US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned the US’ European allies against using Huawei tech, insisting privacy-loving Germans shouldn’t stand for such (alleged) spying. Never mind that time the NSA wiretapped Merkel.
Pompeo pleaded with European governments on Fox News on Sunday that “the right thing to do for their people” was to kick Huawei’s cheaper and arguably more advanced technology to the curb and run back into the waiting arms of Uncle Sam.
The US diplomat insisted the track record of the villainous Chinese government warranted nothing less. “No German citizen should have their private information transition across a piece of Chinese hardware which will clearly be owned and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party,” Pompeo proclaimed.
Pompeo neglected to mention that the US has still not produced evidence of back doors in Huawei equipment feeding users’ information to Beijing, despite hyping up the possibility for years. He also somehow omitted how the National Security Agency (NSA) was caught snooping on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other top officials in 2015.
WikiLeaks published documents revealing the agency had been listening in on some 125 phone numbers belonging to the Chancellor’s office and other government ministries in eavesdropping that, in some cases, went back decades.The strident outrage that greeted that scandal indicated that Germans do, indeed, care deeply about privacy. Whether they’ll heed the warnings of the same country that so recently violated theirs remains to be seen. The UK, despite previously refusing US blandishments urging London to drop their inclusion of Huawei in 5G infrastructure, has reportedly caved to pressures both internal and external, and is seeking to “phase out” the Chinese firm by 2023.
Pompeo’s efforts to frame China as the world’s top bogeyman didn’t stop at spying. “They steal information, they deny freedom of expression, they oppress their peoples, and they present risk to people all across the world,” he declared. Pompeo also denied there could possibly be any comparison between the Hong Kong protesters widely supported by the Trump administration and the civil unrest tearing through American cities on the heels of the police killing of an unarmed black man in Minneapolis.
On Saturday, Germany, France and the UK issued a statement condemning the US decision to revoke sanctions waivers that allowed the countries to work with Iran on civilian nuclear projects, lamenting the end of the international cooperation that had provided a reassuring window onto Iranian nuclear activities.
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