US State Department must respond to the CES visa denials case promptly: Global Times editorial - Global Times
www.globaltimes.cn

The annual CES (formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show) is set to take place in Las Vegas, the US. It is reported that around 4,000 exhibitors from around the world have registered to attend, with more than 30 percent of them coming from China. However, latest media reports indicated that many employees from Chinese technology companies were denied US visas despite holding invitations to attend. Some commentators have called this visa rejection "unprecedented." So far, there has been no official response from the US government on this matter. We urge the US Department of State to verify relevant reports as soon as possible, reduce visa and entry policy obstacles, facilitate normal people-to-people business and industrial exchanges between the two countries, and implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state.

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For this reason, the large-scale visa denials faced by Chinese companies have left even the American side, including the event organizers, stunned. Chris Pereira, the founder of iMpact, a New York-based consultancy, said exhibitions like CES were "wonderful opportunities for business exchanges between companies from China, the US, and the rest of the world, but now it is frustrating to see even events like this being impacted."

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In the past, some Chinese companies were unable to attend CES mainly due to the impact of unilateral sanctions imposed by the US, but this is the first time that large-scale visa issues have been the obstacle. Even people in the US immediately suspected that this was politically motivated, rather than being due to any "technical reasons."

  • darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    20 days ago

    It’s also about national security ie making sure US war equipments don’t have anything from China when the US starts a hot war.

    I disagree. The US has no serious real fears of Chinese equipment. And if they did they wouldn't need to ban consumers from buying it, just the government itself. Already sensitive applications of technology require a security review and certain kinds of manufacturers.

    Of course in such a scenario a thing with Chinese components will become quite difficult to maintain due to supply chain disruption or sabotage.

    No reason for the US to care if Johnny's Huawei smartphone can't get parts. It's about suppression.

    The only national security concern is the concern that Chinese products don't have western back-doors which impedes their ability to spy, insert malware, and do all that stuff the eyes nations love doing even to each other but especially those outside the group. That's a threat to their dragnet intelligence collection and cyber-warfare capabilities but not because the Chinese stuff has any issue.

    And there’s also the threat model of supply chain attacks like the terrorist attack using pagers in Lebanon.

    They don't really believe this. Sure a couple of racist congress-creatures might but national security organs know China isn't going to put bombs in their civilian home internet routers or their civilian drones or their civilian smartphones. Give me a break.

    The US has long had procedures for procurement of secure devices for sensitive applications. The sanctions, the selling embargos, the fear-mongering, all of it has nothing to do with government use and military or national security functions.

    I mean why reach for this? Why buy their weak rationale when people like Sullivan and others are on record saying they want to keep China technologically 10 years behind the US? That the US has to be 10 years ahead of them. When you know that and their stated needs and motives it's clear what's going on and it has nothing to do with Chinese products being back-doors.