The Huawei Ban Is Justified (Hear Me Out)

So a few a year or so ago I talked about the consequences of using a Huawei phone here and more than a year later things aren't all that different. Recently Huawei was accused of being a security threat by the United States and has asked all American companies to not do business with Huawei. So that means that Huawei is now cut off from Intel, Qualcomm and most importantly Android. Now this might seem harsh at first glance. The US is unfairly targeting a law abiding company just for the fact that it is Chinese. But a closer look reveals much more. 

How China Does Business

Unlike in the west and much of the world. China does not have a protections for intellectual property. That means that no ones protecting your idea from being ripped off by someone else and then being brought to market. In most of the world if someone violates a patent you can sue them. Case and point look at pressy a small Kickstarter that makes a small button that plugs into your phones headphone jack (This was back in 2014 ), which allows you to a multitude of things with just a tap. 

Now that looks cool now look at Xiaomi's competing product

Now I think its fair to say that Xiaomi has taken some "inspiration" from Pressy. Check this out for more information. 

Now companies Xiaomi can get away with this because China just doesn't have a system that deals with copyright infringement, partly because copying is okay in Chinese culture.In the west you're frowned upon for copying but in China copying is encouraged and normal. Now this instantly puts foreign business at a disadvantage right off the bat but its nothing to be banned over, Maybe a fine? I mean Google massively messed up in the EU and all it had to pay was a $5 billion fine. So why is Huawei banned? 

Corporate Espionage

Now at the risk of sounding James Bond-y I'm going to accuse Huawei of stealing or trying to steal technology. Growing up in China Huawei has never had to really pay a price for copying. But that doesn't mean that Huawei has stopped copying on the global stage. Huawei has been accused of trying to steal technology from Akhan, 

Apple, 

Apple again, 

T-Mobile, 

Cisco 

That's not a small list. Sure if multiple companies are accusing you of something then there's probably some merit to what they're accusing you of. Especially when you have a history of copying without having to answer for this. Sure I hear you saying. Corporate espionage happens all the time. As a company you have to protect yourself from it this by no means is grounds to ban Huawei. Sure I agree a massive fine would have sufficed.

The Security Risk That Huawei Poses

We've been hearing this for what it seems like the longest time ever. "Huawei poses a risk to our country". But what exactly is this "Risk " that we keep hearing about. To understand that let's look at how China reacted to the release of Pokemon Go(Bear with me I'm going somewhere with this). In 2016 Pokemon Go took the world by storm. The game was so wildly popular that servers were having a hard time keeping up with the demand. But the popular game was mysteriously absent from Chinese shores. Why cause it was banned. Now why would China ban an innocent game? Well according to the China Audio Video and Digital Publishing Association. The game represents a "threat to geographical information security and the threat to transport and the personal safety of consumers".  I have a hard time believing that the country that has detention camps for it's minorities, Arrests people for talking about the Dalai Llama and has a crappy track record of human rights is banning Pokemon Go just to protect it's citizens. However the Geographical Information Security part makes a lot more sense. The Chinese are worried that having a game send Geographical data and other data to a foreign server might compromise their national security.  Now when you consider the fact that Huawei devices have been caught on multiple occasions sending data to Chinese servers. Things aren't looking good for Huawei. Its not just Huawei OnePlus, Nokia, Xiaomi and other brands have been caught doing the same thing. (To be fair I think Nokia made an honest mistake). The sad thing is you don't even need to have a Chinese phone. Chinese made apps send an egregious amount of your personal data to Chinese servers. I mean why would a selfie app from China need access to your phone calls, geolocation, IMEI, SMS', and a whole host of other personal data to Chinese servers. If banning Pokemon Go because it collects too much data is bad then this is on a level of its own. 

An argument that I've heard against this is "Huawei has the data not the Chinese Government". But unfortunately thats pretty much the case. To do business in China you pretty much have to sell your soul. Microsoft and Apple had to move their servers to within China and had to grant the government access to the aforementioned servers to not be penalised by the Chinese government. These companies are so powerless against the government that their offices get raided from time to time. 

If foreign companies are so powerless against the Chinese Government then Companies like Huawei stand no chance. The Government can and will access the data stored in Hicloud , presumably Huawei's version of iCloud.