Xiaomi is no longer designated as a 'Communist Chinese Military Company'.
Xiaomi is no longer designated as a 'Communist Chinese Military Company'
During President Trump's last days in office, the U.S. Department of Defense blacklisted Xiaomi, classifying it as a "Communist Chinese Military Company", or CCMC. This could have potentially put the Chinese smartphone maker in the same category as Huawei, meaning it would severely hamper Xiaomi's business in the U.S.
Xiaomi denied the allegations, claiming it is "not owned, controlled or affiliated with the Chinese military." The U.S. government softened its stance soon after Trump left office, saying it would stop designating Xiaomi as a CCMC in the future.
Now, the order has been vacated. According to a blog post on Xiaomi's website, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a final order vacating the U.S. Department of Defense's designation of Xiaomi as a CCMC. This means that all restrictions on U.S. persons' ability to invest in Xiaomi are now formally lifted.
SEE ALSO: Xiaomi is no longer blacklisted in the U.S.
"The Company reiterates that it is an open, transparent, publicly traded, independently operated and managed corporation. The Company will continue to provide reliable consumer electronics products and services to users, and to relentlessly build amazing products with honest prices," Xiaomi said in a statement.
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Who’s shocked? I’m not. It’s so nice to start the long road back to being cozy with a human rights abusing regime like Communist China, isn’t it? Elections have consequences.... just a shame we get such a glossy, rose colored description of those consequences from an obviously biased media.
ReplyDelete"arbitrary and capricious."
ReplyDeleteWelcome to America
Boeing, SpaceX, Microsoft, Amazon… We have a lots of American Capitalist military companies. Hence the arbitrary.
DeleteWonder why Samsung hasn’t made better QLED camo for it’s tanks.
You are right! Socialist militaries are much more ethical! 100 million dead during the Cold War alone proves it! (facepalm)
DeleteBold of you to assume capitalism has a a death toll below 1 billion.
DeleteAre you somehow blind to the fact that the US Military is a socialist organization?
DeleteI don’t understand your comment. Boeing, SpaceX, etc. are American companies that have contracts with the American military so why would the U.S. blacklist them? They would blacklist companies that have ties to foreign, possibly threating military interests.
Deleteand Huawei is?
ReplyDeleteHuawei is a bigger threat to the US.
ReplyDeleteHowever not because of security, but due to dominance in 5g where the US has zero footprint…
Huawei was on a roll in 2018 and overtook Apple but they slowed down since, in 2018 Tim Apple was very close to Trump
DeleteSo now it’sa conspiracy where Apple sabotaged Huawei?
DeleteLOL right? The companies that have benefited the most from the Huawei sanctions are Samsung, BBK and Xioami!
DeleteAs I stated below the issue is not merely 5G or ties to the Chinese military and surveillance but also intellectual property theft and the idea that it constitutes a form of economic warfare. Team Trump didn’t originate that ideology – it had been around quite awhile before – but they embraced it. Sadly Trump is no longer a particularly focused or driven individual and his foreign policy team was less than stellar (mostly because the most qualified and experienced people refused to join his administration) so he lacked the ability to focus on more than 2 or 3 things at a time. So what should have been a broad-based multi-front strategy was narrowed down to tariffs, military ties and (later) human rights.
ReplyDeleteThe Biden administration actually has the ability to pull off what Trump wanted to do but they lack the inclination. However they won’t roll much of it back because they acknowledge – very reluctantly – that Trump raised a ton of legitimate issues that the world was purposefully closing their eyes to and there is no going back. (For example, even if they wanted to rescind the tough language Trump’s state department issued over the Uighurs they can’t because everyone knows it is true.) So allowing Xiaomi and ZTE to do business with American companies again is pretty much the most that they can get away with.
The issue with Huawei isn’t its phones, it’s the company’s development of 5G networks globally, even for U.S. allies. And since under Chinese law basically any company must provide information (i.e. intelligence) to the government as requested, it poses a national security risk. The U.S. has engaged in a huge effort to convince our allies and partners not to let Huawei build out their 5G networks.
ReplyDeleteXiaomi doesn’t really operate in the space, focusing mostly on consumer devices. It never should have been on the blacklist.
Many individuals with deeper knowledge than I will note Huawei’s mobile division has essentially no overlap with the network development one, raising questions on if the phones themselves pose any sort of security risk. But I suppose it’s easier to bogeyman the entire company and depend on Americans’ ignorance about the particulars.
But I suppose it’s easier to bogeyman the entire company and depend on Americans’ ignorance about the particulars.
ReplyDeleteAnother America basher. Typical. As I challenged people above, I would be curious about your list of countries that is doing better. Yeah, no citing self-selected "happiness surveys" designed to favor tiny homogenous single-industry geographically favored countries because of their generous social welfare policies. I mean countries whose histories of colonialism etc. are better than ours and who treat their racial, tribal, ethnic and religious minorities – and immigrants assuming they allow very many in the first place and most don’t – any better than we do.
Also the issue with Huawei and other Chinese tech companies wasn’t merely 5G or military ties. Even though Trump lacked the focus and drive to carry it out – and faced opposition from his own party, the Democrats and the media despite those folks falling in line when Biden mostly picked up where he left off – but it was supposed to be a far more comprehensive agenda aimed at China. Instead, the Trump administration was also going after Chinese companies that blatantly steal western intellectual property and use it to build their economy while undercutting ours. It is a form of economic warfare that they have been undertaking for years. The Clinton administration was the first to point it out … but they didn’t do squat about it. Then you had Bush and Obama spending 16 years attempting to "engage China to get them to change." (It didn’t work. Quite the contrary, China regressed in a lot of ways during the "engagement" period.)
And Xiaomi is a major offender on the intellectual property front. That is the reason why they don’t sell phones or computers in America – just watches and streaming boxes – if they did Apple would sue them into next week. There is this article that claims that they rely less on ripping off Apple and other U.S. tech companies than they used to https://www.techbite.me/post/10-reasons-why-apple-won-t-sue-xiaomi but blatantly ripping off the iPhone, iPad and MacBook is clearly how they went from a tiny firm to one of the world’s largest tech companies in 10 years. So even if they shouldn’t be banned because of ties to the Chinese military, the Trump admin should have created a "blatant IP thief" list and put Xiaomi on it.
The worst part is that Xiaomi’s products are – as stated – only consumer devices. There are Chinese firms who rip off western patents in industries that are far more vital and sensitive. People who actually have "deeper knowledge" need to quit it with the "since America doesn’t fit my personal ideal of perfection then that makes it the most evil, racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic and dangerous country in world history" and take what China is doing seriously. It was different with the Soviet Union. Unlike the USSR, China has an economic model that actually works and their tactics are economic instead of military. Meaning their ambitions aren’t being dragged down by a command economy and they choose "hey use us to get rich(er)!" and find a lot of corporate and government takers as opposed to invading Afghanistan, subjugating Chechnya and other nonsense that caused even Communist Party USA members to get disillusioned.
Who’s bashing America? This is comms and politics 101. Are politicians going to take the time to explain the subtle differences in how Huawei is organized and which components of it pose the national security threat and announce target action only against those verticals? Of course not. That’s a waste of time. Attacking Huawei writ large as an agent of the Chinese government is a much easier sell across the board. I would never expect everyday Americans to be fluent in Huawei’s corporate structure or its relationship with the CCP, and politicians have no real incentive to go deeper into the issue. There’s no upside to doing it.
DeleteI’m not saying I agree with it, but you somehow defined this as "America bashing," which isn’t the case at all.
The federal government is acutely aware of the issues surrounding Chinese telecom firms and tracks their movements at a granular level.
I wonder when China will start removing US Tech companies from their ban within China.
ReplyDeleteThat would require removal of significant governing ideology.
DeleteThe damage has been done anyway, for a chunk of the population they’ll never not be guilty
ReplyDeleteI doubt the average person has any awareness of Xiaomi as a brand at all, honestly.
DeleteDoes anyone pay attention to the brand of the $129 television from WalMart?
Readers of the Verge may be up on all the mobile companies but I suspect most people know Samsung, Apple, and perhaps 1-2 others max.