> But if your choice is between being spied on by the US or by China, why would you prefer China?
My only argument here would be that choosing China means we're choosing equipment where everyone involved knows that due diligence must be made to keep spying out and communication channels secured. I feel like this is not done enough when using US equipment and has exposed us to too much risk, considering the increasing hostility of current US government and its also increasing push to leverage spying to attack our companies.
I wouldn't. I think they're both a bad choice. It's just that the media seems to exclusively focus on huawei. And I can somewhat understand the American media doing that, but it's no different here. We've had like what, three Cisco backdoors in the last couple weeks, but who besides tech gave a shit? Actually, there isn't anything published yet that would suggest huawei products contain any. Nothing besides "they're evil commies so it must be true"
And I mean, we even do have European businesses in that sector but it seems we're not even trying.. Unfortunately.
The big difference between U.S/Cisco and China/Huawei is that in the U.S., the government broke into Cisco's systems without their help or consent. In contrast, it is largely understood that Huawei freely assists and cooperates with the Chinese government. The combination of a major tech provider with a powerful government provides too much temptation for abuse.
> [...] is that in the U.S., the government broke into Cisco's systems without their help or consent.
That's what they claim and given the repercussions, both legally and commercially, for admitting to willingly giving the NSA all the access they want or deliberately planting backdoors, it's not all that hard to see why they'd be lying about this. Saying that it was without their help or consent is the only sensible choice they had / have.
> In contrast, it is largely understood that Huawei freely assists and cooperates with the Chinese government.
The only "proof" of that are statements from the US government. The very organization with a decades long track record of global mass surveillance, among other things.
Doesn't really take a leap of imagination that this is more about holding back a successful Chinese company in favor of something more "controllable" than it is about Huawei being an actual security risk. After all, we have a new Cisco backdoor like what, every other week? Whereas proof for those alleged Huawei backdoors has yet to materialize and that is with GCHQ having inspected Huawei's equipment and source code for more than 8 years now.
If you ask me, this just boils down to anti-China propaganda from the US. Which doesn't mean that we should simply trust Huawei, but in the absence of any compelling evidence we Europeans are better off policing them - the GSMA for example wants a Europe-wide equipment-testing organization for suppliers like Huawei - rather than banning them outright.
> > It's like saying a government backed army and a guy with a gun are the same because they can both shoot people.
> This however qualifies for that title, since you're probably underestimating China if you're comparing them with a single person with a gun.
You totally missed the analogy. Here, China/US are the armies, and Huawei/Cisco are just some folks with guns. When governments intervene, they bring an enormous amount of resources that even large companies cannot compete with.
But if your choice is between being spied on by the US or by China, why would you prefer China?