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The US is charging Huawei with racketeering
Ratcheting up its pressure campaign against Huawei and its affiliates, the Department of Justice and the FBI announced today that it has brought 16 charges against Huawei in a sprawling case with major geopolitical implications (you can read the full 56-page indictment here).
Huawei is being charged with conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) statute. The DoJ alleges that Huawei and a number of its affiliates used confidential agreements with American companies over the past two decades to access the trade secrets of those companies, only to then misappropriate that intellectual property and use it to fund Huawei's business.
An example of this activity is provided in the indictment. Described as "Company 1," Huawei is alleged to have stolen source code for Company 1's routers, which it then used in its own products.
[...] Huawei is also alleged to have engaged in more simple forms of industrial espionage. While at a trade show in Chicago, a Huawei-affiliated engineer "... was discovered in the middle of the night after the show had closed for the day in the booth of a technology company ... removing the cover from a networking device and taking photographs of the circuitry inside. Individual-3 wore a badge listing his employer as 'Weihua,'
[...] Together, the indictment lists multiple examples of Huawei's alleged conspiracy to pilfer U.S. intellectual property.
It's a good thing that the United States would never do 'bad things' or act in a manner like this.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 15 2020, @06:57PM (7 children)
I have doubts about that. They are most definitely doing it cheaper, but new and better? I don't think they are there yet, actually. Give it another ten to twenty years, and they'll be there. Right now, they are beginning to equal what the US is capable of.
We seem to be losing capability, while China gains. Ten years? They should be about equal to us across the board. Twenty years? They'll probably pull ahead, wit the newer and better.
I know that when we get a mold in from China, tooling has to do a helluva lot of work on the mold before we can shoot good parts with it. The primary problem is, China doesn't use the same steel that the US or Europe, or even South America uses. You get some stupid statement that "This steel equivalent to " which ever steel you had specified. In our case, we expect a mold to warp so much, when it heats and cools. The cheap replacement "equivalent" warps about five times as much, and it's near impossible to machine it so that parts are within specs. Warp is warp, and if you manage to machine it away, it's a lot of luck, a lot of skill, and a blessing from the Flying Spaghetti Monster or some such.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 15 2020, @07:32PM
yes, cheap metal is a big way they cheat on everything they sell. it's going to be interesting if there's ever a war and all of america's chinese made stuff falls apart.
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday February 16 2020, @02:24AM (2 children)
Off cource China is not doing better everywhere - she just started. China have few advantage areas at the moment, but one of them is G5 where Huavei beat everybody by at least 2 years, possibly by 3 to 5. If the whole world adopts China mobile tech, the US will lose it's long enjoyed ability to spy on everybody. One can't underestimate the consequences.
There are and will be others.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @12:49PM (1 child)
Like the fourth industrial revolution, 5G has no proper meaning and is only used to appear hip and technologically literate.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday February 17 2020, @12:53PM
5G deployment distinguishes the powerful from the pestilent:
https://wccftech.com/coronavirus-shatters-chinas-5g-rollout-disrupts-5g-base-station-supply-in-country/ [wccftech.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 16 2020, @08:55AM (2 children)
There's lots of lying and cheating in China. But I doubt meeting your mold requirements is beyond China tech and capabilities.
China likely has difficulty with certain jet engine or rocket parts: https://www.inkstonenews.com/tech/chinese-spy-accused-trying-steal-us-trade-secrets/article/2168111 [inkstonenews.com]
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2127796/china-talks-sale-jet-engine-technology-germany [scmp.com]
But given that Apple etc can successfully get precision stuff made in China I'm pretty sure there are people and factories in China who can produce the molds you want to the quality you want and maybe even still at a significantly cheaper price than the USA. The issue is finding them :). And of course closing your eyes to the substandard working conditions for the workers.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 16 2020, @09:59AM (1 child)
Perhaps your assessment is accurate. Someone in China has the ability to manufacture the molds we need, to the standards we want. We're just dealing with the wrong suppliers.
Then again, there IS a lag between the time China's IP thieves acquire trade secrets and whatnot, and the time that those secrets are implemented. There is another lag between implementation, and successful implementation.
Someone, somewhere, probably has some kind of a formula to figure out what those lag times are. I basically pulled my twenty years out of thin air. I can partly justify my twenty years, with the fact that it takes time for a concept to roll from our engineers, through corporate, then back out to us, in the manufacturing end of things. I'm talking months, to years, inside of a cooperative environment, with no outside, unwelcome influences. (Unless of course, we consider corporate headquarters to be hostile. ;^) )
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday February 17 2020, @04:45AM
Lets not forget that Steve Jobs tried to manufacture in the US, twice; and failed both times. It was not only a question of price - he simply was not able to do it. The was no - and perhaps is no - technology that would allow him to build Mac and iPhone here.
I do believe though that if he were forced to manufacture in the US, he would come up with required automation. It would be way more difficult and longer process, but everybody would win eventually.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.