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Trump Administration Considers Banning Another Major Chinese Firm (cnbc.com) 232

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: The U.S. administration is considering limits to Chinese video surveillance firm Hikvision's ability to buy U.S. technology, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, in a move that deepens worries about trade frictions between the world's two top economies. The move would effectively place Hikvision on a U.S. blacklist and U.S. companies may have to obtain government approval to supply components to Hikvision, the paper said. The U.S. Commerce Department blocked Huawei Technologies from buying U.S. goods last week, effectively banning U.S. companies from doing business with the Chinese firm, a major escalation in the trade war, saying Huawei was involved in activities contrary to national security.

Hikvision and Dahua Technology which produce audio-visual equipment that can be used for surveillance were specifically cited in a letter to Trump's top advisers last month, signed by more than 40 lawmakers. The lawmakers said China's actions in its western region of Xinjiang "may constitute crimes against humanity" and urged tighter U.S. export controls to ensure that U.S. companies are not assisting the Chinese government's crackdown there.
The issue stems around the facilities in China that "U.N. experts describe as mass detention centers holding more than 1 million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims," reports CNBC. "Beijing has said its measures in Xinjiang, which are also reported to include widespread surveillance of the population, are aimed at stemming the threat of Islamist militancy. The facilities or camps that have opened are vocational training centers, the government has said."
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Trump Administration Considers Banning Another Major Chinese Firm

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    America's actions in the middle east constitutes war crimes, so China should stop exporting rare earth metals to America and American companies, just to show that they can play the same game.

    • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      Are you really comparing supporting one government vs another strategically to herding people into camps and abusing them or invading your neighbor and burning thousands of peaceful people alive for no cause?

  • by FilmedInNoir ( 1392323 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @09:17AM (#58635344)
    But he said he'd make America grate again?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @09:17AM (#58635346)

    You can only throw rocks at a tiger for so long, until he tries to tear you to shred.

    Even if you're a tiger yourself.

    Maybe he doesn't realize the US is dependent on China too. It's a mutual work VS money deal. If China goes on strike, even for a month, the US economy would crash hard too.
    I guess we will see, how dependent China is on the US.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      The Chinese:
      • Engage in cybertheft
      • Force technology transfers
      • Hyper-subsidize their own industries
      • Functionally prohibit American firms' access to the Chinese market

      The Americans have demanded a screeching halt to all of these. The fact the Chinese even began talks with those swords hanging over them indicates just how weak the Chinese knew their hand was. China exports over four times as many goods to the American market as vice versa and China is completely dependent upon American global security commitments

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        "Engage in cybertheft"

        You mean they dont participate in our antiquated IP traditions.
        Backward engineering is still legal there, they dont have a DMCA to outlaw innovation, so innovation still happens there. Thats not them being nefarious, thats US being stupid and undercutting our whole tech sector just for the benefit of some idiot cartoon mouse.

        "Force technology transfers"

        See above

        "Hyper-subsidize their own industries"

        Yeah, if we had universal healthcare, american labor would be competitive again. But we

        • The forced technology transfers are due to China not allowing companies in certain sectors to enter the Chinese market. You have to form a joint venture with a Chinese company which will own 51% of the stake. All tech must be transferred to the new JV. Then, the tech is stolen and given to a new, 100% Chinese owned company, which now competes with you. Do people not know this happens? It happens and just imagine the outrage if America did something like this.

          The rest of your replies are nonsensical an

        • I worked for a company back in 1996. Even then, the Chinese company we dealt with took our product, copied the circuit boards ( Including the fake traces that did nothing but say " I've been copied!" ) and tried to sell them as their own.

          You can pretend otherwise, but reality doesn't back you.

      • The Chinese:

        • Engage in cybertheft
        • Force technology transfers
        • Hyper-subsidize their own industries
        • Functionally prohibit American firms' access to the Chinese market

        The Americans have demanded a screeching halt to all of these. The fact the Chinese even began talks with those swords hanging over them indicates just how weak the Chinese knew their hand was. China exports over four times as many goods to the American market as vice versa and China is completely dependent upon American global security commitments for access to raw materials, energy and end markets. There is no modern China without active American involvement.

        IN THEORY, between two parties dealing fairly, Tariffs suck. But we are already living in a world where nobody is dealing fairly with anyone else, but we keep pretending it's a free market. It's time we stop pretending that the rest of the world isn't playing us for chumps.

        A list of all 23 open US complaints against China brought to the WTO (they have a great website):

        DS309 : Value-Added Tax on Integrated Circuits
        DS340 : Measures Affecting Imports of Automobile Parts
        DS358 : Certain Measures Granting Refunds, Reductions or Exemptions from Taxes and Other Payments
        DS362 : Measures Affecting the Protection and Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights
        DS363 : Measures Affecting Trading Rights and Distribution Services for Certain Publications and Audiovisual Entertainment Produc

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Maybe he doesn't realize the US is dependent on China too. It's a mutual work VS money deal.

      Probably. With the amount of "stable" and "genius" he has, he is probably so disconnected from reality, he cannot grasp simple facts like this one anymore.

    • by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

      The thing most people don't know about is Chinese (and other countries) investment in American companies. It's often hard to trace the relationships due to the way the holding companies are structured but we've been "invaded" in the economic sense. It's part of the reason some work environments have deteriorated in America. What is the explanation for executive boards that only care about money nothing else like environment, country well being, citizens, etc. Simple: foreign investors

      Wars are no longer

      • The thing most people don't know about is Chinese (and other countries) investment in American companies. It's often hard to trace the relationships due to the way the holding companies are structured but we've been "invaded" in the economic sense. It's part of the reason some work environments have deteriorated in America. What is the explanation for executive boards that only care about money nothing else like environment, country well being, citizens, etc. Simple: foreign investors

        Wars are no longer fought on the battlefield. They are fought in the Economic Game Theory arena. We would be wise to follow Sun Tzu's Art of War: Know thine enemy and know thyself

        While the idea that the US would need to import evil capitalists is laughable in itself, there are other more tangible reasons this just isn't true. There is so much capital amassed in the US that the free floating foreign capital can't really make a dent, and most of that is pension funds and institutional aka passive investors.

        • by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

          While the idea that the US would need to import evil capitalists is laughable in itself

          The US doesn't need or want this type of investor. The beneficiaries of the arrangement are the foreign investors not anyone in the United States. They do it to make money for themselves and the money is funneled outside of the United States. That's the point. We shouldn't allow this to occur. It's not in our country's best interest. This is yet another part of Globalization that has not benefited the United States. It has done precisely the opposite. Blocking things like the Broadcom acquisition of

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      If China goes on strike, even for a month, the US economy would crash hard too.

      T likes to play Game of Chicken.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It seems like Trump genuinely doesn't understand international trade. The White House was asked if he believes that China pays tariffs that the US imposes, and they replied that he genuinely does.

      https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]

      • Although I'm to lazy to dig up a link, at the beginning of the trade war with the EU it was quite obvious from Trump's statements that he believed that US imports was subject to a special sales tax where he mentioned specific percentages. He was talking about VAT (which does not discriminate against foreign goods).

    • by Anonymous Coward

      You can only throw rocks at a tiger for so long, until he tries to tear you to shred.

      Even if you're a tiger yourself.

      Maybe he doesn't realize the US is dependent on China too. It's a mutual work VS money deal. If China goes on strike, even for a month, the US economy would crash hard too. I guess we will see, how dependent China is on the US.

      If China is dependent on the US, the only thing Trump's shenanigans will change is that China will start a serious effort to change that and because Trump's corporate cronies will be relying on his tariffs to save them instead of becoming competitive the Chinese will win.

    • Not that I agree with this trade war (I think they're stupid). But the fight here isn't tiger vs tiger. It's buyer vs supplier. In this case, the buyer (the U.S.) can simply go to another country to manufacture the goods it wants to buy. They'll pay a little more for it initially, but not much. The supplier (China) is pretty much stuck with whatever the buyer decides. It'd be a different story if China were the dominant supplier (other countries were incapable of making the stuff the U.S. wants to buy
  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @09:23AM (#58635382)
    or home goods. Or Clothing.

    We manufacture a lot, but it's mostly done with robots and it's mostly high end machinery. Unless this is another emoluments violation [vox.com] I'm not sure how this will help anyone. If he's trying to put pressure on China to protect our industry, well, you need an industry to protect first. And we're past the point [nytimes.com] where the jobs would come back even if the factory's did.

    I'd much rather see large scale federal infrastructure jobs programs paid for by the proceeds of those robots than more tariffs on TVs.
    • Um... we don't make electronics in this country

      Um... actually we do; just not the low-end disposable junk that China tends to be know for.

      • by jabuzz ( 182671 )

        I don't think I have any clothes made in China at all. Plenty from various other Asian countries, and a fair bit from north African countries too. A couple of years ago I brought something made in Madagascar which surprised me a bit. China however nothing. On the other hand most of my footwear is made in China these days unfortunately.

      • I know there's a couple stupidly high end manufacturers (like $10,000 blue ray players and folks who buy literal master recordings of music albums and specialized players for thousands of dollars) but aren't the chips still made in Taiwan? If it's part of a larger machine (like a medical device or an Airplane) I'm not really counting it since that gets counted when the medical device or airplane sells.

        I don't know of any general purpose electronics manufactured in the states anymore. Maybe some instrume
  • Down with RFC's, protocols, standards.
    Every sovreign country or block to build its own tech - from chips to apps.

    US would be one such block.
    China - another.
    All others must choose sides or team up.
    Russia and India alone would lack the capacity, EU would lack the political will, Africa and Latin America would lack the tradition for cooperation.

    The times when you could Skype from one continent to another, or Google for nudes across the world, will be gone soon.

  • Sheesh, what to do on this one?

    Hate Trump? Sure, but that means defending China.

    Normally that's fine, but in this case ... er, recognize the danger of Islamic militancy, to give China a pass on this?

    Yikes, it's like a minefield for lefties! Which way to turn??

    • I think many lefties are in line with Trump on cracking down on china. They may not be in line with Trump on a whole host of other things such as total disregard for the rule of law or his general swampiness
    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Islamic militancy in China amounts to owning a prayer rug. The problem is China trying to pop. the Xinjiang with Han Chinese. Naturally, the locals took offense.

      The easy choice to denounce both. Trump hasn't learned anything new since the 1970s, after he was safe from the Vietnam war. Many of his actions can be determined by that mind-set and the fact that he has the attention span of gnat and cannot calculate secondary effects. It isn't as though he's consciously trying to turn the U.S. back to that time,

      • by lgw ( 121541 )

        However, Trump destroys everything he touches, the U.S. is doomed. He's got no positive policies, he's only got negative bull-in-the-china shop reactions to events.

        Well, except for the US economy, the stock market, the North Korea situation, military effectiveness, and the space program, yeah, it's a total wasteland. In 2016 the news told me that if we elected Trump there would be millions of Muslims in death camps. Guess they were right.

    • Hate Trump? Sure, but that means defending China.

      A little bit of cognitive dissonance is no barrier for overwhelming irrational hatred.

      Normally that's fine, but in this case ... er, recognize the danger of Islamic militancy, to give China a pass on this?

      They'd say you're perpetuating a stereotype. Because jihad or martyrdom attacks have nothing to do with Islam, you hateful racist Islamophobic bigot.

      Yikes, it's like a minefield for lefties! Which way to turn??

      Always the path of least resistance.

  • by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @09:27AM (#58635406)

    If the US thinks it can delay China's development this way, it's in for a big surprise. China's cities are already decades ahead of any US city now. Their infrastructure is way more modern than anything USA can offer.

    And with this kind of drum beating from America, more and more people are getting "enlightened" about what Huawei has to offer.

    Guess what, my next device is likely to be from the company as various commentators are saying Huawei devices offer more value for money. On the Google question, I already survive without Google in my life. This list can only get long.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by andydread ( 758754 )
      That is great for you since you think that country is so great why don't you move there? Just don’t criticize the government, or any of it's interests including that company your reference. Lets see what websites they allow you to access or what they allow you to say online while you are living there, Oh and what's your current social score?
      • China does not permit immigration. You have to have a college degree and two years of work experience in a relevant field to even qualify for a job there. The police actively seek out illegal aliens and deport them after 15 days in jail. The employers are fined. Sorry, you can't just move to China.
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The problem with trump's approach is that China will retaliate and US companies and citizens will pay the price.

        • by EvilSS ( 557649 )

          The problem with trump's approach is that China will retaliate and US companies and citizens will pay the price.

          Good. We are complicit in this just as much as China. Consumers allowed companies to move production to China so we could save a few bucks. If it all comes back to bite us in the end, all the better.

          • No, globalists wanted cheap labor and to externalize costs in order to undercut domestic manufacturing. Consumers were quickly deprived of a choice of the origin of the goods they were buying.

            It will most likely come back to bite us in the end, but those responsible will just sail away in their yachts.

      • by dristoph ( 1207920 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @12:50PM (#58636770)

        It is a sad testament to this site's decline that the equivalent of the "If you don't love it leave it!!!!" argument, popular among dying, internet-connected uncles for years, gets a score of 5, Insightful. Congratulations on having the same "unique" insight as every other pre-dementia coot repeating the same nationalistic one-liners while trying to remember to breathe. Now that deserves a participation award!

        • by RedK ( 112790 )

          Which part of his post do you actually disagree with ? Notice he wasn't suggesting, as you put, that the poster actually leave the US to go to China : He was pointing the multiple flaws in trying to paint a positive picture of China. Modern cities ? Sure, you'll enjoy them from your small cell, since your "Social Credit" is nil and the Government didn't like what you had to say.

          But hey, "Modern city!" amiright.

        • by bongey ( 974911 )

          Trying to sound smart while you are really just saying "Orange man bad!!!" .

      • "That is great for you since you think that country is so great why don't you move there? "

        Can someone not say anything positive about another country or negative about their own without getting the "if its so awesome, why don't you move there" argument? Its so childish and an idiotic argument.

    • by SlaveToTheGrind ( 546262 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @09:42AM (#58635498)

      China's cities are already decades ahead of any US city now. Their infrastructure is way more modern than anything USA can offer.

      Copious citations required if you're including older cities like Beijing and Shanghai. If you're just focused on newer cities like Shenzhen, it's unsurprising (but a pointless comparison) when you're starting from scratch and don't have to deal with hundreds of years of legacy infrastructure.

      • China's cities are already decades ahead of any US city now. Their infrastructure is way more modern than anything USA can offer.

        Copious citations required if you're including older cities like Beijing and Shanghai. If you're just focused on newer cities like Shenzhen, it's unsurprising (but a pointless comparison) when you're starting from scratch and don't have to deal with hundreds of years of legacy infrastructure.

        It doesn't matter why, or if there are counterexamples. If most chinese have better infrastructure than most americans then it's true, and if not then it isn't. I don't know which it is, but I know all that other stuff is irrelevant to the question.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          They asked for citations, which were no provided. There are newer towns and cities in the US with all brand new infrastructure too. The vast majority of Chinese villages and cities are not modern at all. GP made a statement backed by no facts at all, which was also quite bold.

    • Here is the electricity infrastructure in Shanghai:

      https://www.alamy.com/stock-ph... [alamy.com]

      China has some new infrastructure projects, and a lot of omg wtf infrastructure.

  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @09:57AM (#58635572)

    Any kind of protectionism is a very bad sign. Pushing it is, like Trump now seems to be doing, is worse. It never helps, it delays necessary improvements and has the problems just hit a lot harder a bit later.

    • The significant argument is that China is a mercantilist power. And while free trade remains, in my view, theoretically correct in a best-case scenario, when the world's second-largest economy is both aggressively mercantilist economically and aggressively revisionist geopolitically you can't simply look at economic equations when you're making policy. These people who make everything we consume are literally our slaves because of "free trade". There is no humane way to under cut China, who cares literally

    • by eaglesrule ( 4607947 ) <eaglesrule@NosPAM.pm.me> on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @02:06PM (#58637260)

      Any kind of protectionism is a very bad sign. Pushing it is, like Trump now seems to be doing, is worse. It never helps, it delays necessary improvements and has the problems just hit a lot harder a bit later.

      "free trade" as it stands is just a euphemism for exploitation. Trade could have been used to work towards parity of ecological protection and human rights, but it's obvious why it isn't.

      While bringing millions of people out of poverty through trade is a noble goal, enriching a government that will keep them bound in inescapable tyranny is most definitely not. The result will be that the greed that we have been ruled by will have helped create a massive industrial base in a country where millions of men will never have wives. China will find a way to keep their people occupied, one way or another. Sadly it'd be pretty typical to send off our poor to die in a war at great expense with an enemy that our own corporate interests created.

      Even if Trump is doing right thing for the wrong reasons, it's still in our own long term interests not to prop up China any more than we already have.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Even if Trump is doing right thing for the wrong reasons, it's still in our own long term interests not to prop up China any more than we already have.

        It is not that simple. China is not "propped up", it is just the cheapest source for a lot of things now and quite a few things are not even made in other places anymore or cannot easily be made in the numbers needed. I do agree that anything that is good for China is a problem at this time. But more and more so is anything that is good for the US. If you had not noticed, the US is already an early-stage police-state and it is slowly going in the direction of China. Remember that the "social credit score" i

        • China is not "propped up", it is just the cheapest source

          Once you factor in externalized costs, it's not the cheapest source. Only the most profitable for the same group of people who control your 'representatives' through campaign contributions.

          For example, a study estimated that 9 out of the 10 rivers responsible for most of the plastic entering the oceans were located in Asia. [www.ufz.de] What is the cost of having to consume microplastics whenever you want eat seafood?

          "the lesser evil" argument is just a whataboutism. I can take the position of being against allowing fa

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Your moral high-ground is bogus. Your "TCO" argument is bogus as well, as it does not translate to anything practical and is not even relevant. Also, you simply ignored that argument that things can often be not even made anymore someplace else in the required quantities. You are basically just grandstanding, safe in the knowledge that _you_ will never be called upon to do anything that works.

  • "may constitute crimes against humanity"

    Sorry sir, you have lost all credibility.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @10:49AM (#58635884)

    I thought you R's were for free trade! I thought you R's were against unilateral action taken by one person, without review of the other parts!

    I'm not a huge fan of China here, but I definitely don't support the President just being able to order that nobody can do business with a certain company. We're supposed to have separation of powers, and due process in this country. This ain't due process! This resembles a dictatorship.

    So I implore whatever Republicans that still have any principles left, stand up to this guy! Stop falling in line just because the guy is president! Stand up for due process, and against unchecked power!

  • by Anonymous Coward

    ... our action on behalf of the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities. And I look forward to their blowing up some facility of ours in the near future as repayment for such altruism.

  • The lawmakers said China's actions in its western region of Xinjiang "may constitute crimes against humanity" and urged tighter U.S. export controls to ensure that U.S. companies are not assisting the Chinese government's crackdown there. China has faced growing condemnation from Western capitals and rights groups for setting up facilities that U.N. experts describe as mass detention centers holding more than 1 million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims.

    So I'm curious why there isn't a jihad against China?
    Where is the condemnation from the Islamic world?

    "Western capitals" are the ones condemning?

  • "The facilities or camps that have opened are vocational training centers, the government has said."

    Ji Sing Pow
    Training Muslim detainees in how to make little rock from big rocks the hard way since 2017.

  • We could always say that any Chinese investment can only own 49% of a US company, and require US owners for the other 51 percent, with free access to the product and its blueprints....

  • Trump administration wants a war, no matter of it's Cold :P

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