(upbeat music)
- [Illuminaughtii] Hello everybody.
And welcome back to the channel.
My name is Blair or the Iilluminaughtii.
And today we're going to
be talking about Huawei.
They're most known for
beating Apple in the race
to become the second
largest smartphone maker
right behind Samsung.
And I mean, hey,
with futuristic looking
phones like seriously,
look at these cameras and
some decent reviews to match,
it's not hard to see why.
But of course,
if this were all good things,
we wouldn't be here today,
and I most certainly would
not be making this video.
So before we get into the controversy,
let's start with this company's history,
who Huawei exactly is,
how they were founded and
what this company's all about.
Let's get into it.
Huawei, according to
their website was founded
by Ren Zhengfei.
He has a civil engineering background
and in 1974, joined the
military's Engineering Corps
as a soldier,
tasked to establish the Liao
Yang Chemical Fiber Factory.
He did quite well there
and retired in 1983
and established Huawei in 1987.
He became the CEO in 1988 and
has held the title ever since.
And I can't really knock
this company's founding.
There's MLMs that are
founded only for money,
companies based on complete
and total fabrications,
CEOs with literally zero
experience in the field
they go into.
So, hey, at least we can
say they were founded
by someone qualified
if that counts for much
in the long run.
According to their company
history on their About Us page,
in 1995, they generated 1.5
billion RMB or $215 million.
In 1999, they were in India.
In 2000, they were in Sweden.
Branching off into international markets,
earned them a hundreds of millions more,
and the company's been growing ever since.
In 2012,
they overtook Ericsson
as the world's largest
telecom equipment maker,
despite a slowdown
in the global market.
Now the products certainly
do not come cheap.
A Huawei laptop costs
£1,700 if I were in the UK.
So here, that's just about $2,200,
which is bananas.
But however, seeing as they
actually surpassed Apple
as a smartphone retailer,
I'm not surprised to see
that they're also charging
incredibly high Apple-type prices.
Their newest smartphone has
an ultra vision quad camera
with a rounded overflow display.
And it has a real unique design.
Now, obviously I'm only
looking at their commercials.
I'm not about to buy this
phone to see how it works.
Though, I will admit
that audio zoom feature,
as well as editing out people feature
is pretty damn cool looking.
I found a few reviews from
people that did get their hands
on the P40 to see what they thought
about Huawei's newest smartphone.
Marques Brownlee said,
"It's got this super soft
touch finish on the screen
that feels silky smooth.
This gray refracts light pretty softly.
This is one of my favorite
phone backings ever.
And this I hope kind of gets copied.
The screen up front is a mixed bag.
The display not only
curves all over the edges
of the right and left side,
but it curves over the top and bottom too
The promo material has it
looking like it's all screened,
but the corners don't
really curve in like that.
Just imagine trying to
wrap a circular gift
with wrapping paper.
The extra depth sensor isn't necessary,
but the infrared is nice."
He said the camera
gives consistent photos,
some sharp photos, no auto focus problems,
though, there's some problems
with focusing on objects
up-close.
Overall, it was a really positive review.
And though it was missing a
couple bleeding edge technology
things,
there's still plenty
that made it worthwhile
and other companies are taking note of.
Unbox Therapy also said
he liked the security
and wished that Apple would
copy that and commented
how these things are increasingly
becoming cameras with smartphones in them.
And it managed the exposure
in a difficult environment.
I can't really deny that seriously.
The photos do look very nice.
The versatility with camera
shots was impressive.
The selfie mode had some
amazing detail in his photos
as well.
Just about every review
said it was fantastic.
So why can't we buy it and use it?
Why did all of them say it was unfortunate
or a disappointment in the end?
Well, we're about to get
into that now because
there are some serious allegations
behind the scenes
sketchiness and other things
that led to Huawei's eventual
ban in the United States.
So let's take a look at why that is.
(upbeat music)
Now it wasn't until 2012
that Huawei really started
to get noticed and the US
didn't really want to work
with them anymore.
One article called The
Evidence Supporting the Fear of
Chinese Telecommunication Providers
was released October 14th, 2012,
and stated that the US
House of Representatives
issued recommendations
against doing business
with two Chinese
telecommunication companies,
one being Huawei, the other called ZTE.
The two companies are the
main Chinese providers
of telecommunication equipment.
The two first recommendations
are that the US
should view, with suspicion,
the continued penetration
of the US telecommunications
market by Chinese
telecommunications companies,
hence, targeting every Chinese company.
And the second one is that
the private sector entities in
the United States are strongly encouraged
to consider the longterm security risks
associated with doing business
with either ZTE or Huawei
for equipment or services.
What evidence did the
committee have to issue
such recommendations?
Two different types of fears
underpin the recommendations
against Huawei and ZTE.
The first one is the fear of espionage.
And the second is the
fear that the companies
could use their insight
into critical infrastructure
to affect consequential damage onto the US
if a conflict between the
US and China were to occur.
Information systems play a
central role for many critical
infrastructures.
In general, the critical infrastructure
encompasses hospitals, power grids,
and other elements of
the energy supply chain.
There is a fear that it is now possible
to conduct cyber attacks
on critical infrastructure
that would have devastating effects.
Some of the fear stems from
cases such as the Stuxnet worm,
where the virus caused physical damage
to thousands of nuclear
centrifuges in Iran.
However, some academics
have also pointed out
how the fears may have
been grossly exaggerated.
There is currently no consensus
on the level of insecurity
presented by information systems
for critical infrastructure.
And at first, I do admit
this does sound just like
a lot of speculation and fear,
but the article continues to
say that Obama was considering
an executive order to
protect the US's security.
At the time, there wasn't
evidence that Huawei
engaged in espionage
or actions to undermine
US critical infrastructure,
but they weren't providing
their innocence either.
So Huawei just sort of sat
there in this weird gray area,
and sure it's innocent
until proven guilty,
but they weren't willing to
prove their innocence either.
They were just suspects
and their infrastructure
could be used for spying
and malicious hardware
or software would be a
potent espionage tool,
but it was all conditional,
rumors and speculations.
However, this was in October, 2012,
and it would be only three
months later in January, 2013,
that we started to see
some official answers.
It was this Reuters
article that undeniably
linked Huawei's CFO, Meng
Wanzhou to an Iranian
telecom importer Skycom,
which yeah, that name, I know.
This landed Huawei in
a gigantic legal mess
because the US had sanctions
on Iran that banned
any US product being sold there.
Here's some highlights
from the Reuters report
so you can get an idea of
what was actually going on.
A Hong Kong based firm that
attempted to sell embargoed
Hewlett-Packard computer
equipment to Iran's
largest mobile phone
operator has much closer ties
to China's Huawei technologies
than was previously known,
corporate records show.
Reuters reported last month,
that in late 2010, Skycom's
office in Tehran offered to sell
at least €1.3 million worth of HP gear
to Mobile Communications Company of Iran
despite us trade sanctions.
At least 13 pages of
the proposal were marked
Huawei confidential and
carried Huawei's logo.
Huawei said neither it nor
Skycom ultimately provided
the HP equipment.
HP said it prohibits the
sale of its products to Iran.
Huawei has described
Skycom as one of its major
local partners.
But a review by Reuters
of corporate records
and other documents
found numerous financial
and other links over the past decade
between Huawei, Meng and Skycom
suggesting a closer relationship
between the two firms.
In 2007, for instance,
a management company controlled
by Huawei's parent company
held all of Skycom's shares.
At the time, Meng served as the management
firm's company secretary.
Huawei said in an email statement that the
relationship between them
and Skycom was normal.
But to say that's deceptive
would be a gross understatement.
Whatever relationship existed
didn't sound really normal.
Seriously, Reuters even says
that telecommunication managers
who worked in Iran say employees at Skycom
are Chinese nationals
wearing Huawei's badges
and carry Huawei business cards.
Plus, on LinkedIn,
telecom workers even had
Huawei's Skycom in their resume.
There's even proof that
a former Skycom director
had a Huawei email address
listed in the Huawei directory.
So yeah, next time you want
to just say that Skycom
is just a major local partner
or that this is a normal
business partnership, Huawei,
maybe don't make it so obvious
that you're actually running
the company.
And look, I can only speculate here.
I don't know exactly what
this relationship was,
but it absolutely does
not strike me as normal.
If it were,
it obviously wouldn't
have been reported on,
but at least not to this extent.
Huawei claims that they're
in strict compliance
with international and local laws.
But if that were the case,
then why was Meng arrested
several years later?
According to the New York times,
a top executive and
daughter of the founder
of the Chinese tech giant
Huawei was arrested on Saturday
in Canada at the request
of the United States,
a move likely to escalate
tensions between the two countries
at a delicate moment.
The arrest of Meng Wanzhou,
the chief financial officer
unfolded on the same
night that President Trump
and President Xi Jinping
of China dined together
in Buenos Aires
and agreed to a 90-day trade truce.
The two countries are set
to begin tense negotiations
in hopes of ending a trade
war that has been plummeting
both economies.
"Ms. Meng who joined Huawei in 1993
is also a deputy chairwoman,
was taken into custody in
Vancouver on December, 1st,"
said Ian McLeod,
a spokesperson for Canada's
Justice Department.
He said she was sought for
extradition by the United States,
but did not give a reason
for what prompted the arrest.
He added that a publication
ban requested by Miss Meng,
prevented him from providing
any further details.
Senator Ben Sasse,
a Republican of Nebraska linked the arrest
to the American sanctions against Iran.
Mr. Sasse said, "China had been working
to creatively undermine our
national security interests
and the United States
and our allies can't
sit on the sidelines."
He added that Americans are grateful
that our Canadian partners have arrested
the chief financial
officer of a giant Chinese
telecom company for breaking
us sanctions against Iran.
Huawei, China's largest
telecom equipment maker
has been under investigation into whether
it has broken American
trade controls to countries,
including Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria.
So after that,
I would say it's pretty safe
to say that that wasn't really
a normal business partner relationship.
I don't want to speculate too
much on what the hell Meng
was exactly doing or what
was going on in Iran.
And I'm pretty sure we'll
never actually know for sure
considering how secretive Huawei
has been on this entire topic.
As of may, 2010, Meng is
still denying the allegations
against her,
though, she is being charged with fraud
for allegedly deceiving banks
into a possible violation
of us economic sanctions against Iran.
And on an additional side note,
CBC says that the weekend before
the decision was released,
Meng actually staged a fucking photo shoot
on the supreme court steps
in apparent anticipation
of a victory.
I don't know why this makes me laugh.
Like it does.
So like how arrogant and
full of yourself do you have
to be to assume that you're going to win.
So you pose for a photo
shoot outside the courthouse.
It's tasteless and tone-deaf, honestly.
Now Meng being arrested, of course,
wasn't the only challenge
Huawei faced in recent years,
far from it actually.
In August, 2018 government
use of Huawei tech
was banned because of the
potential risk it held.
The government and government contractors
were not allowed to use these phones.
And sure, this wasn't a good sign,
but it didn't seem to
hurt Huawei too badly.
However, in May, 2019, Trump
did what Obama debated doing.
He now had enough evidence to take action.
And so he signed an executive
order laying the groundwork
to block Chinese
telecommunications companies,
like Huawei, from selling
equipment to the US.
Huawei was added to the federal register
because under export
administration regulations,
with the reason being cited,
as Huawei knowingly and
willingly causing the export,
re-export sale and supply
directly and indirectly of goods,
technology and services from
the United States to Iran
and the government of Iran
without obtaining a license
from the
Department of Treasury's Office
of Foreign Assets Control.
Yikes.
Now not only did this cut them
off from selling in the US
but this meant that even
importing these goods here
would be, well, kinda useless.
That's because this also meant
that Huawei couldn't work
with Google either
because it's a US company.
So even if you buy a Huawei phone,
as those YouTubers did by importing it,
the phone won't have
Google, Gmail, Google maps,
YouTube, the Play Store, Instagram,
like all of that is gone.
I don't know how many
of those things you need
on your phone, but I'm
guessing it's quite a few,
if you're going to buy this type of phone.
If my phone doesn't have
YouTube, Gmail, Instagram,
that kind of stuff,
like that really sucks,
because, well, like I'm a YouTuber,
so I kinda need that shit like on the go,
because you could never escape this job.
It just wouldn't be as useful
to me because I do need
those things to do my job.
Huawei of course,
challenged this decision.
They called it unconstitutional
and filed a lawsuit
against the US government,
which is one hell of a ballsy move
after what they've confirmed to have done.
But of course,
that's just my opinion.
Huawei continued to
insist that they are not
a security threat and the
legal battles are ongoing.
However,
Trump has sort of
wavered on his Huawei ban
and made comments in June of
last year that US companies
can sell their equipment to Huawei.
We're talking about equipment
where there's no great
national security problem with it,
which is just weird.
There's a lot wrong with
that kind of statement.
But again, I'm not the
one behind the scenes
and I don't know everything
that's going on there,
but doesn't this just
reaffirm their lawsuit.
Like if we unbanned Huawei,
won't they be able to easily win a lawsuit
for having been banned in the first place.
Does this mean Huawei
will drop the lawsuit
if Trump unbans them?
And if he thinks there's
no security problem,
then why were they banned for
government use for so long?
And why was there an
executive order banning them
completely?
It is really, really
frustrating to hear this back
and forth, go on for so long.
And that's really all I'm
going to say about that,
just especially when
things are extremely shady
and unclear to begin with,
this just doesn't help that situation.
In June of this year, though,
we did get another update.
The FCC or federal
Communications Commission
officially designated Huawei
as a national security threat.
This means it's been barred from subsidies
and it's banned completely.
Huawei here in the US might
as well be nonexistent.
This doesn't mean they
can't find any workarounds
in the future, but as for right now,
they wouldn't be able to
work with US companies.
Huawei says they have
their own operating system
in the works as a plan B,
but again, I'm not so
convinced there'll be in the US
in the near future,
maybe in a few years, but
I guess we'll have to see.
Despite the ban being the
most commonly known thing
about Huawei, it's not
the only controversy
they've had either.
There may be the allegations
of being a threat to security,
them having the possibility to spy on us
and other sorts of deals with Iran.
That's all shady and confusing
and a bit complicated,
but there are two more
allegations that are far more
straightforward.
And the first is the allegations
of intellectual property theft.
(upbeat music)
CNBC alleges that Huawei's
rise was all thanks
to Nortel's downfall,
a different telecommunications company.
as Larry Chaffin or
Network World summarizes,
"At the moment,
we have three companies
to blame for Huawei,
even being in the United States,
Nortel for not realizing what was going on
and going to the Canadian government
and Cisco Systems and Motorola,
both of which should have
never settled out of court
with Huawei.
Both should have gone to court
and shown that Huawei stole
intellectual property,
and they were recruiting
employees to steal secrets.
The Seattle Times also says
that Huawei misappropriated
trade secrets about a T-Mobile
smartphone testing robot back
in 2012 and 2013.
The lawsuit filed by T-Mobile in 2014,
claimed that two Huawei
device USA employees
spied on a smartphone
testing robot T-Mobile had
in its Bellevue lab.
The robot, Tappy, was developed
to test smartphone functions
with fast moving human-like fingers.
Huawei was then a smartphone
supplier to T-Mobile.
"On a visit to the lab,
the employees photograph the robot
and one slipped one of Tapis
fingertips into his bag,"
T-Mobile claimed.
When it filed the lawsuit,
T-Mobile claimed that
Huawei's espionage cost it
tens of millions of dollars as it severed
its supplier relationship with the company
and was forced to switch to smartphones
from other suppliers.
Huawei admitted in 2014,
that two employees acted inappropriately
and said they had been fired,
but the company disagreed
with the larger trade secrets
claim in the case, that
the information was secret
and had been used improperly
to improve Huawei's
own robot and benefit the company
and said it was unfortunate
the lawsuit had been filed.
So a couple of things I
have to say about this one,
one Tappy is an adorable name for a robot.
But two it was unfortunate
the lawsuit was filed.
Like, what the fuck does that even mean?
Like, "Yeah, we admit our
employees stole from you,
but it really sucks you had
to file a lawsuit about it."
Like, are he joking?
And T-Mobile was right
to file that lawsuit.
Calling it unfortunate
makes it sound like it was
just a matter of like,
well, luck or something
when it was their fault and
their employees that acted out.
The jury said T-Mobile should
be awarded $4.8 million
in damages for breach on contract,
but didn't award any money
for the trade secret claim.
I'm not obviously sure
why that didn't happen,
but at least Huawei
didn't get completely away
with this one.
So I think it counts for something,
but still there's plenty of lawsuits
and issues with theft and Huawei,
enough so that they've been
charged with racketeering.
On February 13th, 2020,
cites from the Wall Street Journal
through TechCrunch reported
that the FBI brought 16 charges
against Huawei.
The full document of
charges is online too.
And let me tell you,
it is one hell of a list.
Under scheme to misappropriate
intellectual property,
it reads the following,
Since at least in or about 2000
through the date of this
superseding indictment,
the defendant's Huawei Futurewei,
Huawei Device and Huawei
Device USA and other executed
a scheme to operate and
grow the worldwide business
of Huawei and its
parents, global affiliates
and subsidiaries through the deliberate
and repeated misappropriation
of intellectual property
of companies headquartered or with offices
in the United States for commercial use.
And again,
I could literally go on
forever and ever and ever
about this entire document
because it's so fascinating.
But the thing is like 50 pages long.
So needless to say,
Huawei has been stealing since 2000
and there's more than
just one or two incidents.
It's purposeful, it's frequent,
it's a pattern.
And it really makes me lose my liking.
I had for that bad-ass phone design.
Now the second allegation is lesser known,
but very seriously disturbing.
Last year,
the Australian Strategic
Policy Institute accused Huawei
of providing surveillance in
Xinjiang re-education camps.
The Globe and Mail wrote
Chinese technology giant Huawei
has provided sophisticated
computing and big data services
to authorities in the
country's Northwestern
Xinjiang region,
where officials have
ordered the construction
of an extensive network of
digital surveillance and control
even as large numbers
of Muslims remain locked
inside prison-like centers
for political indoctrination
and skills training.
In June Huawei's global
cybersecurity and privacy officer,
John Suffolk said the company
does not directly do business
with security services Xinjiang,
says it only works with
third party contractors.
"We stay in the commercial
space," he said.
But considerable evidence
suggests otherwise,
underscoring Huawei's role
as a provider of technology
for a powerful state monitoring apparatus
that authorities say is
designed to stamp out
radicalization.
"The idea that Huawei
is not working directly
with local governments in
Xinjiang is straight up nonsense,
said Vicky Xu,
a researcher with the Australian
Strategic Policy Institute,
Cyber Policy Center.
I can't even begin to explain
how fucked up this is.
And Mrs. Xu said it for me.
For me,
it's more of a concern
that Huawei is a company
that strictly adheres to
whatever the Chinese government
wants them to do.
And with this example, I've got to say,
I do seriously agree with her.
Look, I know that I say in my videos
that I really do not want to get political
and I try and just state the facts,
but these camps are really fucked up.
And I don't think that's
really a debatable thing here.
Muslims are locked up in
Xinjiang for these re-education
purposes when in actuality,
a million are thought to have
been detained without trial,
and they're just brainwashed,
locked away and beaten.
This isn't a fucking
voluntary re-education.
This is forced labor and a
type of concentration camp.
It's been called chillingly
similar to how Hitler
treated Jews in World War II.
However, Hitler's logic
was outright euthanasia
and was the only recourse
for people who he claimed
needed curing.
Whereas China thinks that these camps,
these re-education hospitals
can cure their patients
and thus clean the virus from their brain.
And seriously,
please feel free to try and debate me
and tell me how that sentence sounds okay
in the slightest to you.
That is insane.
And I don't know why there
isn't more news on this
more often.
And Huawei is one of the
companies supporting this.
Given how much evidence
there actually is to support
this relationship,
I'm pretty comfortable
with dropping the allegedly
pot here.
Even if their trade secrets weren't stolen
and their products weren't threats,
this alone tells me I could
never, ever purchase from them.
It's not like this happened decades ago.
And they've since left that
in their horrible past.
this is happening right now,
this year.
Huawei is currently
supporting this treatment
of human beings.
This brainwashing, this abuse,
whatever you want to call it,
they'll do whatever the
Chinese government has them do.
And again, I know I say, I
try not to get political here,
but like, you can't tell
me that this is okay.
This is not okay.
Like I know my channel is
already blocked in China
because I already called
Xi Jinping or whatever,
Winnie the Pooh,
which fuck it.
You still are Winnie the Pooh.
You fat fuck.
But this, almost makes me
miss Tencent to a degree
and how I was just annoyed
that they had a propaganda game
for their president.
Like, it looks so much more
tame by comparison now.
Huawei frustratingly enough
is super sneaky as fuck.
Now, although there isn't any
direct proof of them spying,
there's more than enough
allegations to be suspicious.
Though, they maintain
their innocence constantly,
there's also nothing to
show that they are actually
innocent.
Seriously,
when I research my other topics
about shady businesses,
it's rare that you'll see article
after article that pops up
saying, "There's no proof of allegations,
unless it's an open secret
that those allegations
hold water."
Germany's federal office
has said in the past
that for serious decisions like a ban,
they need proof.
So that's why they haven't
boycotted Huawei yet.
But telecom security experts
say that at the same time,
it's wrong to suggest that the concerns
about Chinese espionage are unfounded.
Even if Huawei has no
official relationship
with the Chinese government,
that doesn't mean Chinese
services aren't using the company
and its technology as
vehicles for espionage.
Now, of course,
Huawei has tried to wow people
and repair their very damaged
reputation by inviting
people into their offices.
They've opened up their
facilities to the media
to get a sense of what
the company looks like
and who works there.
And it's very much set up
like a European style campus
with private dining rooms,
for high profile customers,
a gym,
a pool table, staff housing,
you name it,
it's got everything.
But I've got to agree with Josh Rogin
from the Washington post on this one
after he got an invitation
to come see their offices.
"That's gonna be a hard pass.
Any American journalist
who takes Huawei money,
should be ashamed."
Huawei should look bad.
People should be ashamed
to take their money
or purchase from them.
Frankly, this makes me annoyed that people
will still buy their products
to review them for views.
They shouldn't get a single
penny worth of support
from anyone, especially
after the shit they've done
in Xinjiang.
And even more recently in the news,
the US has actually been
lobbying other countries
to boycott Huawei, especially in Brazil.
They've even ominously
warned of consequences
if Brazil chooses Huawei to
develop 5G in its country.
I mean, China is Brazil's
biggest trading partner,
and I think they're going
to do whatever they want
and we can't really stop it ultimately,
but I am really wary
to see them spreading,
to say the very least.
So what is my conclusion to
all of this in this video
that I showed you guys today?
I think Huawei is a developing story.
I think there's going to be
a lot more to say about them
in the future.
But with what I know right now,
and from what I was able
to find on this company,
I'm not very confident in
the fact that Huawei phones
or it's services are gonna
be available in the US
anytime soon.
And that last part about
the re-education camps,
that's what like really
threw me over the edge
because for a bit,
this seems kind of speculative,
but then when you start to
put all these pieces together,
it paints a much darker picture.
But as per usual,
let me know you guys' thoughts
in the comment section
down below.
What do you think based on
the information I've presented
today?
Do you think Huawei is an actual threat?
Do you think they're gonna
maintain their apparent
horrific behavior with
these camps in China?
Like what do you think
is gonna happen to them?
Let me know all of your
thoughts in the comment section
down below.
And again, if you guys
enjoyed this video, like it,
share it, subscribe if you're new.
If you guys want more content from me,
including all my sources
to create today's video,
links are in the description
for everything under the sun.
So again, guys, thank
you so much for making it
to another video.
I love you guys,
and I'll see you in the next one.
Bye.
(upbeat music)
