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Chinese Networking Vendor Huawei's Murky Ownership

Posted by kdawson on from the worthy-of-neal-stephenson dept.

A month ago we mentioned India's suspicions that telecomm equipment from China might contain backdoors. There hasn't been any smoking gun on such speculation. Now reader littlekorea sends in some background on the ties one important Chinese telecomm vender might or might not have to the government there. "Conspiracy theories abound as to whether networking kit vendor Huawei is owned or controlled by the Chinese government and/or the military-industrial complex. But who really owns Huawei? Kiwi journalist Juha Saarinen headed to Shanghai to find out."

5 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. This is easy by lalena · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just compare the code byte for byte with Cisco's. Any differences are the Chinese backdoor.

  2. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  3. Coop? by MozeeToby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, after reading the fine article, it seems to me that the company is, officially at least, a coop. Only employees are allowed to own shares, which are primarily used as a method of profit sharing and performance rewards. It's actually not a bad model if you don't need the capital you can get by selling stock. There's a handful of companies in the US that do things much the same one, Ocean-spray being the first example that comes to mind.

    I don't see anything in the article about if/when/how the Chinese government influences the company beyond an offhand remark about the CEO's past work at the beginning and an otherwise unsupported statement at the end. How exactly would the company being publicly traded ally fears that the Chinese government is exerting control? It isn't as if the stockholders would have to know about the situation, nor would the fallout be any more severe if they were found out (either way the company would be going bankrupt very rapidly).

  4. It's easy logic by copponex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When Americans have backdoors, it's to protect American interests and therefore "good". When the Chinese have backdoors, it's to protect Chinese interests and therefore "bad".

    You can apply this same logic to foreign policy. Both value systems are based on power instead of principle.

  5. are you surprised? by oddTodd123 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    owned or controlled by the Chinese government

    Isn't everything in China owned or controlled by the government?