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How big a threat is Chinese tech?

Published on 22 Comments on How big a threat is Chinese tech?

TikTok is a Chinese surveillance and propaganda tool. Chinese-made cranes in US ports are a national security threat. Huawei routers and 5G infrastructure contain backdoors that allow the Chinese government to monitor and disrupt US phone and internet services. Consumer hobbyist drones made in China could provide sensitive images and geographical data to Beijing. Chinese cars "could collect sensitive data about our citizens and our infrastructure and send this data back to the People’s Republic of China," according to President Biden.

That's a lot of Chinese tech that allegedly poses a national security threat. And maybe it does. But with the exception of Huawei, all of these threats come from ordinary companies whose products collect routine data, just like American products do. In other words, the threat isn't sneaky tech, it's the possibility that the Chinese government could demand to see data about US consumers held on company servers.

This applies to literally any Chinese tech, since centralized data collection is a standard part of the modern tech universe. So are all these threats real? Or just excuses for protectionist policies in the guise of national security? That's above my pay grade, but I can't say I'm not starting to get skeptical.

22 thoughts on “How big a threat is Chinese tech?”

  1. Doctor Jay

    Personal data can be used to fuel influence campaigns and information warfare. Using personal data they can target the most susceptible people via Facebook etc with propaganda "ads" and links. This has already happened and is laid out in the Mueller Report and the Senate Intelligence Committee (run by Republicans at the time) report on the Russian information warfare campaign in 2016.

    Those efforts haven't stop. It's likely the Chinese are trying stuff like this too.

  2. RiChard

    Nobody knows for sure, so it's the perfect thing to scare people with. Doesn't mean it is or isn't true, just that you can do whatever you want with it.

  3. ctownwoody

    Intent matters. Reputation matters. China's been caught collecting covert surveillance on citizens/former citizens abroad through its intelligence agency. It's not had a history of tolerating dissent (or much short of full-throated party-line). No jumping to conclusions, just following the facts and discovering conclusions at your feet.
    Next question is whether these are 'facts' or not. And China has a reputation for secrecy and deception on such matters. Again, conclusions at your feet are not necessarily 'facts,' but China does a poor job of combatting drawing those conclusions with anything more than unsupported denials.

  4. kahner

    The opportunity for the Chinese government to use this private company data against the US and to promote their interests exists. So the question is, what do you think an authoritarian regime in their position would choose to do? I know my guess.

  5. ritterjcat

    China can (and probably does) purchase any and all of this information from data brokers who aggregate and sell to anyone the data already collected by all the "American" products we already have. My sense is that most if not all of this is protectionist scaremongering. It's very hard to take complaints about China violating privacy seriously when literally no effort is made to protect our privacy from non-Chinese companies.

    2. Jasper_in_Boston

      My sense is that most if not all of this is protectionist scaremongering.

      This. Also, patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels. That's not to say the government of China are a nice bunch of folks. Far from it! But the possibility of using countermeasures (like, implementing controls on data-gathering itself) seems not to even be under discussion. Would such a move really be so impossible? America's abilities in technology remain well above China's. We could simply implement reciprocity with respect to China's practices regarding foreign products. Plenty of Teslas and MacBooks are sold in China. How do the Communists mitigate the risk that using our products will enable us to spy on them?

      But on the bright side, Americans are now paying the highest prices on the planet for EVs. So at least there's that!

      https://www.bankrate.com/insurance/car/can-americans-afford-car-ownership-costs/

    1. Jasper_in_Boston

      I like Noah Smith just fine on economics. But on foreign policy it's a always: a noun plus a verb plus "China scary!"

      TikTok's parent was supposedly in talks with Oracle to house US consumer data domestically. Whatever happened to that? Is it just technically infeasible? I don't see why that would be the case. One suspects the real answer is: it went away because TikTok's US competitors (most especially Meta, but also Google and X, and really anybody who sells advertising services) would strongly prefer not to have a major competitor in their market.

  8. shapeofsociety

    It may be that Biden is truly concerned about Chinese surveillance *and* wants to protect Detroit from Chinese competition.

  9. D_Ohrk_E1

    If you, the CCP, want to shut down a tech hub city to prevent or limit a response to a massive cyber attack, it would be useful if you knew that the backbone network comprised of X-Chinese brand routers with back doors.

    Or maybe you want to invade a country, so you go ahead and disable all networks so that you have an early advantage to limit communications and response to your invasion.

    While last week's leak on Github revealed the extent of one Chinese cybersecurity's hacking exploits (of governments from South Korea to Taiwan and everything in-between, and of NATO's Jens Stoltenberg), the CCP could support such an APT by issuing a directive to the Chinese manufacturer of those backbone network routers. That would be far more extensive and useful for the CCP, and no one would notice until it was too late.

    Most messaging isn't E2E/P2P encrypted, and there has been lots of instances where companies were "hacked" because their data traffic, including logins, weren't encrypted, either. But we won't know the full extent of the CCP's reach until they're at the edge of a war with a country. Is that the risk you want America to take?

    I can't imagine a POTUS, regardless of political leanings, willingly taking that risk, even if slight.

  13. different_name

    I can only speak to topics I know something about here, so I'll limit this to network devices.

    US intelligence has a long history of backdooring equipment. Cisco, Juniper and others have all been compromised multiple times. A lot of people are skeptical about this when I tell them, but it is public knowledge, google it. And there are lots more suggestive stories and events that point to the same thing without hard proof, anyone else remember the _NSAKEY in Microsoft Windows?

    So.

    Anyone who works with this stuff knows US intelligence can most likely compromise their network at will.

    There is zero reason to expect China to expend less energytrying to compromise us than our own government does.

    So if you agree with me about those two statements, you effectively have a perverse choice of governance question - would you rather risk being p0wn3d by your intelligence agency or China's?

    1. Jasper_in_Boston

      I think for the reasons you state it's probably prudent to keep Chinese products out of the core of our telecommunications infrastructure. But cars?

  15. Crissa

    Don't be skeptical. Centralized data - at least outside the border - is a big problem. It enables abusers.

    Worse, placing things in centralized repositories when unnecessary, means devices stop working when their host company goes down... or just when the internet hiccups.

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