Chinese Networking Vendor Huawei's Murky Ownership 170
A month ago we mentioned India's suspicions that telecomm equipment from China might contain backdoors. There hasn't been any smoking gun on such speculation. Now reader littlekorea sends in some background on the ties one important Chinese telecomm vender might or might not have to the government there. "Conspiracy theories abound as to whether networking kit vendor Huawei is owned or controlled by the Chinese government and/or the military-industrial complex. But who really owns Huawei? Kiwi journalist Juha Saarinen headed to Shanghai to find out."
1.42+98.56? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:This is easy (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to work in office where the upper floor was rented by Huawei: At first there would be 2-3 people, but they exponentially grew up to a small (and short) 100 I estimate.
Our cars on the driveway got hit more as there were more chinese and their "parking skills" were so telling, people started parking their cars close to those employers so they could get it through insurance to replace parts of their cars.
During lunch, it was pretty the hallucinant experience as well..
They never talked about their work or interacted with us, but when I inquired with my colleagues, it was the consensus: "They just relabel Cisco hardware and software."
MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why does this matter? (Score:5, Interesting)
Rather analogous to the swarms of "social security reformers" who talk a lot about cash-flow and solvency; but are basically pissed off that all those billions aren't being overseen by Wall Street, for an appropriate fee...
Now, as a separate issue, it seems quite plausible that Huawei's stuff is bugged. A certain "coziness" seems to be virtually inevitable between strategic corporations and the state's military and intelligence arms. That was certainly the case in the (formally) much less government dominated economy of the US during the cold war, I have no reason to suspect that it isn't the case in china now. However, stuff doesn't get bugged because sinister agents of the state buy 51% of the shares, and then introduce a "motion to bug hardware shipped to capitalist running dogs" at the next shareholder meeting. There are much subtler and more tactful ways of getting that done.
Consider, for instance, the tracking codes [eff.org] produced by numerous models of color laser printer, built around print engines produced by a number of different companies, ostensibly as an "anti-counterfeiting measure". This occurred despite the fact that the US Secret Service has no ownership stake in any of the companies involved. Exactly what inducements where used is unknown; but anybody who thinks that stock ownership is particularly relevant is a moron.
Patriot Act is "oppressive"? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This is easy (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, that was exactly what I was going to say, but I'll even go one further: it would surprise me in the least if Huawei's equipment had a backdoor put into Cisco's equipment by the NSA that Huawei didn't catch when stealing the source code.
If the look hard enough, the Indians may well find two backdoors.
Re:This is easy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:are you surprised? (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, get over yourself.
[S]tate-owned companies remain a gargantuan force in the economy. In 2003 they employed half of China's 750 million workers and controlled 57 percent of its industrial assets.
from http://www.forbes.com/2004/11/04/cx_1104mckinseychina6.html [forbes.com]
And what's with the strawman of "10 million people... who's (sic) sole job it is to annoy and slow down their economy"? I never said anything of the sort. By the way:
State-owned companies grow 70% in first four months [of 2010]
from: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90778/90860/6993084.html [people.com.cn]
Re:Coop? (Score:2, Interesting)
More like a Limited Partnership.
In a Co-op it is the customers/members that own the company. And it is the customers/members that have voting rights [which in my mind, is the key question when it comes to ownership.]
It is not a Partnership because the shares don't have voting rights - I think. From the article: "A 'small committee' of 33 union members are elected by other shareholders employed by Huawei to make decisions." I am not sure but it sounds like Huawei selects key people to vote. It sounds like management has captured the voting process.
While this can happen in western style corporations there is always the outside chance of a external shareholder / hostile take over to force management. [See Barbarians At the Gate] I am not seeing this here.
Limited Partnership: General Partners control the partnership and the limited partners are along for the economic ride - with only limited voting rights.
Re:This is easy (Score:0, Interesting)
Umm. The wackos that believe that the US Government is responsible for the 9/11 attacks are left wing, not right wing. Right wing wackos believe that the President of the US dose not have a real birth certificate. Different group. Same wacko level. You are an idiot.
Dismissal instead of investigation, ad-hominem, and quibbling about semantics. Wow, you sure did a fantastic job of answering GP and lent tremendous credibility to your position.
We all know that anyone who questions the official story and notes the wide variety of evidence that is anomalous at best, falsifying of the "pancake theory" at worst, must surely be a wacko. Copernicus questioned Catholic religious cosmology because he noticed evidence inconsistent with it, what a wacko he was. Clearly refusing to even look at such evidence in favor of a blind faith that those in power always have our best interests at heart, would never lie to us, and would never be wrong is the sane man's position.
I think your problem is that those who can question even your sacred cows make your blind faith less comfortable. That's why you have to call them names and dismiss them.
David M Webb gets it (Score:3, Interesting)
If your company spokesman first tells you this:
The shares themselves are known by the Huawei internal term "Virtual Restricted Shares", but according the company spokesman, this is "just a technical name" for otherwise "normal" shares.
Then says this:
Employees allocated shares have to return these when they leave Huawei's employ, according to the spokesman.
Then no those are not shares, everything the spokeman says at this point is likely a lie. Mr. Webb sums it up well:
"Unless and until Huawei becomes a stand-alone widely held listed company with employees free to trade their shares and without a controlling shareholder, these suspicions and allegations will likely continue."
Re:Coop? (Score:3, Interesting)
having this dual structure ie the company is owned by a holding company that is owned by the members of the coop is the way poptel was structured.