In the latest instalment of News Corp Australia’s anti-Huawei propaganda campaign, today they have published a report that says that the Chinese government provided monetary subsidies and financial aid to Huawei – when it was just a fledgling company.
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal (also owned by News Corp — seeing a pattern forming here?), Huawei has “received tens of billions of dollars in assistance from the Chinese Government” in a bid for it to become competitive in a difficult industry to break into. The assistance came in the form of grants, loans, tax breaks and other forms of financial assistance adding up to around AU$108 billion.
Huawei told the paper that the same grants were also given to other companies as well. The report also accuses Huawei of dodging tax fraud allegations when the Chinese government assembled an auditing team usually reserved for state-owned companies.
News.com.au and the WSJ also note that other countries do give subsidies to their companies, with that financial powerhouse Finland providing the same to Nokia, albeit 17 times less. They did make a quick note in passing that the Chinese GDP at the same time was 34 times that of Finland — which in effect means Huawei received proportionally less than Nokia did.
Finland’s GDP has only grown by 4 billion dollars from US$270 to US$274 billion from 2013 to 2018 while the Chinese GDP went from US$9.6 trillion to US$13.4 trillion. This allows the Chinese governments to hand out more favours to their companies, such as cheap loans and tax advantages.
There is very little note, if any, in either articles to acknowledge that this kind of financial incentive is exactly what many (if not most) countries with strong economies offer to their own resident companies.
Germany handed out AU$17.2 billion PER YEAR to the car industry in the ten years leading up to 2017. Guess what, the German car industry is thus thriving. Meanwhile in Australia the car industry received very little, if any, support from our federal government and thus we are left with nothing aside from a lot of unemployed people.
The very same journal which reported this also found that Huawei’s largest US competitor, Cisco Systems Inc., received $44.5 million in state and federal subsidies, loans, guarantees, grants and other U.S. assistance since 2000.
Cisco was found with a large number of back doors included in their hardware and software (8 were patched in 2018 alone) — maybe that’s why the US is worried. Is this is how they operate, paying for back doors into US-made systems so they suspect everyone else does the same?
Look at the tax and financial incentives that governments literally fall over themselves to throw at Amazon Inc., a company that needs absolutely zero support from taxpayers funds in any country. And yet that practice continues.
Of course the end of the News Corp article states that this is the reason why Huawei was excluded from the 5G network — its government influence. Australian top spy chiefs have said that “the high level of integration expected in 5G could pose more significant risks to national infrastructure rather than just user privacy.”
Never mind the fact that the 4G network is predominantly built by Huawei, and operates in substantially the same way as 5G networks do (and would).
Once again, the @WSJ has published untruths about #Huawei based on false information. This time, wild accusations about Huawei’s finances ignore our 30 years of dedicated investments in R&D that have driven innovation and the tech industry as a whole. Read on for the #facts. pic.twitter.com/MpFVDIUecO
— Huawei (@Huawei) December 26, 2019
The spy chiefs believe that if Huawei was involved in the 5G networks it would allow for the Chinese government to “disrupt key pieces of infrastructure such as the power grid”.
These beliefs and suspicions are formed without a shred of evidence that has been made public, and in fact many European countries are not following the USA like lapdogs and are allowing Huawei to build their 5G networks — sometimes with a few provisos such as full access to their source material and a specific security setup by Huawei.
New Zealand is also looking to loosen their restrictions on Huawei as well.
In the end the Australian government has blocked Huawei from our 5G network so we will end up with inferior technology with inferior speeds — after the NBN debacle that does not surprise me.
We will continue to see anti-Chinese and anti-Huawei news from some sections of the media. Thanks, uncle Rupert!
Those who back up their rhetoric with facts will have more success but in the end some people believe whatever they read, hear or watch.
Huawei have in the past and continue to deny all spying allegations and have also denied they received any special form of handouts from the Chinese government that other companies did not.
Where do you sit on all of this?
Thank God we are not run by moronic bigoted left wing loonies.
Chris, you are right. There has been so little real evidence against Huawei that the U.S is opening already closed civil cases, desperately trying to dig some dirt up – anything. The bottom line here (and Trump has tweeted it to the world several times) is that the U.S doesn’t want China to disrupt its position with tech influence worldwide. Huawei is quite rightly the Chinese national champion and leading in many, many high tech areas, communication being just one of them. This is all about money, power and influence and Trump thinks he’s the sheriff not of only the… Read more »
The US intelligence agencies have cried “wolf” too many times when there was no wolf. Possibly the worst example was when they started a war against Iraq on the basis that Iraq was about to launch weapons of mass destruction. Of course there were no weapons. The weapons claim was fictitious. As such, we can’t trust what the US says at face value. We should demand to see evidence. Reliable evidence.
Excellent comment. Glad it made it on here rather than accidentally hitting their spam filter which seems even more common when it goes against their views of Huawei or the Chinese.
You’re welcome to comment, and we’re welcome to completely disregard what you say because it’s based on not the tiniest piece of any evidence whatsoever.
We’re also welcome to delete comments that are inappropriate. That’s why some comments get deleted. I have no issue with healthy debate, as demonstrated by publishing the comments on this and other stories where the anti-China brigade come in droves.
You may ask why there’s little criticism here of Huawei on the alleged basis that they’re somehow tied to the Chinese government. Here’s why. There’s no evidence in the public domain that they’re any more a Chinese instrumentality than Amazon is one of the US government, or that Coles is one of Australia. Huawei received financial support from the Chinese government. The report cited in this article confirms that the support given was no different to what other Chinese companies receive, and no different to what companies around the world receive from their respective governments. What China has done or… Read more »
It would not be anywhere near as easy for Huawei to become a non-Chinese company. For starters, the company has 180,000 employees (give or take) and more than 60,000 of those are based in China. If Huawei was to leave China, it would almost certainly have to lose those employees, or keep a Chinese subsidiary to employ them. That subsidiary would be subject to whatever control you imagine the Chinese government has over Huawei now, so that really wouldn’t solve anything much anyway. Even if Huawei were somehow able to pivot away from China and re-incorporate somewhere else, the likes… Read more »
Ah, so information about Huawei being involved in bypassing the North Korean sanctions is not in the public domain?
Huawei “bypassing” North Korean sanctions imposed by the United States? You mean, sanctions that it is by no means legally obliged to pay any attention to whatsoever? Must be those ones. Those aren’t UN sanctions that are legally enforceable. Many countries – legitimately – have issues with North Korea and what it does. If Huawei did engage in business with North Korea, directly or otherwise, that would be an egregious example of poor decision making. Given that, after the leaking of documents which didn’t actually prove much, there’s been nothing further on this story, and US government spokespeople have refused… Read more »
They are proposed by the US and accepted by the UN. Either way, thats why the US placed them on their entity list (which they have the right to do even if they are only US imposed sanctions), and not because of the Chinese government involvement as you indicated above. Huawei themselves specifically didn’t deny the documents were theirs, nor did they agree they were. The case is still continuing, because, as I’m sure you are aware, these things take time and is why Meng is still awaiting her extradiction trial in Canada. Maybe when that’s when more of the… Read more »
I really wish this site would stop constantly pushing its Huawei agenda. Like most companies, they make some decent products, and they make some bad products. It is however very frustrating to constantly read the biased articles here likely due to the sponsorship that is received. Perhaps prove me wrong and publish an article that isn’t so glaringly postive about them or their products?
Read any of our reviews, in fact read any of our coverage. Apart from sponsored content – which is obviously marked as such – the words we write are honest, factual and researched. Our only Huawei agenda – if there is such a thing – is that we’d like to see more products like the P30 Pro, with full Google apps and services.
Why? Because it was a great product, and it deserves a greater follow-up. That’s the end of it.
Your sponsored content is not clearly marked. It’s a little subheading at the top. Why turn off the comments if the articles are honest, factual and researched? Seems to indicate you don’t want to hear other’s points of view.
I still look forward to Ausdroid publishing an article about Huawei that isn’t glaringly positive.
Perhaps you don’t read so well. “Apart from sponsored content – which is obviously marked as such – the words we write are honest, factual and researched.” … our sponsored content is written in partnership with the brands behind it. It is not our honest, factual, researched opinion. It’s what we have prepared in conjunction with a brand and published with their approval and at their cost. We turn off comments on sponsored content because you’re right, we don’t want all the negative “why are you publishing sponsored content from x” comments. They aren’t helpful, and serve no purpose. If… Read more »
Except, That “most national governments” aren’t Communist.
You need to stop taking sites on matters like this, bro.
Giving financial incentives to a company within your borders sounds remarkably communist and yet every developed nation does it. Your argument is moot.
Not “every developed nation”.
The US, as well as many others decent, respectful governments, doesn’t do this. It is unethical.
You’re supporting a unlawful, communist police state just to be on the other side of the US and Trump.
Maybe you should do your homework. For starters the US government isn’t a “decent respectful government”. Secondly they do precisely this, offering favourable financial conditions and incentives for US based companies. Look at the range of incentives offered to the likes of Amazon, from interest free loans, tax breaks and incentives and various other financial incentives offered to Amazon to get it to choose particular jurisdictions for its warehouse and storage operations. Australia does the same thing, offering companies here millions in tax reductions, rebates and incentives for research and development, including favourable loans and the like. This isn’t a… Read more »
The result of this Chinese government help is that Huawei makes great phones and modems.
If the Australian government gave financial assistance to an Australian electronics company the CEO and senior managers would be on obscene pay, the physical work would be offshored and any Australian workers would be underpaid and not paid their superannuation entitlements.
seems about right. I’m sure some sections of the Government would not be fussed at all by that.