that the implication of the next election being illegitimate also implies that his own election might not have been legitimate based on his own reasoning.

China's problem is censorship and propaganda. Same problems we are increasingly facing in the US. It's hard to make a good decision if you don't even know the facts.

 

[canada812]

Or a mainstream source such as the WSJ:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-xi-clampdown-private-sector-communist-party-11607612531



You don't have full time government employees paid by Disney working inside Disney telling Disney how to run it's business to promote national objectives. You can have an NBA coach in America go on American TV and trash talk the US, but try bringing up concern for the Ughur community while standing on American soil on Twitter and risk getting the NBA thrown out of China. No, it's not at all the same as this right-wing institution also claims:

https://hir.harvard.edu/rated-c-for-censored-walt-disney-in-chinas-pocket/

Yes, the US government has asked Apple to unlock a phone or release records. In the past, Apple has refused. An American company is allowed to stand-up to the US government and there is a legal process for dealing with those issues. Not so in China.

The story that Apple refused FBI is more complicated than what we read in the newspapers. In most cases, Apple did provide the records. In the widely reported case involving the iphone of the San Bernardino shooters, what FBI exactly asked Apple?

" the FBI asked Apple Inc. to create a new version of the phone's iOSoperating system that could be installed and run in the phone's random access memory to disable certain security features that Apple refers to as "GovtOS"."

In this case, Apple said no as it will give FBI a potential backdoor to every iphone with GovtOS, which is probably used by the governments in US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute#:~:text=Apple declined due to its,and provide the requested software.

 

[VicBee]

To suggest the US government as less capabilities and willingness to access private data here and abroad than the Chinese government is naive at best.

 

[ET180]

In this case, Apple said no as it will give FBI a potential backdoor to every iphone with GovtOS, which is probably used by the governments in US.

That's my point. Apple can and will say no to that request. Hauwei would not. The CCP can have direct influence over hidden features of Hauwei and all other Chinese tech products. The US Govt dose not have that deep level of relationship with Apple (unless they actually do and have managed to pull off a huge conspiracy in which thousands of American citizens who know about the features have decided to all keep quiet and cooperate...I think that could have happened in the 60s, but certainly not today).

I assume that the NSA and CIA will access any information they can get their hands on although we have seen that there are whistleblowers so that limits what they can do. If American companies offered to put hidden features into their products for the benefit of the CIA / NSA, I'm sure the agencies would take them up on that offer. But I don't think the US Govt has the same level of product engineering control over American tech companies that the CCP has over Chinese companies.

 

[VicBee]

But I don't think the US Govt has the same level of product engineering control over American tech companies that the CCP has over Chinese companies.

I think you're wrong. I think you think that because we're a democracy and they are totalitarian communists. Tech is not political, but what you do with it is. And I think the US government is every bit as dictatorial as its Chinese counterpart when "national security" demands it, and that's been left undefined on purpose.

 

[David's faith]

That's my point. Apple can and will say no to that request. Hauwei would not. The CCP can have direct influence over hidden features of Hauwei and all other Chinese tech products. The US Govt dose not have that deep level of relationship with Apple (unless they actually do and have managed to pull off a huge conspiracy in which thousands of American citizens who know about the features have decided to all keep quiet and cooperate...I think that could have happened in the 60s, but certainly not today).

I assume that the NSA and CIA will access any information they can get their hands on although we have seen that there are whistleblowers so that limits what they can do. If American companies offered to put hidden features into their products for the benefit of the CIA / NSA, I'm sure the agencies would take them up on that offer. But I don't think the US Govt has the same level of product engineering control over American tech companies that the CCP has over Chinese companies.

Did you know every hard disk and also SSDs do have backdoors implemented? Do you know which government is responsivle for it? Who says Intels security breach some years ago wasn't also an implemented backdoor? You knowif anybody has access to icloud he has basically almost root like privileges over an IOS device? Who guarantees you Apple would not handle out icloud acces to the gov if they threaten Apple?

 

[ET180]

Did you know every hard disk and also SSDs do have backdoors implemented? Do you know which government is responsivle for it? Who says Intels security breach some years ago wasn't also an implemented backdoor? You knowif anybody has access to icloud he has basically almost root like privileges over an IOS device? Who guarantees you Apple would not handle out icloud acces to the gov if they threaten Apple?

Oh really, so you think Samsung, one of the largest makers of SSDs, a foreign company, is building backdoors into their products for the benefit exclusively of the US govt? lol RE: Intel, I don't automatically attribute to malice or conspiracy that which could more easily be explained by mistake. You really think Intel's management would say, "Ok govt, let's build in a security vulnerability into our products that could be discovered and exploited by anyone. And once it is discovered, the only way to avoid a full recall is to patch the product with microcode that will significantly reduce the performance of our product and expose us to lawsuits, tank the company stock, and tarnish our reputation. Yeah, sounds like a great idea. We'll implement it, keep quiet, and hope no one else other than you discovers it." That's ridiculous. RE: Apple, I think it is a much bigger conspiracy to believe that every single employee involved in the project, many of whom hate the US government, would go along with such an implementation. They don't even want to provide cloud services to the US DoD:

https://www.vox.com/technology/2018/10/18/17989482/google-amazon-employee-ethics-contracts

I think you're wrong. I think you think that because we're a democracy and they are totalitarian communists. Tech is not political, but what you do with it is. And I think the US government is every bit as dictatorial as its Chinese counterpart when "national security" demands it, and that's been left undefined on purpose.

My point is that even if the US govt wanted to be as totalitarian as the CCP, they can't because they don't have the same amount of control and forced obedience over their people. You won't see this in China:

https://about.att.com/csr/home/governance/transparency.html

You won't see a Chinese tech company say no to the CCP:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-refuses-to-hand-over-foreign-data-held-in-contempt-of-court/

Or this:

https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/answers/

If the CCP tells Hauwei to build in some feature into its phones, you would never hear about it and there would be no push back.

A Chinese citizen can't even criticize the CCP otherwise his/her social credit score will take a hit. One could lose his/her job and get blocked from leaving the country for doing so.

In the US, you can post really bad stuff about a sitting president and the president can even be kicked off social media while still in office. Even if you say, "yeah, but he deserved it"...whatever the case nothing close to that would ever be allowed to happen to a CCP leader in China.

https://www.the-sun.com/news/1742978/kathy-griffin-decapitated-trump-head-election/

Imagine if a Chinese citizen posted something similar to that about Xi. Their organs would immediately get harvested and their family would be sent to a "reeducation" labor camp and you would never even hear about it.