Federal Prosecutors Pursuing Criminal Case Against Huawei for Alleged Theft of Trade Secrets: Report (wsj.com)

Federal prosecutors are pursuing a criminal investigation of China's Huawei for allegedly stealing trade secrets from U.S. business partners, including the technology behind a robotic device that T-Mobile used to test smartphones, WSJ reported Wednesday. From a report: The investigation grew in part out of civil lawsuits against Huawei, including one in which a Seattle jury found Huawei liable for misappropriating robotic technology from T-Mobile's Bellevue, Wash., lab, the people familiar with the matter said. The probe is at an advanced stage and could lead to an indictment soon, they said. The link to the source article may be paywalled; here's an alternative source.

Comments

China is a big problem

[Spy Handler]

Here's a pretty good CNBC article about Silicon Valley execs secretly agreeing with Trump's hardline stance on China. Keep in mind, SV tech execs tend to be pretty liberal and CNBC is a part of NBC News so they're well left of center as well.

"If we're ever going to do anything about China, this is the perfect time. If we're ever going to stop them from forcing our companies into dubious joint ventures that represent ridiculous technology transfers and often outright theft, this is the moment."

Re:China is a big problem

[Desler]

while the Right tends to favor free trade ... so this is a case of leftists being leftists.

I didn't realize that Larry Kudlow and Trump were leftists. Guess you learn something new every day.

Re:China is a big problem

[Desler]

Oh and let's not forget the 2002 Chinese steel tariffs and from renowned "leftist" George W. Bush.

Re:China is a big problem

[Spy Handler]

well the actual point of the article is that SV tech exec are usually Trump hating liberals whose normal reaction to anything Trump does is to oppose it.

I inserted that "CNBC is left of center" thing just to reinforce my point that CNBC also has no love for Trump and if they're actually agreeing with Trump on something, it's gotta be a lot more credible than if, say, Fox News or some other Trump-loving entity was publishing it.

Re:China is a big problem

[Desler]

Trumpism is an amalgam of the stupidest ideas from both left and right. His protectionist views on trade were a big reason for the "Never Trump" movement by traditional conservatives.

So Dubya was a Trumpist when he levied steel tariffs in 2002?

Bernie's support for protectionism was very popular with the left.

Yes, so popular that none of his ideas have ever been implemented.

Re:China is a big problem

[Desler]

ShanghaiBill doesn't let facts get in his way.

Re:China is a big problem

[MightyMartian]

Um, the mainstream of both parties favor free trade. It is the extremes of both parties that are isolationist (and delusional).

Re:China is a big problem

[Desler]

But then how would Trump's US golf courses be able to keep hiring undocumented workers?

Re:China is a big problem

[Anonymous Coward]

100% agree. China has only risen on the back of America (and other western countries') stolen IP. A PLA APT group had Nortel hacked for almost a decade and was exfiltrating trade secrets. Huawei founder ex-PLA. Hmm..

Re:China is a big problem

[Desler]

And yet while Democrats were still controlling at least the Senate the deficit as a percentage of GDP went down every year until 2015 when Republicans took over both chambers. From 2015 to 2018 under full
Republican control, deficit spending in amount of dollars has nearly doubled ($438 billion to $833 billion) and has grown about 60% percentage of GDP (2.4% to 4.0%) has gone up every year.

Strange how you conveniently left that part out from your link.

Re:China is a big problem

[ShanghaiBill]

So Dubya was a Trumpist when he levied steel tariffs in 2002?

GWB was widely criticized for the steel tariffs by Republicans and many Democrats praised him. Dick Gephardt, the Democratic leader in the house, criticized him for not going far enough. You can read more here: Political response to 2002 steel tariffs.

He didn't implement the tariffs out of ideology, but was trying to swing Pennsylvania to red in 2004. He still lost the state by 2%.

Re:China is a big problem

[Desler]

GWB was widely criticized for the steel tariffs by Republicans and many Democrats praised him.

And outside of whinging what did they actually do?

He didn't implement the tariffs out of ideology, but was trying to swing Pennsylvania to red in 2004. He still lost the state by 2%.

Duh. That was my whole point. You tried to tie tariffs to Trumpist ideology or to leftists yet a "mainstream" Republican president was just as happy to levy them when it was politically convenient.

Re:China is a big problem

[ShanghaiBill]

Bernie didn't support protectionism as much as he supported enforcing tax, labor and environmental standards on manufacturers of US sold products.

Expecting Bangladesh to adhere to American labor standards is absurd, and demanding that they do so is tantamount to just shutting them down, hurting the very people that Bernie hypocritically claimed to be helping. Free trade has brought prosperity to billions of desperately poor people.

Re:China is a big problem

[Desler]

Also, the poster conveniently omitted that every year of full Republican control of Congress from 2015 to 2018 saw increases in deficit spending year-over-year. It's almost as if deficit spending is only bad when Democrats are in charge.

Re:China is a big problem

[Desler]

Sort of like expecting China to adhere to American standards on IP law?

Re:China is a big problem

[ShanghaiBill]

Um, the mainstream of both parties favor free trade.

This is not supported by evidence:

NAFTA Vote:
Republican: 132 yes, 43 no
Democratic: 102 yes, 156 no

CAFTA Vote:
Republican 202 yes, 27 no
Democratic 15 yes, 187 no

Re:China is a big problem

[lgw]

Do you imagine Trump is against free trade? He's getting the Chinese to lower their barriers to free trade. Negotiation is not isolationism. Purely one-sided tariffs are not free trade.

Re:China is a big problem

[Desler]

The point being made is that the right is more fiscally conservative than the left.

So that's why Ronald Reagan added 6 times as much to the national debt as his predecessor? Or how Reagan, Bush and Bush Jr. all added more to the debt than under Clinton? Even more funny since Bush Sr. was in office half as long as Clinton.

Even with the recent increase in deficit spending, Republican Congress are historically more conservative than Democrats. Reasonable people can disagree on what an "exploding" deficit is.

So conservative that deficits have gone up nearly 100% in dollar amount more than 60% as a percent of GDP. Yep sounds real "fiscally conservative."

Re:China is a big problem

[Desler]

So their lowering barriers by enacting higher tariffs against US goods and buying soybeans, amongst other food crops, from other countries? Are you an idiot or really that delusional?

Re:China is a big problem

[gordguide]

There's a lot of BS with respect to China and IP violations.
The vast majority of companies complaining about Chinese companies making products that violate their "IP" never bothered to patent their shit in China. It is not the Chinese government's problem to uphold US/EU patents in their own country. It's not even a problem at all.
Now, as soon as they try to import their IP violating products into a country where it's patented it becomes a problem but that's not China's problem either.

China is a signatory member of the World Trade Association.

Association members are required to enforce all IP of other association member countries, so a US Patent is effectively a China Patent as well.

Re:China is a big problem

[gordguide]

How has China lowered any barriers? If China was lowering barriers, why did the Republicans pass legislation to give away huge handouts to soybean farmers last year who could no longer can sell their crops in China competitively because of increased import duties?

Must be due to all that winning, right?

Oh wait, all that winning is the Brazillian soybean farmers.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/s...

China has recently lowered tariffs on all automobiles manufactured elsewhere. I suppose it's not "lowering any barriers" if it applies to every nation and not only the United States?

Re: China is a big problem

[edris90]

If you don't want to share your intellectual property, don't do business in China it's that simple. Chinese government is smart to require you two agree to let them assimilate your IP if you want to do business in their country. It nips in the bud all that I invented it first, no I did lawsuit bullshit... Watching us use the concept of IP to fuck each other over and reward the worst event alities,. they found a way to do business without opening themselves up to the same exploitation.. Don't hate on China just because they're smart enough to make foreigners give up control in order to gain access to their Market. Thats How you keep your sovereignty intact, as opposed to bled out to foreign interests

Re:China is a big problem

[ShanghaiBill]

It's amazing how one cherry picked moment suddenly becomes a political standard

I didn't pick it, and it is an exception rather than the rule. Republicans generally support free trade, Democrats generally don't.

NAFTA Vote:
Republican: 132 yes, 43 no
Democratic: 102 yes, 156 no

CAFTA Vote:
Republican 202 yes, 27 no
Democratic 15 yes, 187 no

Believe it or not, there are actual differences between left and right. It is astounding how many people don't know what those differences are.

Re: China is a big problem

[houghi]

Wair, so now patenrs are a goid thing on /'? I thought they where heroes bfecause where ignoring the patents.

Re:China is a big problem

[AmiMoJo]

That's also why China is creating so many patents. They see how they get abused and figure the best way to fight back is just patent everything and play the litigation game. Doubtless there is some equivalent of the East Texas court in China that finds US companies in infringement every time.

Re:China is a big problem

[Freischutz]

Trump isn't taking a "hardline" stance on China, Trump is a bullshitter pretending to act hard hoping China will blink first. China plays the long game and will easily, easily outlast that nitwit's attention span. Plus, Trump is prison bound.

So there's that.

Is that his strategy? I always figured his strategy was to get in China's face until a Chinese state bank suddenly invests a ton of cash into one of his ventures, at which point he would cave in to China on something China wants like he did over ZTE after the Chinese state suddenly loaned his developers $500 million to build his Lido city project. Transactional foreign policy ... the Trump presidency is beginning to remind me of the Roman Republic during the Jugurthine war: Rome is a city for sale and doomed to destruction if it ever finds a buyer.

Re:China is a big problem

[DigressivePoser]

Both parties are responsible for the huge debt and there is no disincentive, short of financial collapse, to keep these politicians from spending and spending. As long as their pet pork projects and policy objectives are funded, there's no way the debt will be paid back. And forget about a balanced budget constitutional amendment being introduced in congress. That would be like an alcoholic wanting to bring back prohibition. The amendment would have to be drafted in a constitutional convention by the states - which by law must have balanced budgets. I'm willing to bet 3/4th of the states would ratify it. We'd just have to be wary of some states trying to introduce nonsensical amendments during the process.

Seems reasonable

[JoeyRox]

They didn't criminally prosecute the financial industry for blatant fraud that lead to the loss of trillions of dollars of wealth and almost destroyed the economy but they're going after a company for allegedly stealing the technology that drop-tests $200 smartphones.

Re:Seems reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't criminally prosecute the financial industry for blatant fraud that lead to the loss of trillions of dollars of wealth and almost destroyed the economy but they're going after a company for allegedly stealing the technology that drop-tests $200 smartphones.

The American public is either extremely ignorant or just very tolerant of corruption at senior levels in their government, and of massive problems in legal ethics in the US legal system (these two problems are closely related, of course - but either one can cause inconsistencies in prosecution).

The financial industry bought its way out of this. The Chinese will as well.

Invest in America, buy a politician. Remember, it's not a bribe, it's a campaign contribution, no matter what logic or reason may have to say.

Re:Seems reasonable

[hackingbear]

Neither they filed criminal suit against Steve Job (who misappropriated secret from Xerox)

As for this Huawei-T-Mobile case, how could one steal secret if he has signed the NDA and obtained the rights to that secret, as long as the secret is never reviewed to 3rd party. In fact, that verdict was not about trade secret theft at all and only about contractual obligation:

According to the jury’s verdict, T-Mobile was not awarded any damages relating to the trade secrets claim and there was no award of punitive damages. Although the jury awarded damages under the breach of contract allegation, the amount was a small fraction of what T-Mobile requested.

Of course, in the current trade war, the US will abuse the law and find every possible way to launch PR actions against major Chinese companies.

Chinese govt still acting like 3rd world country

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as they do, the WTO needs to treat them that way and remove "most favored nation" status, so that all deals with Chinese entities are much harder.
Basically, the Chinese Govt needs to treat foreign companies exactly the same as local, Chinese companies and not demand technology transfer, partner Chinese companies, 51% Chinese ownership and selective enforcement must stop.

Re:Largest telecom company can't make "robot"

[Desler]

Deutsche Telekom is an American company?

Re: Too many shills redirecting topics to Trump ha

[edris90]

You can't steal what can't belong to anyone. Intellectual property is an Imagined concept, that logically destroys itself and is dependent upon blured context and condition Dogma, to be relatable. Nobody owns information,. but my buddies will fuck you up if you don't pretend I do. That's IP in a nutshell.