I don't get it - CPC has inserted many backdoors in different devices like edge routers and even cell phones, I don't recall U.S. has such a record. Why are you so concerned about U.S. but the China ?

Yeah, the NSA does it, totally cool for the Chinese to do it as well..

This.

Just because the US is run by jackwads, yeah, let's go ahead and let the next super power be run by jackwads too.

What kind of ridiculous thinking is that?

Yeah, because China has not been run by jackwads the whole time. They're just good guys trying to understand the world. Oh, they commited a couple of genocides here and there but they have good intentions.

Dude?

You have done nothing but reinforce the point. If anything, that's even more reason to make sure China is not run by jackwads in the future. I mean, what are you disagreeing with?

That the US is run by jackwads?

or that China should not be run by jackwads when it becomes the superpower?

Or are you just off on some other tangent altogether? (more whataboutism?)

Because this subthread is about the idea that jackwads in China should be able to do something simply because jackwads in the US do it. Which is a patently ridiculous notion.

Lenovo and many other Chinese companies have been caught adding rootkits to their laptops, etc.

Dell and other American companies too.

This is nonsense whataboutism backed by...poor memory??

Also, just because there are concerns about Chinese back-doors does not mean the author is entirely unconcerned about US back-doors, nor does it even tangentially relate to his argument. (In fact, I think the author would agree that both are equally bad.)

At least, however, in the US there are enforceable State and Federal Constitutional protections for citizens and residents that limit the ability of the government to spy on its citizens. Even if these protections are not perfect (they are not) or sometimes abused (they are), they are objectively better than the clusterfk of privacy and rights violations the Chinese state inflicts on its citizens every day, with the consent and complicity of national technology firms.

It may not mean much if you're not a US Citizen (it shouldn't) but like it or not this is a new front of national security, and to "not get it" is to miss the point entirely.