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Huawei Arrest Tests China's Leaders as Fear and Anger Grip Elite
The arrest of one of China's leading tech executives by the Canadian police for extradition to the United States has unleashed a combustible torrent of outrage and alarm among affluent and influential Chinese, posing a delicate political test for President Xi Jinping and his grip on the loyalty of the nation's elite.
The outpouring of conflicting sentiments — some Chinese have demanded a boycott of American products while others have expressed anxiety about their investments in the United States — underscores the unusual, politically charged nature of the Trump administration's latest move to counter China's drive for technological superiority.
In a hearing on Friday in Vancouver, Canadian prosecutors said the executive, Meng Wanzhou of the Chinese telecom giant Huawei, faced accusations of participating in a scheme to trick financial institutions into making transactions that violated United States sanctions against Iran.
Unlike a new round of tariffs or more tough rhetoric from American officials, the detention of Ms. Meng, the company's chief financial officer, appears to have driven home the intensifying rivalry between the United States and China in a visceral way for the Chinese establishment — and may force Mr. Xi to adopt a tougher stance against Washington, analysts said. In part, that is because Ms. Meng, 46, is so embedded in that establishment herself.
Previously: Canada Arrests Huawei's Global Chief Financial Officer in Vancouver
Related: New Law Bans U.S. Government from Buying Equipment from Chinese Telecom Giants ZTE and Huawei
Australia Bans China's Huawei (and maybe ZTE) from 5G Mobile Network Project
Washington Asks Allies to Drop Huawei
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday December 09 2018, @12:08PM (3 children)
Due to Canada's uncommonly - and strictly speaking, incorrect - dedication to peace, it's the ONLY nation in the world that other nations are willing to accept their use of Heavy Water Reactors, the CANDU.
The greatest advantage of Heavy Water is that due to Deuterium Nuclei _already_ having a Neutron, and due to Tritium being unstable, the CANDU does not require refined Uranium.
But this has the "unfortunate" "problem" of producing vast quantities of Plutonium.
It's not like Canada has any shortage of Physicists; it was also active in the Manhattan Project.
If you think Canada is truly peaceful, have a read of their history during WWI and WWII.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:15PM (2 children)
Fortunately, the CANDU will then proceed to nom the resulting plutonium, because it is a Multi-oxide fuel [wikipedia.org] reactor and really doesn't care what it eats, as long as it's fissile.
Some of our provincial governments are trying to shut down out coal plants, and it's long overdue. But, I wish they were building CANDU's to replace them, instead of the current plan, which seems to consist of "what? oh erm, right.. gas turbines! eventually. somewhere. after we're done closing down coal."
As far as I know the only country still building and improving the CANDU designs is... China.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:19PM (1 child)
I should further add, the solution to the "radioactive waste problem" the US has been wrestling with for over a decade is really quite simple: Ship it to Canada. Feed the CANDU. Woohoo, cheap fuel means cheap electricity. What eventually comes out as waste is even more radioactive, and vastly reduced in mass. Easier to store.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:54PM
That means it has a short half-life, and so won't require watchful security for the next half-million years.
That Plutonium waste is such a problem to store is that provided its Nuclear Cascade Reaction is not significant - that is, it's broken into small pieces, each piece far from the others, or as the current plan calls for, to dissolve it dilutely in molten glass - is due to its natural radioactivity being quite mild. Get This:
Both Plutonium and Uranium can be handled safely with heavy rubber gloves.
That leads to its half-life being roughly 26,000 years, but that natural radioactivity is so very weak that we do not yet have accurate measurements of the half-lives of some of its isotopes.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]