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US Steps Up Campaign To Purge Chinese Apps (afr.com) 78

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
The Trump administration said late Wednesday it was stepping up efforts to purge "untrusted" Chinese apps from US digital networks and called the Chinese-owned short-video app TikTok and messenger app WeChat "significant threats." From a report: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said expanded US efforts on a program it calls "Clean Network" would focus on five areas and include steps to prevent various Chinese apps, as well as Chinese telecoms companies, from accessing sensitive information on American citizens and businesses. Mr Pompeo's announcement comes after US President Donald Trump threatened to ban TikTok. The hugely popular video-sharing app has come under fire from US lawmakers and the administration over national security concerns, amid intensified tensions between Washington and Beijing.

"With parent companies based in China, apps like TikTok, WeChat and others are significant threats to personal data of American citizens, not to mention tools for CCP [Chinese Communist Party] content censorship," Mr Pompeo said. In an interview with state news agency Xinhua on Wednesday, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said the United States "has no right" to set up the "Clean Network" and calls the actions by Washington as "a textbook case of bullying." "Anyone can see through clearly that the intention of the US is to protect it's monopoly position in technology and to rob other countries of their proper right to development," said Mr Wang.
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US Steps Up Campaign To Purge Chinese Apps More

US Steps Up Campaign To Purge Chinese Apps

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  • The US is a net exporter of tech (Score:5, Insightful)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @10:26AM (#60372767)
    I hope we aren't proceeding on the assumption this will work one-way

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Apple must be very worried, they have a lot of apps and phones in China.

      • US banning Chinese social media apps would merely be matching Chinese policy on US social media apps, where Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc are banned. Even Vine (the inspiration for TikTok) was banned back in the day.

        Banning Apple would be a new escalation, unless they ban Apple from sourcing specific Chinese components ala US vs Huawei, but then again there are no such comparable Chinese sourced components in Apple products.

    • That ship has already sailed. We are mid-negotiations for trade, censorship, and so on. This is not a starting point, but a response

    • Re:The US is a net exporter of tech (Score:5, Interesting)

      by N1AK ( 864906 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @12:17PM (#60373301) Homepage
      Not to defend Trump or protectionism generally, but China has spent decades creating artificial barriers for foreign firms and it always struck me as a mistake that this was allowed without much challenge, this is at most it starting to be a two way street; I can only assume everyone was so confident that China would eventually become remotely democratic and less protectionist as it became wealthier so let it slide for all that time.

      • Re:The US is a net exporter of tech (Score:5, Insightful)

        by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @12:28PM (#60373367)
        Oh, I agree. And exposing our workers directly to competition by practically slave labor could not have turned out entirely well.

        I actually thought Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership deal was the way to go, even after it became a political liability in the last campaign and Hillary withdrew her support. Market forces create demand in both directions and governance is needed, but just lashing out with no larger vision is just going to make an expensive mess.

        • Oh, I agree. And exposing our workers directly to competition by practically slave labor could not have turned out entirely well.

          I actually thought Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership deal was the way to go, even after it became a political liability in the last campaign and Hillary withdrew her support. Market forces create demand in both directions and governance is needed, but just lashing out with no larger vision is just going to make an expensive mess.

          Re foreign interference... China leans towards Biden, as an rational, though firm adversery. Trump looks to Puten for help and in return, to protect Trumps hotel and property investments in Moscow.

      • It was allowed when their economy was developing (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @12:52PM (#60373479)
        because without it their economy would've been steamrolled by existing economies. The theory was that eventually America would get access to Chinese consumers who would become vast new sources of profit.

        And you know what, they're right. We export billions of dollars of goods to China. There's just one small problem.... the Average American worker sees none of that. Their jobs were shipped away, their wages collapsed and all they got was this crummy t-shirt made in a sweat shop.

        Global trade and immigration are both good things for a society that takes care of it's people and makes an effort to maintain a decent standard of living for everyone. In our Dog Eat Dog puritanical country it's just a race to the bottom.

        That said I don't think we can put the Genie that is China back in the bottle. And our population is aging largely because people don't want more than 1 or 2 kids, so we're gonna need immigration.

        We're better off creating social structures that take the wealth from all that and use it to ensure everybody's got a decent life. Trouble is that conflicts with deeply ingrained notions of puritanicalism and work.

        • Re:It was allowed when their economy was developin (Score:5, Insightful)

          by lgw ( 121541 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @01:03PM (#60373539) Journal

          And you know what, they're right. We export billions of dollars of goods to China. There's just one small problem.... the Average American worker sees none of that. Their jobs were shipped away, their wages collapsed and all they got was this crummy t-shirt made in a sweat shop.

          I'm not sure "export" is even the right word. Often it's a Chinese factory making goods for the Chinese market, with a US firm getting a cut for providing the capital and IP. That's more or less what the Chinese government insists on, and by itself it seems fine. However, it's ridiculous to have a situation where that's happening in China, but in the US it's Chinese workers making goods for the US markets and the US firms get a cut. That's not a trade deal, that's capitulation.

          That arrangement benefits the wealthy elite, and to be fair retirees and other moderately wealth folk, but it's disproportionately bad for workers. It's an abandonment of the US government's duty to look after its citizens.

          • No, we do actually export a lot of things (Score:4, Insightful)

            by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @02:08PM (#60373865)
            most notably food & booze, but also high end medical equipment, medicine and even some consumer goods. We also get back a ton of finished goods made for cheap and with very low environmental standards (which is why you can buy a decent laptop computer for $300-$400 bucks). That does have a net positive impact (though it's morally questionable) on American standards of living.

            Again though cheap consumer goods and the opportunity to sell to Chinese consumers doesn't balance the collapse of wages for most Americans.

            Isolationism isn't the answer, not because of whether it's good or bad, but because we're not likely to get away with it. Trump has done a lot of grandstanding but he hasn't really done all that much. And as mentioned we can't slash immigration and expect to have a functioning economy in 20-40 years. There won't be enough young folk to support the old folk.

            We'd be much better off focusing on taking all that wealth and doing something constructive with it.

      • Except, that it has nothing to do with protecting US companies, just a revenge for a certain seats booking campaign.
        If China does the same, what is there for US companies, which this move suppose to help?

        A general comment: things do not look good and it's getting worse for open and free humankind, China has a great firewall, Russia requires all data be stored within Russia, now US joined, soon (hopefully not) the Internet will start to fraction and people will fall for politicians scare mongering and star

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by poity ( 465672 )

          If China does the same

          Foreign social media apps are already banned in China. In this situation, China can't respond in kind as they've already used all those cards, they can only escalate by banning some company in lieu of an app. However such an escalation would hit them in the face after having accused the US of being provocative.

          • If China does the same

            Foreign social media apps are already banned in China. In this situation, China can't respond in kind as they've already used all those cards, they can only escalate by banning some company in lieu of an app. However such an escalation would hit them in the face after having accused the US of being provocative.

            Not all, from what I know only Google. Apple, Facebook and more are all available, however my point was, if this is considered a bad behaviour against freedom we stand for, why to do the same? If somebody does some mischief, is it OK to just do the same? How does banning Chinese apps help? I understand government and military, which should not be a place for social apps anyway, but how does it stand for what US represents to ban all citizens from using an app, because it's foreign?

  • I don't know anyone in the US who uses WeChat except for Chinese immigrants.

  • Sounds like an echo from bad times (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bickerdyke ( 670000 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @10:42AM (#60372853)

    As a German I may be biased, but this triggers an eerie echo of signs from 33 to 45.

    • Why, are you *that* old? And why not the Iron Curtain that only disappeared thirty years ago? That was a significantly more prominent barrier to intellectual trade. Hell, Dehomag still operated in Germany back then.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 )

      Rejecting software and hardware because the Chinese government has a hand in it is the same as gassing Jews in showers?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by N1AK ( 864906 )
      I'm glad you're aware of the lessons of the past but I think we need to be careful about intepretation. I'd argue you could draw parallels between the same time period saying that the West has appeased China's behaviour for far too long which is encouraging them to push further and further. I agree with your point that some of the anti-chinese rhetoric is hateful and targetted at them as a people, however that doesn't mean critiscism of, and policies aimed at, their government are neccesarily bad.

      • You're absolutely right.

        But that's exactlky why the actual wording is so important. Because that's what could turn a legitimate criticism into a racist rant. Chinese gouvernment and human righty leave more than enough opportunity for criticism. But I haven't heard anything about that. And are Chinese spies really the only spies we need to be worried about?

        In the curent 5G hardware discussion, one of my biggest surprises was that none of possible vendor agreed to a complete, independent security audit. Excep

  • It takes a special kind of face... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by munehiro ( 63206 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @10:49AM (#60372891) Journal

    > Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said the United States "has no right" to set up the "Clean Network" and calls the actions by Washington as "a textbook case of bullying."

    It takes guts to say that, after basically almost all of the Western services are banned by the great firewall since years.

    > "Anyone can see through clearly that the intention of the US is to protect it's monopoly position in technology and to rob other countries of their proper right to development," said Mr Wang.

    Protect their monopoly? Chinese have alternatives for basically every Western service, mostly because they want full freedom to censor and send the police to those who don't please the regime.

    It takes a special kind of face to say what Mr Wang just said. I suggest Mr Wang to put his name where his mouth is.

    • So China does this, and it's bad and they should be punished. But is the solution for the US government to engage in counter-censorship, and restricting (possibly illegally) it's own citizens rights?

      I would instead suggest that trade with China is inherently unequal, and rather than trying to be as bad as China, we should instead ensure that we can be independent of them and satisfy our trade needs. This could mean both infrastructure and government subsidy within the US, as well as strengthening less autho

      • The basis of international trade is reciprocity. The Western countries have closed an eye on that hoping that Chine would liberalize, but it's the moment to stop. This is not censorship, it's trade policy.

    • Hypocrisy all around (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Comboman ( 895500 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @11:00AM (#60372937)
      It also takes a lot of hypocrisy for the US to claim (without evidence) that Chinese apps are spying on Americans, while simultaneously lobbying American companies like Google and Apple to put backdoors into their encrypted communications apps so that the US government can do exactly the same thing that they accuse China of doing.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jythie ( 914043 )
        Yeah, rhetoric and nationalism aside, I read this as a case of US authorities wanting companies that they have legal power over to be the ones collecting data. Though I am also wondering, with all those talks between the federal government and big tech lately, if some agreement was reached where the government will eliminate some of their biggest competition in exchange for something.

      • Re:Hypocrisy all around (Score:5, Insightful)

        by UtsuMaster ( 874626 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @11:37AM (#60373089)

        Its not hypocritical because its not even remotely the same thing.

        Every time an American trash talks Trump on social media they get disappeared to a reeducation camp? If the government finds out you belong to a troublesome minority like, say, blacks, you get forcibly sterilised? Maybe one day we will be able to talk openly about Trump Derangement Syndrome instead coming up with highly obfuscated ways to talk about politics, like embedding meaning in cartoons, numbers, and other seemingly harmless codewords? No, not even close.

        Even white supremacists are openly retarded about their politics in the US. Think about what this freedom means. And think about a country lacking all of it. And tell me again how trying to find some balance between public security and personal encryption is the exact same thing as going full authoritarian?

        Also, if you need evidence, WeChat even had a press release talking about how they are so cool and technologically advanced and use the messaging content on the global application to train their domestic censorship algorithms.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
        Chinese apps are spying on all users. Every major Chinese company also has a Chinese government handler. Not hard to see how the Chinese government could gain access to all this information if they want it.

        Honestly, it's probably used mostly to monitor Chinese nationals.. but can you tell me with a straight face that if they had access to a high ranking gov't officials data, they wouldn't take a peek? I know the US gov't definitely would.

  • "untrusted" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    That's swell at first glance, but the government does not have the capacity to figure out which code citizens trust and which code they don't. To me, "untrusted" includes anything for which users are denied access to the source code or the ability to maintain. To you, it might mean something different. To the government, you damn well know it's virtually arbitrary with little connection to reality, other than "Chinese!!!1" and while I don't necessarily disagree with them on this particular code, they're cov

  • No doubt the US gov will be importing Chinese Great Firewall experts to help implement the Great American Freedom Wall

  • The solution to all of this? (Score:3)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @11:18AM (#60373015)
    IMO it seems to me the only way to correct problems like this is to only allow communist countries to trade with other communist countries. Corporations based outside of communist countries using communist labor are by extension just as evil as the communist parties in control. These corporations should be shamed for having done this in the first place. Only allow communism to deal with communism and watch it wither on the vine.
    • Presuming you consider China to be communist, it is not withering on the vine.
      • No, it isn't, because economic doors in the west were opened to it (fox in the hen house so to speak). The CCP is now using the wealth it has accumulated to infiltrate and influence. And yes, China is not only considered communist, it is communist.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Lol. China hasn't really been communist in a long time.

          China is authoritarian. I realize Americans have been purposely scared shitless from a young age because they've been "at war" with "communism" for seventy years plus, but communism and authoritarianism aren't the same thing.

          There are lots of communes, including a bunch in the US. If you're anywhere in the northeast US, you're probably within a day's drive of one.

          Authoritarianism is where the people in power tell everyone else what to do, or else, and t

          • "an overbearing infringement of personal freedom" Holy cow man, what happened on June 4th, 1989 in China?!?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

              I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Are you implying that China is not authoritarian because the reaction to the Tiananmen square protests was not an infringement of personal freedom?

    • This does not happen in a vacuum. It only happens with the direction of western governments, that their citizens and companies should engage with China.

      If you have problems with the policy, as many are having now, more and more, as their domestic panopticon grinds the Chinese people under a boot of watchful control, then this ks what fight back by the west looks like.

      Hurt those in China who got skyrocketting wealth as these apps went way up in value. It will either be officials directly, or indirectly who

  • So China can build an internet firewall to censor their citizens and prevent foreign compaigns from serving their products in China, but the US can't do what is more or less the same thing (for presumably different reasons)? Okay, China.

    • Considering that the USA pretends that it stands for free markets and China does not, yep.
      It is just as ridiculous as USA complaining about China delaying election in Hong Kong just one day after Trump suggested doing the same in the USA.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by N1AK ( 864906 )
        It really isn't unless Trump also banned a dozen people from running in the elections, and guess what Trump raising the prospect was followed incredibly quickly by just about everyone including his own party saying it would go ahead on schedule; if anything you're highlighting just how big a gap there is by showing that even with a leader who would happily throw American values out the window for political advantage the 'system' stopped it from happening, while in Hong Kong which was promised freedoms by th

  • Can We Call It Fascism Yet? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by multi io ( 640409 ) <olaf.klischat@googlemail.com> on Thursday August 06, 2020 @11:56AM (#60373177)
    The Government blanketly banning Chinese apps from an app store in the US is a violation of the first amendment, plain and simple. It doesn't matter in this context that the Chinese Government has been doing the same thing to US apps and western tech products in China for years, because China does not have freedom of speech. The whole point of the First Amendment is to establish freedom of speech in the US, so if the Government violates that law, it violates it no matter what other countries do or don't do.

    • I suggest you read the text of the first amendment.

    • The Government blanketly banning Chinese apps from an app store in the US is a violation of the first amendment, plain and simple. It doesn't matter in this context that the Chinese Government has been doing the same thing to US apps and western tech products in China for years, because China does not have freedom of speech. The whole point of the First Amendment is to establish freedom of speech in the US, so if the Government violates that law, it violates it no matter what other countries do or don't do.

      Ah, the usual argument of the non-lawyer - all US Constitutional rights are completely absolute.

      I'm not a lawyer. But I've got friends who are. And I promise you that I know more about how US law really works than you do. So let me tackle this.

      1) First of all, no Constitutionally guaranteed rights are absolute. The classic example of this is that you can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater to cause a panic when there is no fire and then no one can touch you legally because of "free speech" i

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by poity ( 465672 )

      This argument from values is really the most persuasive argument (and only one that makes sense to me). Like the NFL kneeling protests, Trump and other Americans don't have to like TikTok, but all Americans should embrace the spirit of free speech that allow these things.

  • Hahahaha (Score:3)

    by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Thursday August 06, 2020 @12:11PM (#60373263)
    Hilarious. Old man yells at cloud. There is no legal or logistical way to do any of this. The contortions that the Trump administration is going through to blame their catastrophic virus response on China are unbelievable.
    • and has a 7-2 Supreme Court majority and a Senate that'll rubber stamp literally anything he does.

      Or do you actually think the Democrats will stand up to him? The guns rights folks certainly won't, they proved that when they turned a blind eye to his Gestapo tactics in Portland and his threat to postpone the election. And it's come out that 40% of Republicans (and 4% of Dems) don't think Democracy is the right way to govern the country...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DogDude ( 805747 )
        I agree that we have a completely corrupt federal government right now. But even so, how would it be enforced? How could the federal government stop people from downloading an "app" for their "phones"?

  • Full on track, are we, Mr. Trump?

    We'll talk again, after the end of the war, in 2045.

  • At that point, the Chinese will have 100% confidence that the US is spying on users.

    There is one, and only one, good answer: open-source replacements, so both US and Chinese authorities can look for backdoors.

    Oh, oops, sorry, there are no qualified US "authorities", only ignorant, anti-science supporters, yes men, and contributors of the Orange Hairball.

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