Why pick on Huawei when all advanced technologies, including those from the US, carry security risks?

HONG KONG: Anyone supposing Huawei products are spying on them or that they are a security risk hasn’t given any thought to the technology already around them.

Apple and Samsung smartphones, voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, Facebook and Google, among so many others, collect and store and even share endless amounts of data about us whenever we activate them.

Those big tech companies often also work with governments and militaries and it’s anyone’s guess what gets passed on, as whistle-blower Edward Snowden so helpfully revealed in his leak of United States spy agency documents. To trust one and not the other, simply because one is Western and the other Chinese, is nothing but xenophobia and, dare I say, racist. 

We all know by now that Huawei is being targeted by US President Donald Trump’s administration because it’s a large chunk of the Chinese threat to American superpower dominance. Arrest its officials, ban its products and make people scared to have anything to do with it, and US firms and those of American allies can continue to dominate.

Anyone who has a top-end Huawei phone can understand the desire to push back; it’s as good as the competition, maybe even better, being beautifully designed and fast, having long battery life and the most awesome camera on the market.

Few Americans will ever find out, though, as they’re not available from shops in the US.

Court papers and the discussion of lawmakers tell a different story.