Surrounding culture the company is embedded in. As an European I'd always favor an US company over a Chinese one that's linked to a dictatorship.

I just saw this story regarding Afghanistan:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/28/admission-colos...

Were any of the war criminals that lied us into Iraq prosecuted? Nope. Did the NSA modify Cisco routers and tap the phones of its EU allies? Yes.

Is Guantanamo Bay still open? Did the U.S. just commit an international crime by assassinating a top Iranian diplomat?

Am asking all these questions, because while the U.S. is still better domestically, (be it with huge cracks, even on that front), I'd say that internationally it isn't as clear cut as I'd once have agreed with you it is.

But it wont get any better if people keep supporting dictatorships. Dictatorships are like cheatcodes for economic growth, countries like China can move much faster because of that, and put pressure on other countries that aren't dictatorships to become more dictatorship like to be able to keep up. You make things worse in your own country by supporting them and giving them even more power.

You know there's a 3rd option right?

I do not support China, but neither do I 'support' the U.S. That's a false choice.

I have a bit more nuanced view of things. For example I do not support the government of Iran, but I also think the U.S. does not have any right to vilify it 24/7 like it does, as long as they're so closely buddy, buddy with Saudi Arabia, since Iran is, for all its faults, more democratic than KSA is.

So if anything, I'd support the EU becoming more independent of U.S. influence and providing a proper counter-balance on the international stage to both the U.S. and China.

If you asked those same questions in China you would risk police visiting your house and taking you in for "questioning."

This false equivalence between the USA and China is really obnoxious. It's not even close.

Domestically the U.S. is still better, abet getting more repressive by the day.

Internationally however, and since I don't live in China more relevant to me, it's not so clear cut.

I'm not saying China is more moral than the U.S., I am simply saying that when it comes to international behavior the case for the U.S. being clearly more moral isn't as clear.

Personally, I'd prefer the EU to assert itself more independently from the U.S. so there's some counterbalance to it from democratic countries as well.

As for specifically Huawei, I don't want the NSA to have my data, but I know they already do, per Snowden. The case for Huawei having them is a lot less clear.

I know for some people it's 'obvious' that they do, but I'd like to work with cold, hard evidence.

Now, the U.S. is known for its outrageous overreach far, far outside its borders, just look at the Kim Dotcom raid, so the NSA having all the data has been demonstrated to have extremely negative implications.

The case against Huawei has not been made so convincingly and no, I do not trust the NSA/FBI to make the case.

And as an Australian living in Europe I think both options suck but at least I'm yet to see any evidence of China putting backdoors into networking equipment. In fact, less biased countries have evaluated Huawei's equipment and found no issues.

Now, but what about updates to the software for those appliances? Or do they only aquire the hardware and write their own software on top of it? How would you even find a bug that you don't know the existence of, that wasn't fixed or overlooked intentionally if you aren't the developer and can't be aware of all the inter-dependencies of the software stack?

General trust is more important here than finding something or not finding something now. Dictatorships are just not trustworthy, and they wont change into non dictatorships with continued support.

The "we didn't find backdoors bs" is a pseudo argument, in reality it's fear of economic retailiation against other industries that sell there.

What does it matter if China is a dictatorship and America is nominally democratic?

America has planted backdoors. We have evidence of this. American equipment cannot be trusted. America cannot be trusted.

Perhaps China's government has planted a well-hidden backdoor or perhaps it will order one planted in the future. We don't know. What we do know is that America has definitely done it.

It's a choice between a 0% chance of equipment without backdoors and some nonzero chance of equipment without backdoors. The nonzero chance is clearly better.

It's about the goals and intentions of governments, not backdoors. Backdoors are a cheat for them, to reach their goals easier. What you should ask yourself is which model of society you actually prefer.

I think that's the part where we fundamentally disagree, or at least weigh things differently.

I don't see buying Chinese networking equipment as a choice about society. I see it as a choice about which device best serves my needs. So long as China isn't morally bankrupt (which I do not believe to be the case), I give zero weight to their societal model.

Even if I were weighing models of society against each other, America is only barely ahead of China in my mind. China may do some messed up things like their detention camps but America is no bastion of morality either. America fabricates evidence to invade its enemies, causes the deaths of hundreds of thousands in the process, holds people without trial or due process, tortures people, commits war crimes through assassination, arbitrarily pulls out of international deals, to the detriment of all, and refuses to respect international law to the point where it has declared it will invade one of its allies should one of its people be tried for war crimes.

Maybe China is morally worse, I'm not sure if I believe that at the moment. Whatever the case, I see America as far more dangerous.

Summed up my feelings better than I have. I don't think China is 'better' than the U.S. I just think that automatically assuming all Chinese tech is automatically bugged, while the U.S. can be trusted is a naive view to hold, especially since we outright know the NSA intercepted Cisco HW and modified it, with Huawei, there's been a lot of accusations made by U.S. officials with vested interests, less actual evidence.