Trump's Facts-Optional Assault On Chinese Tech Continues With Blocking Of Xiaomi

from the glass-houses dept

All of these statements can be true:

• The Chinese government engages in all manner of dangerous, unethical behavior and Chinese companies should be carefully monitored for threats to national security, facing productive penalties when public evidence is provided.
• The US government engages in all manner of dangerous, unethical behavior and US companies should be carefully monitored for threats to national security, facing productive penalties when public evidence is provided.
• Some of the US hyperventilation over Chinese tech and telecom is xenophobic nonsense exploited by US companies for financial gain.

Throughout the Trump administration's assault on Chinese companies, transparent evidence of wrongdoing has been an afterthought. There was little to no evidence provided by the administration to justify its year-long assault on TikTok, which arguably distracted government leaders from far more pressing threats to national security. Similarly, while blocklisted network hardware vendor Huawei engages in some atrocious behavior around the world, evidence that the company directly spies on US citizens at the behest of China (the core accusation) has also never been publicly proven, despite ample hyperventilation.

Fast forward to last week, when the Trump administration announced it had blocklisted Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi for its alleged ties to the Chinese military:

"The Defense Department said that Xiaomi, along with eight other firms it added to its blacklist, was working to support China’s People’s Liberation Army by giving it access to its technology. In a statement, the Defense Department accused Xiaomi of being part of an orchestrated campaign to support the "modernization goals of the People's Liberation Army by ensuring its access to advanced technology and expertise."

The problem, again, is that there's no evidence of this, and when the shoe is on the other foot, US companies get understandably angry. Xiaomi, which recently passed Apple to become the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, has denied any connection to the Chinese military, and the Trump administration has provided no evidence that one exists. A not insubstantial portion of these efforts are driven by xenophobia and greed (in many instances US companies just don't want to compete with cheaper kit), yet there's an over-arching pretense in the press that this somehow isn't the case.

The other problem we like to downplay is the US' blistering hypocrisy on this subject. US telecom giant AT&T is fused so tightly to our global intelligence efforts, you'd have a hard time physically determining where AT&T ends and the NSA begins. The US had no problem breaking into Huawei to install its own backdoors, or stealing network hardware in transit to install backdoors, or, you know, spying on absolutely everybody, including allies, all the time, for several generations, with zero respect for boundaries or the rule of law. We provided IT support to a continent of brutal fascists during Operation Condor, for fuck's sake.

If the US wants to be taken seriously on this subject, it has a hell of a lot of work to do, starting with leading by example. And again, if there's direct evidence that a Chinese company has been spying on Americans, then provide it and let's have a transparent conversation about it. But most coverage and discussion of Trump's war on Chinese tech involves pretending a lack of public evidence is okay, pretending the US' dodgy history on this very subject doesn't exist, pretending that a lot of these efforts aren't driven by bigotry or simple greed, and pretending that the Trump administration has any idea whatsoever what it's doing.

Filed Under: china, donald trump
Companies: xiaomi

Chinese State Patent Troll Absorbed By Smartphone Maker Xiaomi, Adding To Its Patent Hoard

from the but-will-it-come-in-peace? dept

A couple of years ago, we wrote about Ruichuan IPR Funds, which seemed to be a rather odd kind of patent troll -- one that was essentially backed by the Chinese government. Since then, Ruichuan has dropped off the radar in the West, but there have been some important changes in its home country, as reported on the IAM blog:

China's first patent fund is now being run as part of the Xiaomi IP function, IAM can exclusively reveal. When last we reported on the Ruichuan IPR Funds its status was somewhat unclear. The fund's operator, an IP services firm called Zhigu, had apparently been merged with the smartphone company's in-house IP department, but there had been no official word on the move.

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Filed Under: china, patent trolls, patents, protectionism, smartphones
Companies: ruichuan ipr funds, xiaomi

Chinese Smartphone Leader Xiaomi Adds Special New Feature In Order To Enter US Market -- A Patent Hoard

from the I've-a-feeling-we're-not-in-Beijing-anymore dept

The smartphone sector is undergoing an upheaval at the moment, as Chinese manufacturers move up the global market share rankings. Already, the third, fourth and fifth places are occupied by Chinese companies: Huawei, Lenovo and Xiaomi. But it's the last of these that has emerged as the real star. Although Xiaomi was only founded in 2010, in 2014, the company sold 61 million phones, and hopes to sell 100 million in 2015. Much of that growth will come from outside China: Xiaomi has already started selling its products across Southeast Asia, especially in India, as well as in Mexico, Turkey, Russia and Brazil.

Now it is aiming to enter perhaps the toughest market of all: the US. But it knows that offering hugely-popular products at extremely competitive prices is not enough. If it wants to survive in the US -- never mind thrive -- there is one more thing that it must have, as this report in re/code explains:

Xiaomi international head Hugo Barra said on Thursday that the Chinese electronics company is looking to file more patents and strike more deals ahead of a launch into the U.S. market.

The move is essential if Xiaomi really wants to play in the U.S. and Europe, where intellectual property issues are taken seriously.

…

Xiaomi has already filed for 2,000 patents, Barra said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

“Think of it as, like, a war chest of sorts,” Barra said, adding that the company is also systematically taking patent licenses, especially for standards-essential patents.

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Filed Under: china, patents, smartphones
Companies: xiaomi

China's Top Mobile Company Complains About Counterfeits

from the delicious-irony dept

The rise of China has been predicted for a while now, and in the field of technology we are already seeing Chinese companies that are likely to have a global impact. One manifestation of that is the $25 billion US IPO of Alibaba -- roughly, China's equivalent of eBay, but much bigger -- which was the largest in history. Another is Xiaomi, only founded in 2010, but already shipping 61 million smartphones a year. Writing in the Guardian, Charles Arthur called it "China's Apple", although Apple’s head of design, Jonathan Ive, is not too enamored of the comparison:

when asked about the company last October [Ive] was blunt: he "didn’t see [the similarities in design] as flattery" and called the superficial similarity in appearance of Xiaomi's phones and software "theft" and "lazy".

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Filed Under: china, copying, counterfeits, innovation
Companies: xiaomi