Thứ Hai, 8 tháng 6, 2020

THE FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE US -1969-1976 Message From John D. Negroponte of the NSCS to the President’s Assistant for NSA (Kissinger). Message from the President’s Assistant for NSA (Kissinger) to President Nixon

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES 1969-1976
VIETNAM OCTOBER 1972 - JANUARY 1973
(FOREIGN RELATIONS of THE UNITED STATES, 1969-1976 Vol. IX, Vol. X)
Documents Excerpts for the Strategic Studies for The Republic of Vietnam


Part 1: “We believe that peace is at hand", Letter From President Nixon to South Vietnamese President Thieu, Message From the Ambassador to Vietnam (Bunker) to the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Haig), Preface.
Part 8:  Memorandum of Conversation1 Saigon, December 19, 1972.
Part 9 Memorandum of Conversation Saigon, December 19, 1972 (Continued)



The Christmas Bombings. December 14–29, 1972174.
Message From John D. Negroponte of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)1
Paris, December 14, 1972, 1156Z.WH 46.
Subject: Hanoi’s behavior in the negotiations. Summary: The purpose of this paper is to summarize Hanoi’s negotiating behavior both in substance and procedure since the reopening of the negotiations on November 20. It concludes that Hanoi has no intention to meet any of the basic requirements that we made clear to them at the end of October; and through a series of irritating dilatory tactics has pursued a course which can be interpreted as desire to achieve either no agreement at all or an agreement substantially worse than that achieved in late October. Hanoi’s tactics have been clumsy, blatant, and fundamentally contemptuous of the United States. End summary. Substance: We came back to Paris on November 20 on the assumption that some of our essential concerns about the October draft agreement could be met. Those concerns were made clear to Hanoi well before our first meeting. When we entered into the new phase of negotiations with Hanoi in October we did so on the assumption that there had been a fundamental shift in their strategy and that they were willing to take some risks in the pursuit of a peaceful settlement.  At that time we acknowledged that to drop their demand for the dismantlement of the GVN represented a significant departure from their previously enunciated policies. Both sides recognized that the pursuit of a settlement on this basis involved taking chances and it seemed, for a period at least, that U.S. and DRV interests had converged sufficiently to form the basis for a settlement. This is to say that we were prepared to disengage from South Vietnam in exchange for which Hanoi was willing to forego accomplishment of all its objectives in the South immediately. Among the essential elements of this negotiating framework were Hanoi’s apparent willingness to leave the political process in the South
632   Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, Volume IX to a reasonable period of evolution, to restrict its right to intervene militarily in the South by accepting a prohibition on further infiltration, and their agreement to withdraw forces from Laos and Cambodia. As the latest series of negotiations have unfolded, however, it has become clear that Hanoi is either dissatisfied with or undecided about an arrangement that gives it a better than equal chance of ultimately achieving its objectives. Whether they have decided to scuttle the agreement or not, their present course seems devoted to the pursuit of every minor tactical advantage with little perspective for the longer term. When we resumed the talks on the 20th of November we came with three basic objectives, none of which would have been that difficult to settle had Hanoi really wanted to do so. First, we wanted some modifications in language in the political chapter so as to make it absolutely clear that the National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord did not have governmental functions. Second, we wanted to obtain an inoffensive phrase somewhere in the agreement which established the principle, however indirectly, that the North Vietnamese did not have the unequivocal right to intervene militarily in South Vietnam. Lastly we wanted to insure that there was some effective international supervisory mechanism in place at the time of ceasefire. What has been the record on these three issues? We have achieved a very minor success in diluting the functions of the National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord and we have succeeded in obtaining the deletion of the description of the Council as an “administrative structure” which they have mistranslated from the very outset. But in exchange Hanoi has pressed for every conceivable political concession which, if accepted, would render the political provisions of the agreement even more onerous than had been before and would in fact call into question the very principle on which our willingness to proceed in October was actually based. First they agreed to drop the maintenance of the ceasefire and the preservation of peace as functions to be ascribed to the Council but now they have asked that among the functions to be added to the Council’s responsibilities is the promotion of the implementation of the agreement’s attached protocols. In military as well as political matters, it is clear that one of their primordial objectives is to deprive the 1954 Geneva Ac-cords of any meaning whatsoever as a basis for a settlement. Finally, on supervisory matters, Hanoi knew from the outset that we wanted to ensure that some international supervisory machinery be in place at the time of the ceasefire. Without going into all the substance of their supervisory protocol, suffice it to say that they only passed it over to us on December 12, roughly six weeks after you had made your public statement that this was one of the issues on which we would
December 14–29, 1972.
633 seek agreement before signing a settlement. This is not to mention the fact that the content of their protocol is such that our two drafts are irreconcilable over any short time span and agreement on the ICCS is likely only if we deprive it of any teeth whatsoever in exchange for which they may be willing to tone down the political demands contained in their protocol. Their ICCS and ceasefire protocols are truly political rather than technical documents. Procedure: Hanoi’s procedural negotiating tactics have been tawdry, petty and at times transparently childish. To cite but a few examples of the kinds of tactics that Hanoi has pursued, one of their basic approaches has been to agree to phrases which they know are important to us in exchange for certain concessions and then subsequently they would reopen the matter in an attempt to extract further concessions, after we had already communicated these changes to our allies. The most blatant example of this was when in the first week of our resumed talks they agreed to a number of significant changes only to reopen every one of them during the following week’s negotiating session. Among the concrete examples of this tactic are the replacement provision which they first traded for reference to Article 21 (b) on prisoner matters in October, which they again agreed to in late November, and then on the final day of our meeting, without any forewarning whatsoever, reopened a substantive issue with respect to that provision. Another example, of course, is their agreement to DMZ language during our first week of meetings in November which they subsequently retracted. Another tactic has been to delay on substantive issues which they know are important to us, particularly the protocols. We can be almost certain that their protocols were ready well in advance of this latest round or at least in sufficient time to table them in late November and they have had our protocols for almost three weeks. And yet they did not provide us any protocols whatsoever until the next to last day of our meetings, including on such matters as the ICCS. As for the prisoner protocol, which they well know is of vital importance to us, it was not tabled until the very same day of your departure. Another tactic of theirs has been to make concessions and then try to recuperate them in some other form. One example is their attempt to introduce into protocol matters of substance which have not been agreed in the basic text itself and in fact were left out as explicit concessions to us. The role of the NCNRC is one example. The repeated naming of the PRG in the ceasefire protocols is another. Yet another example is the way they have tended to treat the Vietnamese and English versions of the agreement as two separate texts, often conceding to us a word in English but maintaining their language in Vietnamese which
634   Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, Volume IX has different implications. To some extent one could say that they are attempting to take advantage of our less than total expertise in the Vietnamese language, although this is not something that we can complain to anyone else about. Another good example of their dilatory tactics has been their claim that they work slowly because they do not have modern means and that they do not receive instructions quickly from Hanoi. As anyone familiar with the DRV knows they have close to a 100-man delegation in Paris capable of cranking out papers at whatever rate is desired; they have several times as many language officers as any U.S. delegation they have ever dealt with; and surely the SIGINT experts can confirm that Hanoi is in possession of modern Soviet communications equipment. If they can get instructions to COSVN in one or two days, they can certainly get them to Le Duc Tho in the same period of time. Hanoi has also on occasion used experts meetings designed for the explicit purpose of conforming texts to introduce major issues of substance. This was particularly flagrant on the final day of our meetings when they reintroduced issues relating to the replacement provision and the chapter on Cambodia and Laos. Hanoi also has a proclivity for using the past record of negotiations in a fashion that is completely out of context. To cite the most ludicrous example, when our first series of renewed meetings began, they reintroduced the question of Thieu’s resignation arguing that this was simply a matter on which even the U.S. had made a proposal in September. They have likewise, in preparing their understandings, pursued a tactic of quoting from the record out of context. Finally they have at times distorted your remarks beyond recognition such as on the issue of international supervision of Article 13 which they read to me at an experts meeting and raised again at the last meeting with you. It was absolutely obvious to anybody familiar with the record that you had meant to drop reference to international supervision in the article itself and that we fully intended to retain in it the international supervisory chapter. In sum Hanoi’s tactics have been to unnecessarily prolong and delay the discussions, to distort the past record to their purposes and tore negotiate concessions several times over. End of message.

Thông điệp từ John D. Negroponte của Nhân viên Hội đồng An ninh Quốc gia gửi Trợ lý của Tổng thống về các vấn đề an ninh quốc gia (Kissinger)1
Paris, 14/12/1972, 1156Z.WH 46.
Chủ đề: Hành vi của Hà Nội trong các cuộc đàm phán.
Tóm tắt: Mục đích của bài viết này là tóm tắt hành vi đàm phán của Hà Nội cả về thực chất và thủ tục kể từ khi mở lại cuộc đàm phán vào ngày 20 tháng 11. Nó kết luận rằng Hà Nội không có ý định đáp ứng bất kỳ yêu cầu căn bản nào mà chúng tôi đã nêu rõ với họ vào cuối tháng 10; và thông qua một loạt các chiến thuật câu giờ khó chịu đã theo đuổi một con đường có thể được hiểu là mong muốn đạt được hoặc không có thỏa thuận nào cả hoặc một thỏa thuận tồi tệ hơn so với đạt được vào cuối tháng Mười. Chiến thuật của Hà Nội đã vụng về, trắng trợn và về căn bản khinh miệt Hoa Kỳ. Tóm tắt chấm dứt.
Chất: Chúng tôi đã trở lại Paris vào ngày 20 tháng 11 với giả định rằng một số mối quan tâm thiết yếu của chúng tôi về thỏa thuận dự thảo tháng 10 có thể được đáp ứng. Những quan tâm đó đã được làm rõ cho Hà Nội trước cuộc họp đầu tiên của chúng tôi. Khi chúng tôi bước vào giai đoạn đàm phán mới với Hà Nội vào tháng 10, chúng tôi đã làm như vậy với giả định rằng đã có một sự thay đổi căn bản trong chiến lược của họ và họ sẵn sàng chấp nhận một số rủi ro trong việc theo đuổi một dàn xếp hòa bình. Vào thời điểm đó, chúng tôi thừa nhận rằng việc bỏ yêu cầu của họ đối với việc giải tán của Chính phủ Việt Nam (VNCH) đã thể hiện một sự rời xa đáng kể từ các chính sách đã thông báo trước đây của họ. Cả hai bên đều nhận ra rằng việc theo đuổi một dàn xếp trên căn bản này liên quan đến việc nắm bắt cơ hội và dường như, trong một khoảng thời gian, ít nhất, lợi ích của Mỹ và DRV đã hội tụ đủ để tạo căn bản cho việc giải quyết. Điều này nói lên rằng chúng tôi đã chuẩn bị tách xa miền Nam Việt Nam để đổi lấy việc Hà Nội sẵn sàng từ bỏ hoàn thành tất cả các mục tiêu của họ ở miền Nam ngay lập tức. Trong số các yếu tố thiết yếu của khuôn khổ đàm phán này là sự sẵn sàng rõ ràng của Hà Nội rời khỏi tiến trình chính trị ở miền Nam
632 Quan hệ đối ngoại, 1969-1976, Tập IX đến một giai đoạn tiến hóa hợp lý, để hạn chế quyền can thiệp quân sự vào miền Nam bằng cách chấp nhận lệnh cấm xâm nhập thêm và thỏa thuận của họ rút quân khỏi Lào và Campuchia. Tuy nhiên, khi một loạt các cuộc đàm phán mới nhất đã diễn ra, rõ ràng Hà Nội không hài lòng hoặc không quyết định về một dàn xếp mang lại một cơ hội bình đẳng tốt hơn để cuối cùng đạt được các mục tiêu. Cho dù họ có quyết định hủy bỏ thỏa thuận hay không, hướng đi hiện tại của họ dường như quyết tâm cho việc theo đuổi mọi lợi thế chiến thuật nhỏ với ít quan điểm trong dài hạn. Khi chúng tôi nối lại các cuộc đàm phán vào ngày 20 tháng 11, chúng tôi đã đưa ra ba mục tiêu căn bản, không có mục tiêu nào khó giải quyết nếu Hà Nội thực sự muốn làm như vậy. Đầu tiên, chúng tôi muốn có một số sửa đổi về ngôn ngữ trong chương chính trị để làm cho nó hoàn toàn rõ ràng rằng Hội đồng Quốc gia về Hòa giải Quốc gia và Hòa Hợp không có chức năng của chính phủ. Thứ hai, chúng tôi muốn có được một cụm từ không gây hấn ở đâu đó trong thỏa thuật thiết lập nguyên tắc, tuy nhiên, gián tiếp, rằng Bắc Việt Nam dứt khoát không có quyền can thiệp bằng quân sự tại miền Nam Việt Nam. Cuối cùng, chúng tôi muốn đảm bảo rằng có một số cơ chế giám sát quốc tế hiệu quả tại thời điểm ngừng bắn. Điều gì đã được ghi nhận về ba vấn đề này? Chúng tôi đã đạt được một thành công rất nhỏ trong việc pha loãng các chức năng của Hội đồng Hòa giải và Hòa Hợp quốc gia và chúng tôi đã thành công trong việc xóa bỏ mô tả của Hội đồng như một “cấu trúc hành chính” mà họ đã dịch sai từ đầu. Nhưng đổi lại, Hà Nội đã thúc ép mọi nhượng bộ chính trị có thể tưởng tượng được, nếu được chấp nhận, sẽ khiến cho các điều khoản chính trị của thỏa thuận thậm chí còn nặng nề hơn trước đây và trên thực tế sẽ đặt câu hỏi về chính nguyên tắc mà dựa trȇn đó chúng tôi sẵn sàng tiến hành vào tháng 10. Đầu tiên, họ đồng ý bỏ việc duy trì lệnh ngừng bắn và giữ gìn hòa bình là các chức năng được quy định cho Hội đồng nhưng bây giờ họ đã yêu cầu rằng trong số các chức năng được thêm vào trách nhiệm của Hội đồng là thúc đẩy việc thực hiện các nghị định thư đính kèm của thỏa thuận. Trong các vấn đề quân sự cũng như chính trị, rõ ràng một trong những mục tiêu nguyên thủy của họ là tước bỏ các Hiệp ước Genève 1954 với bất kỳ ý nghĩa nào làm căn bản cho việc giải quyết. Cuối cùng, về vấn đề giám sát, Hà Nội ngay từ đầu đã biết rằng chúng tôi muốn đảm bảo rằng một số máy móc giám sát quốc tế được đưa ra vào thời điểm ngừng bắn. Không đi sâu vào tất cả các bản chất của quyết nghị giám sát của họ, đủ để nói rằng họ chỉ chuyển nó cho chúng tôi vào ngày 12 tháng 12, chỉ khoảng sáu tuần lễ sau khi ông đã công bố rằng đây là một trong những vấn đề theo đó chúng ta sẽ
633 tìm kiếm thỏa thuận trước khi ký một dàn xếp. Điều này không đề cập đến thực tế là nội dung của quyết nghị (protocol) của họ là hai bản nháp của chúng ta là không thể hòa giải được trong bất kỳ khoảng thời gian ngắn nào và thỏa thuận về ICCS chỉ có thể xảy ra nếu chúng ta tước đi bất kỳ quyền hành nào để đổi lấy từ đó họ có thể sẳn sàng giảm bớt các yêu sách chính trị có trong quyết nghị của họ. ICCS và các quyết nghị ngừng bắn của họ thực sự là chính trị hơn là các tài liệu kỹ thuật.
Thủ tục: Các chiến thuật đàm phán về thủ tục của Hà Nội đã trở nên tồi tệ, nhỏ nhặt và đôi khi là con nít. Để trích dẫn chỉ một vài ví dụ về các loại chiến thuật mà Hà Nội đã theo đuổi, một trong những cách tiếp cận căn bản của họ là đồng ý với những cụm từ mà họ biết là quan trọng đối với chúng ta để đổi lấy những nhượng bộ nhất định và sau đó họ sẽ mở lại vấn đề trong nỗ lực rút ra những nhượng bộ tiếp theo, sau khi chúng tôi đã thông tin những thay đổi này cho các đồng minh. Ví dụ trắng trợn nhất về điều này là khi trong tuần đầu tiên của cuộc đàm phán được nối lại của chúng tôi, họ đã đồng ý một số thay đổi quan trọng chỉ để mở lại mỗi thay đổi trong số thay đổi trong phiên đàm phán tuần sau. Trong số các ví dụ cụ thể của chiến thuật này là điều khoản thay thế mà lần đầu tiên họ trao đổi để tham khảo Điều 21 (b) về các vấn đề tù nhân vào tháng 10, mà họ lại đồng ý vào cuối tháng 11, và sau đó vào ngày cuối cùng của cuộc họp của chúng tôi, mà không có bất kỳ báo trước bất cứ điều gì, mở lại một vấn đề quan trọng liȇn quan với quy định đó. Tất nhiên, một ví dụ khác là sự đồng ý của họ với ngôn ngữ DMZ trong tuần họp đầu tiên của chúng tôi vào tháng 11 mà sau đó họ rút lại. Một chiến thuật khác là trì hoãn các vấn đề thực chất mà họ biết là quan trọng đối với chúng tôi, đặc biệt là các quyết nghị. Chúng tôi có thể gần như chắc chắn rằng các quyết nghị của họ đã sẵn sàng trước vòng đàm phán mới nhất này hoặc ít nhất là đủ thời gian để đặt chúng vào cuối tháng 11 và họ đã có các quyết nghị của chúng tôi trong gần ba tuần. Tuy nhiên, họ đã không cung cấp cho chúng tôi bất kỳ quyết nghị nào cho đến ngày cuối cùng của cuộc họp, kể cả về các vấn đề như ICCS. Đối với quyết nghị tù nhân, mà họ biết rõ có tầm quan trọng sống còn đối với chúng ta, nó không được bàn giao cho đến cùng ngày ra đi của chúng ta. Một chiến thuật khác của họ là nhượng bộ và sau đó cố gắng phục hồi chúng dưới một số hình thức khác. Một ví dụ là nỗ lực của họ để đưa vào nghị quyết các vấn đề về bản chất chưa được thỏa thuận trong chính văn bản căn bản và trên thực tế đã bị bỏ qua như những nhượng bộ rõ ràng đối với chúng tôi. Vai trò của NCNRC là một ví dụ. Việc lặp lại đặt tên của PRG trong các quyết nghị ngừng bắn là một cách khác. Một ví dụ khác là cách họ có xu hướng coi các phiên bản tiếng Việt và tiếng Anh của thỏa thuận là hai văn bản riêng biệt, thường thừa nhận cho chúng tôi một từ bằng tiếng Anh nhưng vẫn duy trì ngôn ngữ của họ bằng tiếng Việt Việc đặt tên lặp lại của PRG trong các quyết nghị ngừng bắn là một cách khác.
634 (Quan hệ đối ngoại, 1969-1976, Tập IX) có ý nghĩa khác nhau. Ở một mức độ nào đó, người ta có thể nói rằng họ đang cố gắng tận dụng lợi thế của chúng tôi ít hơn tổng số chuyên môn về tiếng Việt, mặc dù đây không phải là điều mà chúng tôi có thể phàn nàn với bất kỳ ai khác. Một ví dụ điển hình khác về chiến thuật nới lỏng của họ là tuyên bố của họ rằng họ làm việc chậm vì họ không có phương tiện hiện đại và họ không nhận được hướng dẫn nhanh chóng từ Hà Nội. Như bất cứ ai quen thuộc với DRV đều biết rằng họ có gần một phái đoàn 100 người ở Paris có khả năng giải quyết các giấy tờ với bất kỳ tốc độ nào mong muốn; họ có số nhân viên ngôn ngữ nhiều gấp nhiều lần so với bất kỳ phái đoàn Hoa Kỳ nào họ từng làm việc; và chắc chắn các chuyên gia của SIGINT có thể xác nhận rằng Hà Nội đang sở hữu các thiết bị liên lạc hiện đại của Liên Xô. Nếu họ có thể nhận được hướng dẫn đến COSVN trong một hoặc hai ngày, họ chắc chắn có thể đưa chúng đến Lê Đức Thọ trong cùng một khoảng thời gian. Đôi khi, Hà Nội cũng đã sử dụng các cuộc họp chuyên gia được thiết kế cho mục đích rõ ràng là làm phù hợp các văn bản để giới thiệu các vấn đề chính về bản chất. Điều này đặc biệt rõ ràng vào ngày cuối cùng của các cuộc họp của chúng tôi khi họ giới thiệu lại các vấn đề liên quan đến điều khoản thay thế và chương về Campuchia và Lào. Hà Nội cũng có một tuyên bố về việc sử dụng hồ sơ đàm phán trong quá khứ theo kiểu cách hoàn toàn nằm ngoài chủ đề. Để trích dẫn một ví dụ ngớ ngẩn nhất, khi một loạt cuộc họp trở lại (renewed) đầu tiên của chúng tôi bắt đầu, họ lại đưa ra câu hỏi về việc từ chức của Thiệu cho rằng đây chỉ là vấn đề mà ngay cả Hoa Kỳ đã đưa ra một đề nghị vào tháng Chín. Họ cũng vậy, trong việc chuẩn bị những hiểu biết của họ, theo đuổi một chiến thuật trích dẫn từ hồ sơ bȇn ngoài chủ đề.
Cuối cùng, đôi khi họ đã bóp méo nhận xét của chúng ta đến nổi không còn nhận ra được, chẳng hạn như về vấn đề giám sát quốc tế của Điều 13 mà họ đã đọc cho tôi tại một cuộc họp chuyên gia và rồi nêu lại trong cuộc họp cuối cùng với chúng ta. Điều này hoàn toàn rõ ràng đối với bất kỳ ai quen thuộc với hồ sơ mà chúng ta có ý định bỏ (drop) tham chiếu đến giám sát quốc tế trong chính điều khoản và rằng chúng tôi hoàn toàn có ý định giữ lại trong đó chương giám sát quốc tế. Tóm lại, chiến thuật của Hà Nội là kéo dài và trì hoãn các cuộc thảo luận một cách không cần thiết, bóp méo hồ sơ trong quá khứ với dụng ý của họ và xé bỏ những nhượng bộ đàm phán nhiều lần.
Kết thúc tin nhắn.

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Message from the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon1Paris, December 4, 1972.Hakto 9.
Please pass the following report to the President immediately. Begin text.1. After today’s session we are at a point where a break-off of the talks looks almost certain. This morning Haig and I met privately with Le Duc Tho and Xuan Thuy for 2½ hours and came away somewhat encouraged.2 I made a conciliatory presentation, stripping down our remaining requests of  last week to the minimum. I also emphasized however, that we must have these minimum changes in order to press the agreement on our allies. Essentially I proposed the compromise that we explained to the South Vietnamese which would link de facto North Vietnamese withdrawals to the release of South Vietnamese civilians outside of the agreement; accept in essence the political provisions, asking only for the correct translation of “administrative structure” to make clear the Council is strictly non-governmental; and establish the principle that North Vietnamese troops would not have the unrestricted right to intervene in South Vietnam through one or more of several formulations that I offered. Although it was a generally tough session, we came away with the impression that they would negotiate within this context and settle. In any event, while I said we needed some changes, I made clear our firm determination to settle and our reasonableness. I even told them about the projected Agnew mission.32. At the full meeting this afternoon, which also lasted 2½ hours, Tho answered my morning proposal point by point.4 He rejected every change we asked for, asked for a change on civilian prisoners, demanded the withdrawal of American civilians from South Vietnam thus making the maintenance of the Vietnam Air Force impossible, and withdrew some concessions from last week. In short, we would wind up with an agreement significantly worse than what we started with. I told him flatly that his approach did not provide the basis for a settlement. In the ensuing dialogue Tho stuck firmly by his intransigent position. The only alternative he offered to his presentation this afternoon was to go back to the October agreement literally with no changes by either side. I told Tho that I would report his positions to you overnight, but I was quite sure of your answer. We agreed to meet again tomorrow at 1500, with us serving as hosts at a new location we havechosen.3. It is not impossible that  Tho is playing chicken and is waiting for us to cave tomorrow. But I do not think so. There is almost no doubt that Hanoi is prepared now to break off the negotiations and go an-other military round. Their own needs for a settlement are now outweighed by the attractive vision they see of our having to choose between a complete split with Saigon or an unmanageable domestic situation. We have two basic choices, assuming as we must that their position is final: (1) go back to the October agreement or (2) run a risk of a breakoff of the talks. I believe the first option is impossible:
—After all our dealings with Saigon and his insistence on some changes these past weeks, this would be tantamount to overthrowing Thieu. He could not survive such a demonstration of his and our impotence.
—We would have no way of explaining our actions since late October.
—It would be an enormous propaganda victory for Hanoi. 339-370/428-S/80004October 24–December 13, 1972  511
—Most importantly, it would deprive us of any ability to police the agreement, because if the Communists know we are willing to swallow this back down, they will also know that we will not have the capacity to react to violations. Thus while the October agreement was a good one, intervening events make it impossible to accept it now.4. Therefore I believe we must be prepared to break off the negotiations. The question is how we do it, and here we have two tactical options. The first choice is to propose settling on the basis of where we stood at the end of last week’s round. We would thus try to keep the improvements we gained last week on the DMZ, Laos and Cambodia, military replacement, and not singling out American obligations; drop our remaining requests; and get them to drop their demands on civilian prisoners and withdrawal of American civilians. It is highly unlikely that Tho will accept this. Furthermore, even if he did, we would face an impossible situation with Saigon because we would have gained no changes in the agreement since the last round.5. The second option is to insist on maintaining the changes of last week and to boil down our remaining requests to two: the correct Vietnamese translation for “administrative structure” and one of our three formulations designed to establish the principle that North Vietnamese troops do not have the legal right to intervene indefinitely in South Vietnam. We would drop all our other requests in exchange for their dropping their changes regarding civilian prisoners and U.S. civilian personnel. This approach is of course even more likely of leading to a break off than the first option. However I believe it is the course we should choose for the following reasons:
—If, as seems totally unlikely, the other side buys this package, we would have gained a significant change in both the political and military areas. Thus this extra round would have been justified and we would be in a stronger position versus Saigon, although our problems there would still be massive.
—If the talks break down, we would have a tenable position domestically on these two issues. On the political one, we could rightly say that we were tricked in the translation and always reserved on it, and Hanoi is trying to distort the English phrase by describing the Council as governmental. On the military question, the American people could certainly understand our fighting for a reference somewhere in the agreement that prevents a legal sanction for North Vietnamese troops to remain on the territory of an ally. The Harris poll seems to confirm this.
—We would thus say that the negotiations failed because Hanoi tricked us on one question and refused to pick any one of several formulations which established the principle that they could not interfere 339-370/428-S/80004512   Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, Volume IX indefinitely in South Vietnam’s affairs. The American people should understand our position, especially when we were prepared de facto to let Hanoi leave its troops in the South for now.6. I have no illusions about what a break off in the talks will do to us domestically. If this happens, I will talk to you upon my return about my own responsibility and role. The immediate task now, of course, is to save our national honor and position ourselves as best we can with our people and the world so as to pursue a principled policy in South-east Asia. The above description of today’s session concerns technical questions which are essentially beside the point. The central issue is that Hanoi has apparently decided to mount a frontal challenge to us such as we faced last May. If so, they are gambling on our unwillingness to do what is necessary; they are playing for a clear cut victory through our split with Saigon or our domestic collapse rather than run the risk of a negotiated settlement. This is the basic question; the rest is tactics. If they were willing to settle now, I could come up with acceptable formulas and would not need to bother you. Assuming they are going the other route, we are faced with the same kind of hard decisions as last spring. I believe that the American people will not fail you now just as they did not then. I therefore believe this situation will require your addressing the American people directly. We will have to step up the bombing again, while at the same time we will probably want to lay out a positive negotiating position for the future so as to give our policy a defined objective and give the American people hope. I believe that you can make a stirring and convincing case to American people and that you will be able to rally them as you have so often in the past with your direct appeals. Your address could contain the following elements:
— Our acceptance of the October agreement was always conditioned on consultations with our allies. Saigon has every right to participate since the war is being fought on their soil by North Vietnamese invaders.
—Furthermore the October agreement contained many ambiguities that needed clarification if the peace was to be a sound one. In addition to technical and translation changes there were such elements to be clarified as de facto North Vietnamese withdrawals which we had proposed and never dropped; the ceasefires in Laos and Cambodia; international supervisory machinery; and various other understandings and principles which needed elaboration. These would have been easy to clarify but Hanoi absolutely refused to cooperate.
—You would emphasize as well our extreme reasonableness in keeping our changes to a minimum despite the above factors. The fact 339-370/428-S/80004October 24–December 13, 1972  513 that Hanoi accepted some modifications last week also proved they admitted that the agreement was not complete.
—Negotiations finally broke down because Hanoi would not correct its trickery on translating a key word and because they refused a whole series of non-contentious formulations in order to sanctify their right to commit aggression against South Vietnam.
—You would stress your determination to proceed with your principled course until there was a sound and just peace, and you would underline this stance by combining firm military actions and a reason-able negotiating position. We would meanwhile move decisively to bring about a unilateral U.S. withdrawal.7. In sum I recommend pursuing the above option cutting down our requests to two on the extremely remote chance that this might produce an agreement, or to position ourselves better for what now seems to be an inevitable breakdown in the negotiations. We shall meet again at 1500 tomorrow and I need instructions by then.8. My office has already contacted Dobrynin and given him the toughest warning on the situation in your name.5 I am now seeing the Chinese Ambassador here and will convey the same message. Warm regards. End text. For Kennedy:9. I must emphasize again that the bureaucracy is not to be told of the present situation and there must be absolute security concerning 339-370/428-S/80004514   Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, Volume IX where we stand. You should merely say that we are in the bargaining process and there are no definitive results yet.6 Warm regards.

Thông điệp từ Trợ lý của Tổng thống về các vấn đề an ninh quốc gia (Kissinger) gửi Tổng thống Nixon1Paris, ngày 4 tháng 12 năm 1972.Hakto 9.
Hãy chuyển báo cáo sau đây cho Tổng thống ngay lập tức. Bắt đầu văn bản.1.
Sau phiên họp hôm nay, chúng ta đang ở thời điểm mà sự đổ vỡcác cuộc đàm phán có vẻ gần như chắc chắn. Sáng nay Haig và tôi đã gặp riêng với Lê Đức Thọ và Xuân Thủy trong 2 tiếng rưỡi và được khuyến khích phần nào. Tôi đã trình bày hòa giải, tước bỏ các yêu cầu còn lại của chúng tôi trong tuần trước đến mức tối thiểu. Tuy nhiên, tôi cũng nhấn mạnh rằng chúng ta phải có những thay đổi tối thiểu này để nhấn mạnh thỏa thuận đối với các đồng minh của mình. Về căn bản, tôi đã đề nghị sự thỏa hiệp mà chúng tôi đã giải thích với người Miền Nam Việt Nam sẽ liên kết việc rút quân của Bắc Việt đang hiện diện ở Miền Nam (de facto) với việc thả dân sự Miền Nam ra bȇn ngoài thỏa thuận; chấp nhận thực chất các điều khoản chính trị, chỉ yêu cầu dịch chính xác “cấu trúc hành chính” để làm rõ Hội đồng là nghiȇm ngặt phi chính phủ; và thiết lập nguyên tắc rằng quân đội Bắc Việt sẽ không có quyền không hạn chế (unrestricted right) can thiệp vào Nam Việt Nam thông qua một hoặc nhiều công thức mà tôi đưa ra. Mặc dù đó là một phiên nói chung khó khăn, chúng tôi đã có ấn tượng rằng họ sẽ đàm phán trong chủ đề này và dàn xếp. Trong mọi trường hợp, trong khi tôi nói rằng chúng tôi cần một số thay đổi, tôi đã nói rõ quyết tâm của chúng tôi để giải quyết và tính hợp lý của chúng tôi. Tôi thậm chí còn nói với họ về nhiệm vụ Agnew đã dự án. Trong cuộc họp đầy đủ chiều nay, cũng kéo dài 2 tiếng rưỡi, Thọ đã trả lời các đề nghị vào buổi sáng của tôi từng điểm một. Ông ta từ chối mọi thay đổi chúng tôi yêu cầu, yêu cầu thay đổi tù nhân dân sự, yêu cầu rút lui dân thường Mỹ khỏi Miền Nam Việt Nam như vậy việc bảo trì Không quân Việt Nam là không thể, và đã rút một số nhượng bộ từ tuần trước. Nói tóm lại, chúng tôi sẽ đã kết thúc với một thỏa thuận rõ ràng còn tồi tệ hơn so với những gì chúng tôi bắt đầu. Tôi nói thẳng với ông ta rằng cách làm việc của ông ta không cung cấp căn bản cho việc giải quyết vấn đề. Trong cuộc đối thoại tiếp theo Thọ giữ chặt vị trí ngoan cố của mình. Sự thay thế duy nhất mà ông ta đưa ra cho bài thuyết trình chiều nay là quay trở lại thỏa thuận tháng 10 theo nghĩa đen mà không có sự thay đổi nào từ hai phía. Tôi nói với Thọ rằng tôi sẽ báo cáo ý định của ông ta cho Tổng Thống qua đêm, nhưng tôi khá chắc chắn về câu trả lời của Tổng Thống. Chúng tôi đã đồng ý gặp lại vào ngày mai lúc 1500, với chúng tôi như là chủ tọa tại một địa điểm mới mà chúng tôi đã chọn.3. Có thể biết đâu là Thọ đang chơi gà và đang chờ chúng tôi sụp hố ngày mai. Nhưng tôi không nghĩ vậy. Gần như không có nghi ngờ rằng Hà Nội đã sẵn sàng để phá vỡ các cuộc đàm phán và đi một cuộc đấu quân sự khác. Nhu cầu giải quyết vấn đề riȇng của họ hiện đang kém trọng lượng bởi viễn cảnh hấp dẫn mà họ thấy được về việc chúng ta phải lựa chọn giữa một cuộc tách rời hoàn toàn với Sài Gòn hay một tình huống trong nước không thể kiểm soát được. Chúng tôi có hai lựa chọn căn bản, chúng tôi phải giả sử rằng ý định của họ là cuối cùng: (1) quay trở lại thỏa thuận tháng 10 hoặc (2) có nguy cơ đổ vỡđàm phán. Tôi tin rằng tùy chọn đầu tiên là không thể:
 -- Sau tất cả các trao đổi của chúng tôi với Sài Gòn và sự khăng khăng của ông về một số thay đổi trong những tuần qua, điều này sẽ tương đương với việc lật đổ Thiệu. Ông ta không thể sống sót trước một chứng minh tồi tệ đến thế về sự bất lực của Ông ta và của chúng ta.
-- Chúng tôi không có cách nào để giải thích hành động của chúng tôi kể từ cuối tháng Mười.
-- Đây sẽ là một chiến thắng tuyên truyền to lớn cho Hà Nội. 511
-- Quan trọng nhất, nó sẽ không cho chúng ta bất kỳ khả năng nào để giám sát thỏa thuận, bởi vì nếu Cộng sản biết chúng ta sẵn sàng nuốt lại điều này, họ cũng sẽ biết rằng chúng ta sẽ không có khả năng phản ứng với các vi phạm. Do đó, trong khi thỏa thuận tháng 10 là một thỏa thuận tốt, các sự kiện can thiệp vào khiến cho nó không thể được chấp nhận ngay bây giờ.4. Vì vậy, tôi tin rằng chúng ta phải chuẩn bị để phá vỡ các cuộc đàm phán. Câu hỏi là làm thế nào chúng ta làm điều đó, và ở đây chúng ta có hai lựa chọn hai chiến thuật. Lựa chọn đầu tiên là đề nghị giải quyết trên căn bản nơi chúng tôi đã đứng vào cuối vòng họp cuối tuần trước. Do đó, chúng tôi sẽ cố gắng duy trì những cải tiến mà chúng tôi đã đạt được vào tuần trước trên DMZ, Lào và Campuchia, thay thế quân sự và không bỏ qua các bắt buộc của Mỹ; bỏ các yêu cầu còn lại của chúng tôi; và khiến họ từ bỏ yêu cầu của họ đối với các tù nhân dân sự và rút đi dân thường Mỹ. Rất khó có khả năng Thọ sẽ chấp nhận điều này. Hơn nữa, ngay cả khi ông ta làm thế, chúng ta sẽ phải đối mặt với một tình huống không thể với Sài Gòn vì chúng ta đã không đạt được sự thay đổi nào trong thỏa thuận kể từ vòng cuối.5. Lựa chọn thứ hai là khăng khăng duy trì những thay đổi của tuần trước và giải quyết các yêu cầu còn lại của chúng tôi thành hai: bản dịch tiếng Việt chính xác cho cấu trúc hành chính của “cấu trúc hành chính” và một trong ba công thức của chúng ta được thiết kế để thiết lập nguyên tắc mà quân đội Bắc Việt Nam không có quyền hợp pháp can thiệp vô thời hạn vào Nam Việt Nam. Chúng ta sẽ bỏ (drop) tất cả các yêu cầu khác để đổi lấy việc họ bỏ (drop) những thay đổi liên quan đến tù nhân dân sự và nhân viên dân sự Hoa Kỳ. Cách tiếp cận này tất nhiên thậm chí có nhiều khả năng dẫn đến một sự phá vỡ hơn so với lựa chọn đầu tiên. Tuy nhiên tôi tin rằng đây là con đường chúng ta nên chọn vì những lý do sau:
-- Mặc dù dường như hoàn toàn không có khả năng, nếu phía bên kia nhận các thay đổi này, chúng ta sẽ có được một sự thay đổi đáng kể trong cả lĩnh vực chính trị và quân sự. Do đó, vòng đấu thêm này sẽ được chứng minh và chúng tôi sẽ ở vị thế mạnh hơn trước Sài Gòn, mặc dù vấn đề của chúng ta vẫn còn rất lớn.
-- Nếu các cuộc đàm phán bị phá vỡ, chúng ta sẽ có một vị trí có thể điều chỉnh được trong nước về hai vấn đề này. Về mặt chính trị, chúng ta có thể nói một cách đúng đắn rằng chúng ta đã bị lừa trong bản dịch và luôn luôn tự chế, và Hà Nội đang cố gắng bóp méo cụm từ tiếng Anh bằng cách mô tả Hội đồng là chính phủ. Về câu hỏi quân sự, người dân Mỹ chắc chắn có thể hiểu việc chúng ta đấu tranh để tham khảo ở đâu đó trong thỏa thuận nhằm ngăn chặn một lệnh trừng phạt hợp pháp cho quân đội Bắc Việt vẫn ở lại trên lãnh thổ của một đồng minh. Cuộc thăm dò của Harris dường như đã xác nhận điều này.
-- Do đó, chúng ta sẽ nói rằng các cuộc đàm phán đã thất bại vì Hà Nội đã lừa chúng tôi một câu hỏi và từ chối chọn bất kỳ một trong số các công thức đã thiết lập nguyên tắc rằng họ không thể can thiệp 339-370 / 428-S / 80004512 Quan hệ đối ngoại, 1969 Thay1976, Tập IX vô thời hạn trong các vấn đề Nam Việt Nam. Người dân Mỹ nên hiểu vị trí của chúng ta, đặc biệt là khi chúng ta đã chuẩn bị sẵn sàng để cho Hà Nội để lại (leave) quân đội của họ ở miền Nam bây giờ (for now).6. Tôi không ảo tưởng về những gì một cuộc đỡ vở trong các cuộc đàm phán sẽ làm gì với chúng ta ở trong nước. Nếu điều này xảy ra, tôi sẽ nói chuyện với Tổng Thống khi tôi trở về về trách nhiệm và vai trò của chính mình. Tất nhiên, nhiệm vụ trước mắt bây giờ là bảo vệ danh dự quốc gia và định vị bản thân tốt nhất có thể với nhân dân và thế giới để theo đuổi chính sách nguyên tắc ở Đông Nam Á. Mô tả ở trên của phiên họp hôm nay liên quan đến các câu hỏi kỹ thuật mà về căn bản là bên cạnh điểm. Vấn đề trung tâm là Hà Nội rõ ràng đã quyết định thực hiện một thách thức trực diện đối với chúng ta như chúng ta phải đối mặt vào tháng 5 năm ngoái. Nếu vậy, họ đang đánh bạc với sự không sẵn lòng của chúng tôi làm những gì cần thiết; họ đang chơi cho một chiến thắng rõ ràng thông qua sự chia rẽ của chúng ta với Sài Gòn hoặc sự sụp đổ trong nước của chúng ta thay vì có nguy cơ giải quyết thương lượng. Đây là câu hỏi căn bản; phần còn lại là chiến thuật. Nếu họ sẵn sàng giải quyết ngay bây giờ, tôi có thể tin tới các công thức có thể chấp nhận và không cần phải làm phiền Tổng Thống. Giả sử họ đang đi theo con đường khác, chúng ta phải đối mặt với những quyết định khó khăn tương tự như mùa xuân năm ngoái. Tôi tin rằng người dân Mỹ sẽ không làm TT thất vọng trong lúc này như họ đã không làm khi đó. Do đó tôi tin rằng tình huống này sẽ yêu cầu TT nȇu rõ trực tiếp với người dân Mỹ. Chúng ta sẽ phải đẩy mạnh cuộc đánh bom một lần nữa, đồng thời có lẽ chúng ta sẽ muốn đưa ra một vị trí đàm phán tích cực cho tương lai để cho chính sách của chúng ta có một mục tiêu xác định và mang lại cho người dân Mỹ hy vọng. Tôi tin rằng TT có thể đưa ra một trường hợp gây xôn xao và thuyết phục cho người dân Mỹ và rằng TT sẽ có thể tập hợp họ như TT thường làm trong quá khứ với những lời kêu gọi trực tiếp của TT. Bài diễn văn của TT có thể chứa các yếu tố sau:
-- Việc chúng tôi chấp nhận thỏa thuận tháng 10 luôn được điều kiện trong các cuộc tham vấn với các đồng minh của chúng tôi. Sài Gòn có mọi quyền tham gia vì họ đang chiến đấu trong cuộc chiến trên đất của họ gây ra bởi những kẻ xâm lược Bắc Việt.
-- Ngoài ra, thỏa thuận tháng 10 còn có nhiều điều mơ hồ cần làm sáng tỏ nếu hòa bình trở thành một điều tốt đẹp. Ngoài những thay đổi về kỹ thuật và dịch thuật, còn có những yếu tố cần được làm rõ như việc rút quân trȇn thực tế của Bắc Việt mà chúng tôi đã đề nghị và không bao giờ từ bỏ; các lệnh ngừng bắn ở Lào và Campuchia; máy móc giám sát quốc tế; và nhiều cách hiểu và nguyên tắc khác cần được xây dựng. Những điều này sẽ dễ dàng được làm rõ nhưng Hà Nội hoàn toàn từ chối hợp tác.
-- TT cũng nhấn mạnh sự hợp lý cao độ của chúng ta trong việc giữ cho các thay đổi của chúng ta ở mức tối thiểu bất chấp các yếu tố trên. Thực tế (513) rằng Hà Nội đã chấp nhận một số sửa đổi vào tuần trước cũng chứng tỏ họ thừa nhận rằng thỏa thuận này chưa hoàn tất.
-- Cuối cùng, các cuộc đàm phán đã bị phá vỡ vì Hà Nội sẽ không sửa chữa mánh khóe của mình trong việc dịch một từ khóa và vì họ đã từ chối một loạt các công thức không thể chối bỏ (non-contentiuos) để thánh hóa quyền xâm lược của họ đối với Miền Nam Việt Nam.
-- TT sẽ nhấn mạnh quyết tâm của TT để tiến hành đường lối có nguyên tắc của TT cho đến khi có một nền hòa bình tốt đẹp và công bằng, và TT sẽ nhấn mạnh lập trường này bằng cách kết hợp các hành động quân sự vững chắc và một vị trí đàm phán hợp lý. Trong khi đó, chúng ta sẽ tiến đến một cách quyết định để mang lại một cuộc rút lui đơn phương của Hoa Kỳ.7.
Tóm lại, tôi khuyên TT nên theo đuổi tùy chọn trên, cắt giảm yêu cầu của chúng ta xuống hai cơ hội cực kỳ xa vời rằng điều này có thể tạo ra một thỏa thuận, hoặc để xác định vị trí tốt hơn cho những gì bây giờ dường như là một đổ vỡ không thể tránh khỏi trong các cuộc đàm phán. Chúng ta sẽ gặp lại vào 1500 ngày mai và tôi cần sự hướng dẫn trước đó.8. Văn phòng của tôi đã liên lạc với Dobrynin và đưa cho ông ta lời cảnh báo cứng rắn nhất về tình huống nhân danh TT.5 Bây giờ tôi đang gặp Đại sứ Trung Quốc tại đây và sẽ chuyển đến thông điệp tương tự. Trân trọng. Kết thúc văn bản. Đối với Kennedy: 9. Tôi phải nhấn mạnh một lần nữa rằng các cơ quan không được nói về tình hình hiện tại và phải có sự bảo mật tuyệt đối liên quan đến 339-370 / 428-S / 80004514 Quan hệ đối ngoại, 1969 Tiết1976, Tập IX vị trí chúng ta đang đứng. TT chỉ nên nói rằng chúng tôi đang trong quá trình thương lượng và chưa có kết quả rõ ràng nào.6 Trân trọng.

INTERSPACE COMMUNICATION (Reuters) Taiwan minister says TSMC has offset lost Huawei orders, (Reuters) UK tells telcos to stockpile Huawei gear in face of U.S. sanctions: letter. (The Telegraph) Special relationship would be 'fundamentally altered' if UK uses Huawei in 5G network. (Business Insider)T-Mobile explains what caused the massive outage that disrupted voice and data service across the United States earlier this week. (Business Insider) Zoom deactivated the US-based account of a Tiananmen Square protester after an online commemorative event. (Reuters) U.S. lawmakers ask Zoom to clarify China ties after it suspends accounts. (Variety) Twitter Removes More Than 170,000 Accounts Tied to Chinese Misinformation Operation. (AFP) Twitter removes China, Russia and Turkey 'state-linked' accounts. (The National Interest) Could Donald Trump’s War Against Huawei Trigger a Real War With China? (Reuters) U.S. failed to properly oversee Chinese telecom carriers: Senate panel. (The Telegraph) Boris Johnson told to give legally-binding Huawei 5G exit date or face Commons defeat. (Reuters) Ericsson flags losses from China 5G contracts, takes 1 billion SEK charge

INTERSPACE COMMUNICATION

(Internet and Space Communication)
 Index Links: May 26, 2020

INTERSPACE (Bloomberg) Huawei Troops See Dire Threat to Future From Latest Trump Salvo. (Bloomberg) China Poised to Pull Plans for U.K. Nuclear Plants. (Quartz) Millions of Indians flocked to download a tool that removes Chinese apps. (BBC) Google takes down app that removes Chinese software. (Reuters) Exclusive: Huawei hid business operation in Iran after Reuters reported links to CFO. (The Telegraph) America could move weapons stored on British soil if UK persists with Huawei, US senator warns. (The Telegraph) Huawei’s funding of British and Chinese universities raises security fears. (Reuters) Malaysia's Axiata to pick two 5G vendors, in move that could curb reliance on Huawei. (AFP) Britain pushing US to form 5G club of nations to cut out Huawei. (The Wrap) Mark Zuckerberg Says Trump’s Minneapolis Shooting Post Did Not Violate Facebook’s Policies. (The Telegraph) Security officials launch review of Huawei's involvement in Britain's 5G network. (Business Insider) Trump plans to sign an executive order 'pertaining to social media' on Thursday, shortly after he accused Twitter of squashing free speech. (Business Insider) It looks like Trump's draft executive order targeting Facebook and Twitter got leaked online. (The Independent) Trump news – live: President to sign executive order pursuing social media giants amid silence over US reaching 100,000 dead. (Business Insider) YouTube has been auto-deleting comments about China's government-sponsored hacker army, but says it is 'an error in our enforcement systems'. Luat an ninh mang Vietnam 2018.

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Business

Taiwan minister says TSMC has offset lost Huawei orders

FILE PHOTO: A logo of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) is seen at its headquarters in Hsinchu
FILE PHOTO: A logo of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) is seen at its headquarters in Hsinchu

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has made up its order book with other customers now that it has lost China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL], which is subject to U.S. sales restrictions, a government minister said on Monday.

TSMC's clients include Huawei's chip division HiSilicon. However, the U.S. blacklisting of Huawei over security concerns and trade disputes with China has left the world's biggest contract chipmaker exposed to diplomatic developments between two countries where it also has production bases.

Last month, the company unveiled plans for a $12-billion plant in the United States just hours before the U.S. Commerce Department outlined a proposal to amend chip export rules - a move that would restrict TSMC's sales to Huawei.

The amendment would require licences for sales of semiconductors made abroad with U.S. technology to Huawei, the world's biggest supplier of telecoms equipment and its second-largest smartphone maker.

Kung Ming-hsin, the new head of Taiwan's economic planning agency, the National Development Council, said the United States was taking aim at a specific company, not Taiwan's economic relations with China, the island's largest trading partner.

"The United States has not asked Taiwan to cut off all ties with China. It's aimed at Huawei," Kung told reporters in Taipei.

The main reason the United States has targeted Huawei is because it was not transparent and had too close a relationship with the Chinese government, he added, charges the company has denied.

"As for TSMC, although their orders no longer have Huawei, they've quickly been filled up, as other people really need them," Kung said, without elaborating.

TSMC declined to comment, saying it did not comment on its customers.

The chairman of TSMC, a supplier to U.S. tech giants such as Apple Inc , said this month the firm could quickly fill any order gap should U.S. curbs prevent sales to Huawei.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)



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World

UK tells telcos to stockpile Huawei gear in face of U.S. sanctions: letter

Jack Stubbs and Kate Holton

https://www.yahoo.com/news/uk-tells-telcos-stockpile-huawei-184901274.html

By Jack Stubbs and Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) - British security officials have told UK telecom operators to ensure they have adequate stockpiles of Huawei equipment due to fears that new U.S. sanctions will disrupt the Chinese firm's ability to maintain critical supplies, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

Britain granted Huawei a limited role in its future 5G networks in January, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson has since come under renewed pressure from Washington and some lawmakers in his own party who say the company's equipment is a security risk. Huawei has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Officials at the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) are now studying the impact of U.S. measures announced in May, which are intended to restrict Huawei's ability to source the advanced microchips needed to produce its 5G equipment and flagship smartphones.

Senior NCSC officials wrote to operators including Britain's BT Group and Vodafone last week, said three people familiar with the matter, telling them to maintain adequate supplies of spare parts from all manufacturers.

But the letter also emphasised the increased risk to Huawei's equipment and its future ability to provide updates for those products in the face of U.S. pressure.

"Ensuring that products and components are kept up-to-date is essential to maintaining the security of networks," the letter said. "Escalating U.S. action against Huawei may affect its ability to provide updates for products containing U.S. technology."

An NCSC spokeswoman said: "The NCSC has provided operators with a series of precautionary steps we recommend they take while we carefully consider the impact these sanctions have on the UK's networks."

Huawei Vice President Victor Zhang said: "Our customers are our number one priority and we are working with them to ensure business continuity. We strongly oppose politically-motivated actions by the US that are designed to damage our business and are not based on evidence."

BT and Vodafone declined to comment.

Britain designated Huawei a "high-risk vendor" in January, capping its 5G involvement at a 35% market share and excluding it from the data-heavy core of the network.

Officials now say they are reviewing the specific guidance on how Huawei equipment should be deployed in order to best secure UK networks and are considering a range of options. A decision is due in the coming weeks.

Any move by London to further restrict Huawei or bar the company completely would strain relations with China, which have grown tense in recent months over Beijing's handling of the situation in Hong Kong and the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Reporting by Jack Stubbs and Kate Holton; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Alex Richardson)

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World

Special relationship would be 'fundamentally altered' if UK uses Huawei in 5G network

Danielle Sheridan
June 16, 2020, 9:56 AM P

America has been outspoken on the UK using Huawei in its 5G - Dado Ruvic

America has been outspoken on the UK using Huawei in its 5G - Dado Ruvic

The UK’s ‘special relationship’ with the US would be “fundamentally altered” if it uses Huawei in its 5G network, a Republican congressman has warned.

Mike Turner, Chairman of the Defence and Security Committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, said the special relationship between the UK and US was important “because we rely on each other”, for both one another’s capabilities and the “peer support where we have a dialogue about things we are looking at or things we are concerned about”.

When asked at the Commons Defence Sub Committee if that relationship was at risk due to “recent conversations around Huawei”, Mr Turner said “it would be fundamentally altered in that the ability to share” and retained “the same academic level of trust” would be “impacted”.

“The amount of information that we share would be impacted and the concern about where that information may go,” he said.

Mr Turner added that there had to be “recognition of the reality of an impact” if Huawei is to be embedded in Britain’s 5G, and cautioned that this “should be considered” by the UK.

It comes after the UK Government confirmed that the National Cyber Security Centre had launched a review of Huawei's involvement in Britain's 5G network in the wake of US sanctions. However Boris Johnson has been keen to state that the UK should continue to work with the "great and rising power" of China.

Franklin Miller, a foreign policy and nuclear defense police expert who served for more than 30 in the U.S. government, said it was his hope that the ‘special relationship’, which exists not just through politicians but through “intelligence officers, scientific officers, across the US and the UK”, continued for many years to come.

“The special relationship is absolutely vital,” he told the committee.

“However he cautioned that “the relationship needs to be improved” between the White House and Number 10.

“As someone who has served in both the Republic and Democrat administrations I think the White House and Number 10 need to share views and shared objectives to the maximum degree possible and I think things can get a lot better than they are now,” he said.

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USA TODAY

The FCC wants an investigation into T-Mobile's outage that left customers without voice, data service

Josh Rivera, USA TODAY

https://www.yahoo.com/news/issues-t-mobile-verizon-t-215058441.html

Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai said the agency would open an investigation into T-Mobile's Monday network issues that affected voice and data service for many customers.

In a late Monday tweet, Pai called the outage "unacceptable." And added that the FCC would be demanding answers by "launching an investigation."

An hour later, T-Mobile notified the public it had resolved the network issues.

Whereas, T-Mobile's president of technology Neville Ray, confirmed on Twitter around 1 a.m. EDT Tuesday that voice and text services were "now restored."

The FCC has fined carriers, including T-Mobile, before for service failures.

T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert in a Monday statement called the problem "an IP traffic related issue that has created significant capacity issues in the network core throughout the day."

Downdetector, which collects outage reports from users, showed a spike around 3 p.m. EDT Monday for T-Mobile customers.

While there were other reported outages for carriers such as Verizon and AT&T, the companies confirmed that the issue might have stemmed from T-Mobile's problems.

"Verizon's network is performing well. We're aware that another carrier is having network issues. Calls to and from that carrier may receive an error message," said Rich Young, a Verizon spokesperson. "We understand Downdetector is falsely reporting Verizon network issues."

Young said:

Sites such as Downdetector.com utilize limited crowdsourced data drawn from sample social posts which are often statistically insignificant or factually incorrect. A lot of factors can contribute to a false report on a third-party website … a faulty device, network traffic that slows but doesn’t inhibit connections, commercial RF blockers, human error, network issues impacting other carriers and more. These types of sites do not evaluate and confirm the crowdsourced data that they receive, they simply aggregate it and report it. The result can be faulty reports of network performance interruptions causing widespread miscommunication for wireless users.

AT&T also told USA TODAY it was "operating normally."

A spokesperson for the service provider pointed to a tweet from its news account saying, "Our network is operating normally, but it’s possible some customers are unable to reach people on other carriers’ networks."

Follow Josh Rivera on Twitter: @Josh1Rivera.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: T-Mobile's outage prompts an FCC investigation

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Business

T-Mobile explains what caused the massive outage that disrupted voice and data service across the United States earlier this week

leadicicco@businessinsider.com (Lisa Eadicicco)
  • T-Mobile has shared more information behind the cause of Monday's outage, saying the problems were the result of a circuit failure from a third-party provider in the Southeast.

  • The carrier is working with vendors to "add permanent additional safeguards" that would prevent such an issue from happening again, according to Neville Ray, T-Mobile's president of technology.

  • T-Mobile customers across the US experienced outages on Monday that lasted throughout the afternoon and evening.

  • Customers on other carrier networks also reported issues during the outage period, although AT&T and Verizon had said their networks were operating normally on Monday.

  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Shutterstock

T-Mobile has shared more information behind what caused the massive outage that disrupted service across the United States on Monday, saying that the issue stems from a fiber circuit failure in the Southeast.

"Our engineers worked through the night to understand the root cause of yesterday's issues, address it and prevent it from happening again," Neville Ray, T-Mobile's president of technology, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday evening. "The trigger event is known to be a leased fiber circuit failure from a third-party provider in the Southeast."

Ray said T-Mobile's existing safeguards that are meant to ensure such circuit failures won't impact customers had failed and resulted in an "overload situation." That overload caused what Ray described as an "IP traffic storm" that spread from the Southeast to create capacity issues across the network that supports T-Mobile's voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) calls.

Ray says the carrier has worked with its vendors to "add permanent additional safeguards to prevent this from happening again" and is "continuing to work on determining the cause of the initial overload failure."

T-Mobile's service was restored around 1 a.m. ET on Tuesday after outages had affected the network across the United States for much of the afternoon and evening on Monday. The website Downdetector, which tracks outages across popular services and websites, indicated that the issue seemed to peak at around 3 p.m. on Monday, with more than 93,000 reports of issues on the network.

Ray said in his latest blog post that "data connections continued to work" during the outage, although on Monday he tweeted that T-Mobile's engineers were working to "resolve a voice and data issue."

Customers on other carriers had reported problems with service as well, according to Downdetector, but both AT&T and Verizon had said their networks were operating normally on Monday. Ray also said that Sprint customers were unaffected by the service disruptions.

The mishap has brought scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission, as chairman Ajit Pai tweeted on Monday that the outage was "unacceptable" and that the commission would be launching an investigation.

"We're demanding answers — and so are American customers," Pai tweeted.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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Business

Largest union federation in the US demands apology from Mark Zuckerberg over new software feature that would allow employers blacklist words like 'unionize' in chats

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pauses while speaking as he testifies before a joint hearing of the Commerce and Judiciary Committees on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 10, 2018.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pauses while speaking as he testifies before a joint hearing of the Commerce and Judiciary Committees on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 10, 2018.

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

  • AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka demanded a personal apology from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg after it was revealed the company was working on a feature that could limit union drives.

  • "The AFL-CIO demands that Mark Zuckerberg personally apologize to working people, pull this tool immediately, and conduct a board-level investigation into how this product came into existence in the first place," Trumka said in a statement on Friday.

  • Earlier, a spokesperson for Facebook told Business Insider that the company has frozen production on its potentially union-busting feature.

  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The largest union federation in the United States on Friday blasted Facebook after it was revealed the company was offering to let employers limit unionization efforts on its platform.

Facebook's Workplace functions as an internal message board for corporate clients, an answer to Slack or Microsoft Teams. This week, The Intercept reported that Facebook was promising those clients the ability to exert "content control" over their respective news feeds. Specifically, it said companies could suppress the word "unionize."

That didn't sit well with the AFL-CIO, which represents more than 12.5 million union members.

"Employers censoring their employees' speech about unionizing is illegal," President Richard Trumka said in a June 12 statement. "The AFL-CIO demands that Mark Zuckerberg personally apologize to working people, pull this tool immediately, and conduct a board-level investigation into how this product came into existence in the first place."

Earlier, a spokesperson for Facebook told Business Insider that the company has frozen production on its potentially union-busting feature.

"While these kinds of content moderation tools are useful for companies, this example was poorly chosen and should never have been used," the spokesperson said. "The feature was only in early development and we've pulled any plans to roll it out while we think through next steps."

Trumka also called on Facebook to "embrace global labor rights standards for all its 48,000 workers and for its contractors who employ tens of thousands more," remain neutral to efforts to unionize and recognize employee unions.

Have a news tip? Email this reporter: cdavis@insider.com

Read the original article on Business Insider

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Business Insider

Zoom deactivated the US-based account of a Tiananmen Square protester after an online commemorative event

insider@insider.com (Isobel Asher Hamilton)
Business Insider
The Tiananmen Square protests, 1989.
The Tiananmen Square protests, 1989.


Bettmann / Getty Images

  • Zoom deactivated the account of a Tiananmen Square protester after he organized a memorial event for the 1989 protests.

  • Zoom said the account was deactivated to "comply with local law" but did not go into further detail.

  • The host is US-based, but Zoom's statement suggests some attendees tuned in from China, meaning Chinese censorship laws applied.

  • Zoom said it has now reactivated the account.

  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Zoom, the videoconferencing platform that's ballooned in popularity since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, said on Wednesday it had deactivated an activist group's account for hosting a Tiananmen Square memorial event.

The US-based group, called Humanitarian China, hosted a 31st anniversary event to commemorate Tiananmen Square on May 31, Axios reported. The group is headed up by Zhou Fengsuo, a former student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests which culminated in a massacre of protesters on June 4 of that year.

Zhou hosted the event which was attended by some 250 people. Speakers included mothers of students killed during the protests. On June 7, Zhou's account was shut down.

A Zoom spokesperson told Axios the account was deactivated to "comply with local law." Although it did not explicitly say which local law this was, its statement suggested that users joining in from China may have meant the Zoom meeting fell under China's jurisdiction.

"Just like any global company, we must comply with applicable laws in the jurisdictions where we operate. When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comply with their respective local laws. We aim to limit the actions we take to those necessary to comply with local law and continuously review and improve our process on these matters," a Zoom spokesperson said.

Zoom has now reactivated the account.

Zhou told Axios Zoom didn't respond to his emails asking why his account was shut down.

"We are outraged by this act from Zoom, a US company," said Zhou. "As the most commercially popular meeting software worldwide, Zoom is essential as an unbanned outreach to Chinese audiences remembering and commemorating Tiananmen Massacre during the coronavirus pandemic."

Although Zoom is headquartered in California, it has already faced scrutiny over how it interacts with China's laws and regulations. In April 2020 the company admitted it had "mistakenly" routed some video calls through servers in China, sparking security concerns. Subsequently the company announced premium users would be able to choose which data centers are used to route their calls, and non-paying users would not have their calls routed through China.

China has stringent censorship laws which ban the discussion of the pro-democracy movement and Tiananmen Square. Zoom's decision to deactivate Zhou's account mirrors reports about TikTok, the wildly popular short-form video app, which was discovered to have been instructing moderators to take down politically contentious content including mentions of Tiananmen Square. TikTok is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, which is headquartered in Beijing.

Zoom issued a press release on Thursday, June 11th saying it will do better in the future. "Going forward Zoom will not allow requests from the Chinese government to impact anyone outside of mainland China," Zoom said. 

The company also said it will develop technology to enable it to "remove or block" participants based on geography to comply with local laws, which it can't do right now. Zoom also said that the technology will allow it to be able to protect "conversations for participants outside of those borders where the activity is allowed."

Read the original article on Business Insider

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World

U.S. lawmakers ask Zoom to clarify China ties after it suspends accounts

A 3D printed Zoom logo
A 3D printed Zoom logo

By Brenda Goh

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Three U.S. lawmakers asked Zoom Video Communications Inc <ZM.O> to clarify its data-collection practices and relationship with the Chinese government after the firm said it had suspended user accounts to meet demands from Beijing.

The California-based firm has come under heavy scrutiny after three U.S. and Hong Kong-based activists said their accounts had been suspended and meetings disrupted after they tried to hold events related to the anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Zoom said on Friday it was notified of the events and asked to take action by the Chinese government in May and early June. It said it suspended one account in Hong and two in the United States but has now reinstated these accounts and will not allow further requests from China to affect users outside the country.

"We did not provide any user information or meeting content to the Chinese government," Zoom said in a statement. "We do not have a backdoor that allows someone to enter a meeting without being visible."

The online meeting platform, which has surged in popularity as the COVID-19 pandemic has forced millions around the world indoors, has seen its downloads soar in China.

The service is not blocked in China, unlike many Western platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, which abandoned efforts to crack China's market years ago due to government demands to censor and monitor content. Twitter on Thursday said it had removed accounts tied to a Beijing-backed influence operation.

Representatives Greg Walden, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the ranking member of a consumer subcommittee, sent a letter to Zoom CEO Eric Yuan on Thursday asking him to clarify the company's data practices, whether any was shared with Beijing and whether it encrypted users' communications.

Republican Senator Josh Hawley also wrote to Yuan asking him to "pick a side" between the United States and China.

The three politicians have previously expressed concerns about TikTok's owner, Chinese firm ByteDance, which is being scrutinized by U.S. regulators over the personal data the short video app handles.

"We appreciate the outreach we have received from various elected officials and look forward to engaging with them," a Zoom spokesman said.

China's internet watchdog, the Cyberspace Administration of China, did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment from Reuters. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters on Friday that she was not aware of the details.


SEPARATE CHINA FROM THE WORLD

Wang Dan, a U.S.-based dissident and exiled student leader of the crushed 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, had his Zoom account suspended. He said he was shocked to hear Zoom acknowledge it had interrupted meetings he was participating in. His June 3 event with about 200 participants was deactivated midstream, he said.

"Zoom complied with China's request, preventing us from going about our lives smoothly," Wang said in an email to Reuters. "It cannot get away with just a statement. We shall continue to use legal means and public opinion to ask Zoom to take responsibility for its mistake."

The company said it is now developing technology to enable it to remove or block participants based on geography, allowing it to comply with requests from local authorities. It said it would publish an updated global policy on June 30.

U.S.-based Humanitarian China founder Zhou Fengsuo said he welcomed Zoom's acknowledgement of the suspensions but told Reuters it was unacceptable for the company "to separate China users from the rest of the world."

The company's China links have been called into question before.

Toronto-based internet watchdog Citizen Lab said in April it had found evidence some calls made in North America, as well as the encryption keys used to secure those calls, were routed through China. Zoom said it had mistakenly allowed Chinese data centres to accept calls.

Zoom says it has many research and development personnel in China. Its founder Yuan grew up and attended university in China before migrating to the United States in the mid 1990s. He is now an American citizen.

Bill Bishop, editor of the China-focused Sinocism news letter, wrote on Friday that "Zoom should no longer get the benefit of the doubt over its China-related issues and given how many people, organizations, government bodies and political campaigns now rely on its services the company must err on the side of transparency.


(Reporting by Ayanti Bera in Bengaluru and Brenda Goh in Shanghai; Additional reporting by Lun Tian Yew, Huizhong Wu and Gabriel Crossley in Beijing; Editing by Devika Syamnath, Lincoln Feast, William Mallard and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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Variety

Twitter Removes More Than 170,000 Accounts Tied to Chinese Misinformation Operation

Click here to read the full article.

Twitter said Thursday that it removed more than 170,000 accounts tied to a Chinese influence operation that spread misinformation favorable to the Beijing regime about Hong Kong and coronavirus.

The company suspended 23,750 accounts that were part of a “highly engaged core network,” as well as a larger group of around 150,000 “amplifier” accounts designed to boost core account content, it said. This network was posting mostly in Chinese to “spread geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China (CCP),” while also pushing misinformation about politics in Hong Kong.

More from Variety

Researchers said the accounts also posted about Taiwan and the exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, who is an outspoken critic of Beijing.

Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) researcher Renee DiResta said that many accounts posting about coronavirus were set up in late January. They became more active as the outbreak began to spread beyond China’s borders. In an analysis, the SIO said that common narratives “praise[d] China’s response to the virus while… also us[ing] the pandemic to antagonize the U.S. and Hong Kong activists.”

Twitter on Thursday also took down two smaller state-backed operations originating from Russia and Turkey that were focused more on local audiences in those countries. The company deleted more than 1,000 accounts that posted material favorable to the ruling United Russia, as well as 7,340 accounts posting content promoting the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s conservative AK Parti.

Twitter is blocked in China, where the government operates one of the world’s strictest censorship regimes.

Last August, the company removed around 1,000 accounts that it deemed had ties to China and were “deliberately and specifically” attempting to influence narratives about Hong Kong, where ongoing anti-government, pro-democracy protests have posed a continual challenge to authorities.

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World

Twitter removes China, Russia and Turkey 'state-linked' accounts

AFP

Twitter on Friday said it had removed tens of thousands of "state linked" accounts used by China, Russia and Turkey to push their own propaganda, sow misinformation or attack critics.

By far the biggest network uncovered was linked to China, the US social media giant said, comprised of a "highly engaged core" of 23,750 accounts that was boosted by a further 150,000 "amplifier" accounts.

The Turkish network was made up of 7,340 accounts while the Russian group was 1,152 strong.

All accounts and their content have been removed from Twitter but have been placed on an archive database for researchers.

Twitter said the Chinese network was detected with the help of systems it used to previously delete state-linked accounts last August at the height of huge and often violent pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

The current network had "failed to achieve considerable traction" but was "involved in a range of manipulative and coordinated activities".

"They were tweeting predominantly in Chinese languages and spreading geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China, while continuing to push deceptive narratives about the political dynamics in Hong Kong," Twitter wrote in its analysis.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) -- a Canberra based think-tank -- analysed the dataset ahead of the announcement and said the network was primarily looking to sway views within the global Chinese diaspora.

As well as pushing Beijing's narrative on the Hong Kong protests, the network did the same for the coronavirus pandemic and criticising Taiwan.

Some of the group also later "pivoted" to the US government's response to seething racial injustice protests "to create the perception of moral equivalence with the suppression of protest in Hong Kong," ASPI wrote.

"While the Chinese Communist Party won't allow the Chinese people to use Twitter, our analysis shows it is happy to use it to sow propaganda and disinformation internationally," Fergus Hanson, director of ASPI's cyber centre, wrote.

Twitter -- along with YouTube, Google and Facebook -- is banned in China, which uses a "Great Firewall" to scrub its internet and censor negative information.

In recent years Beijing has pushed to be much more visible on such companies with state media and ambassadors embracing platforms that regular Chinese citizens cannot access.

In its analysis Twitter said the Turkish network was detected in early 2020 and was primarily aimed at boosting domestic support for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling party.

The Russian accounts were involved in "cross-posting and amplifying content in an inauthentic, coordinated manner for political ends" including promoting the ruling United Russia and attacking political dissidents.

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World

Could Donald Trump’s War Against Huawei Trigger a Real War With China?

Click here to read the full original article.

The centerpiece of the Trump administration’s “tech war” with China is the campaign to prevent its national champion Huawei from becoming the dominant supplier of 5G systems to the world. The Administration’s objective, as a former Trump NSC staffer described it, is to “kill Huawei.” And China has heard that message. As Huawei’s legendary CEO Ren Zhengfei told the leadership of the company in February, “the company has entered a state of war.”

 After months of diplomatic efforts to dissuade other nations from buying their 5G infrastructure from Huawei, the administration delivered what one official called a “death blow.” On May 15, the Commerce Department banned all sales of advanced semiconductors from American suppliers to Huawei. It also prohibited all sales of equipment to design and produce advanced semiconductors by foreign companies that use U.S. technology or intellectual property.

In the five months between now and the election, could the U.S. attempt to enforce that ban become a twenty-first-century equivalent of the oil embargo the United States imposed on Japan in August 1941? While many people may not remember what happened, and while it was certainly not what the United States intended or anticipated, that action precipitated Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor four months later—and America’s entry into World War II. 

The thought that the United States and China could find themselves in a real, hot, bloody war will strike many readers as inconceivable. But we should remember that when we say something is inconceivable, this is not a claim about what is possible in the world, but rather about what our minds can conceive. In the summer of 1941, the possibility that a nation less than one-quarter the size of the United States would launch a bolt from the blue against the most powerful nation in the world was beyond Washington’s imagination.

To punish Japan for its military aggression against its neighbors in the late 1930s, the United States had initially imposed sanctions, and later an embargo on exports of high-grade scrap iron and aviation fuel to Japan. When these failed to stop its expansion, Washington ratcheted up the pressure by including essential raw materials such as iron, brass, and copper. Finally, on August 1, 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that the United States would embargo all oil shipments to Japan.

Eighty percent of Japan’s oil came from the United States, and Japan’s military forces required that oil to operate at home as well as across the Greater Co-prosperity Area in Northeast Asia. Facing what it saw as a choice between slow but sure strangulation, on the one hand, and taking an extreme chance that offered hope of survival, on the other, the government chose to take its chance with what it hoped would be a “knockout blow”—a bold preemptive attack aimed to destroy the U.S. Pacific Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor. As the designer of the attack, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, told the emperor: “In the first six months to a year of war against the U.S. and England, I will run wild, and I will show you an uninterrupted succession of victories.” But he went on to warn: “Should the war be prolonged for two or three years, I have no confidence in our ultimate victory.”

After a Black Swan spring, what else could happen in the fall of 2020?

Let us imagine that the Trump administration actually implements the ban on all sales of advanced semiconductors and equipment to manufacture semiconductors to China. Imagine further that Huawei’s Chairman really believes what he said after the ban was announced that this forces Huawei “to seek survival.” If President Xi Jinping concludes that this is a matter of life and death for his champion advanced technology company that is the poster child for his signature program promising Chinese technological leadership by 2025 and 2030, then what options does China have? 

The leading producer of advanced semiconductors for Huawei is the Taiwanese company TSMC. Its factories that supply Huawei and other leading Chinese technology companies are located ninety miles off the shore of the Chinese mainland. While operationally, Taiwan is semi-autonomous with its own market economy and democracy, according to Beijing, Taiwan is a “renegade province” that China’s leaders have repeatedly affirmed will be reintegrated fully under the control of Beijing. While previous Chinese leaders had followed a strategy that envisioned the magnetic pull of its rapidly-growing economy drawing Taiwan into the motherland, Xi Jinping’s government has concluded that this approach failed. As Xi’s Party-led autocracy has tightened controls against political opposition or criticism, Taiwanese, like Hong Kong residents, have become increasingly resistant to the prospect of being ruled by Beijing. In the twists and turns of this story, observers of the recent National People’s Congress in Beijing will have noticed that Premier Li Keqiang’s speech dropped the term “peaceful” from Beijing’s standard call for the reunification of Taiwan. One of China’s senior military leaders, Gen. Li Zuocheng, gave a rousing speech to the Congress assuring them that “If the possibility for peaceful reunification is lost, then the People’s armed forces will, with the whole of the nation, including the people of Taiwan, take all necessary steps to resolutely smash any separatist plots or actions.”

As relations between the United States and China worsen over the months ahead, could Beijing decide to try to make Taiwan the solution to its advanced semiconductor problem? American defense planners have analyzed an array of scenarios that they suspect Chinese planners have considered. These being with cutting off Taiwan’s lifeline of oil, food, and other essential supplies that arrive daily by ship—in essence, a twenty-first-century version of the coercive measures it employed in 1996 to intimidate Taiwan. A second option would be for China’s cyber warriors to shut down Taiwan’s electrical grid and the web as initial steps up a ladder that could then include covert or overt attacks on Taiwanese military bases to persuade its government to meet its demands. A third option foresees Chinese agents and sympathizers on the island, perhaps assisted by a Chinese version of Russia’s “little green men” who seized Crimea in 2014, taking over airports, ports, communication centers, and even key factories and headquarters including TSMC.

If Chinese forces seized TSMC factories and laboratories, then would this solve Huawei’s and other Chinese technologies leader’s advanced semiconductor problems? While views differ, having consulted with a number of those at leading U.S. and UK companies in this industry, my best judgment is that this could buy China critical time—one to two years— to advance its own initiatives. Of course, industry leaders like Qualcomm and ARM are continuously improving their designs and their manufacturing processes. But since Huawei and a number of other Chinese firms have been hard at work in developing indigenous capabilities, even if they should be a year behind, given their other advantages in 5G, this could still allow China to sustain its leadership in this critical new technology.

Before choosing military action against Taiwan, China would consider American reactions. In 1996, when Beijing began an analogous effort, it was forced to back down when President Bill Clinton ordered two U.S. aircraft carriers to support Taiwan. But that dramatic humiliation steeled Chinese leaders’ determination to build up their own military capabilities to ensure that this could never happen again. As has been widely reported, including in the new best-seller by Chris Brose, The Kill Chain, the local military balance of power has shifted dramatically since then. In the last eighteen Pentagon war games in which the United States and China fought a hot war over Taiwan, the score is China: eighteen, the United States: zero.

Is such a scenario likely? I think not. I’m betting that U.S. declarations about an embargo on all semiconductors are more bark than bite. That is also the way the market is assessing this standoff—the stock prices of the major suppliers of semiconductors to Huawei and to China—TSCM, Intel, Qualcomm, and Broadcom—having increased since the announced ban.

Nonetheless, the critical question is whether such a scenario is possible. And the answer to that question is most certainly yes. Those who find this too fanciful should review carefully what President Xi’s Party-led autocracy has done in the past several weeks in Hong Kong. Recognizing that a crisis would be a terrible thing to waste, Beijing has taken advantage of the distraction and disarray caused by the pandemic to tighten the noose to stop that city-state’s slide toward greater autonomy. The past two years of ineffective efforts by the local authorities to prevent disruptive weekly demonstrations demanding greater autonomy has been an embarrassment to Xi. Colleagues and critics have asked how a government that has asserted its authority so effectively on the mainland can have been thwarted by unruly kids. Beijing is thus moving step by step to impose a new national security law on Hong Kong that will outlaw four sins: session, sedition, treason, and foreign subversion. This law will allow Beijing’s state security forces to operate publicly to arrest violators. Under the cover of coronavirus limits on social gatherings and requirements for social distancing, Beijing has already arrested a number of the leaders of the protest and democracy movement and has been strengthening its surveillance system. While some Hong Kong residents have gone back to the streets in protest, even the leaders of these efforts have expressed their sense that the outcome is “inevitable.” 

As Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu warned two weeks ago: “If Hong Kong falls, we don’t know what’s going to be next. It might be Taiwan.” The U.S. government has condemned Beijing’s actions loudly, with Secretary of State Pompeo calling them a “death knell for Hong Kong’s autonomy.” It is currently preparing to respond with sanctions and even considering denial of Hong Kong’s special status for trade and finance, despite the fact that this would do more damage to Hong Kong than to Beijing. And many members of Congress are howling for more.

All this is certain to become ammunition in the most vicious war going on today—which is the war within the United States. Trump is fighting for reelection to ensure what he sees as his own personal survival and the future of his vision of America, against Joe Biden and the Democrats who are fighting for what they believe is the survival of American democracy.

In sum, as I wrote in Destined for War? (which was published on Memorial Day three years ago), we should expect things to get worse before they get worse. As the United States increasingly demonizes a rising China that is threatening to displace us from our position of leadership in every arena, and China pushes back to ensure that it can achieve its China Dream, both should be acutely aware that Thucydidean rivalries most often end in real wars. Moreover, the major risk of war in these rivalries comes not from either the rising or ruling power deciding that it wants war with the other. Instead, actions that have unintended effects, third-party provocations, or even accidents that would otherwise be inconsequential or readily managed often trigger a vicious spiral of reactions that drag the principal protagonists to what both know would be a catastrophe.

In sum: the remainder of 2020 could pose as severe a test for the United States and China as the final five months of 1941 did for the United States and Japan. 

Graham T. Allison is the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is the former director of Harvard’s Belfer Center and the author of Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?

Image: Reuters

Click here to read the full original article.

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The Telegraph

US offers to build UK's 5G and nuclear stations to end 'coercive' relationship with China

Danielle Sheridan
The Telegraph
Mike Pompeo with Boris Johnson - TOLGA AKMEN/AFP
Mike Pompeo with Boris Johnson - TOLGA AKMEN/AFP


America has offered to build Britain's 5G and nuclear power stations so that the  "coercive and bullying" relationship with China can end, Mike Pompeo has said. 

In a statement released yesterday the US Secretary of State said America stood with its “allies and partners against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) coercive bullying tactics”, as he sighted reports that Beijing had threatened to punish HSBC and “break commitments to build nuclear power plants in the United Kingdom unless London allows Huawei to build its 5G network”. 

HSBC is understood to have claimed that it could face reprisals in China if Huawei was blocked from selling equipment to the next generation of networks being built by Britain’s mobile operators.

Mark Tucker, the bank’s chairman, is understood to have made private representations to Boris Johnson’s advisers in which he warned Downing Street against a ban on Huawei in 5G. 

Mr Pompeo, one of Donald Trump’s most trusted allies, warned that the CCP’s “browbeating of HSBC” should provide “a cautionary tale”, as he accused Beijing of using the “bank’s business in China as political leverage against London”.

“Beijing’s aggressive behavior shows why countries should avoid economic overreliance on China and should guard their critical infrastructure from CCP influence,” he added. 

“The United States stands ready to assist our friends in the U.K. with any needs they have, from building secure and reliable nuclear power plants to developing trusted 5G solutions that protect their citizens’ privacy”. 

Mr Pompeo has been vocal of his distrust of Huawei and has previously failed to  rule out cutting Britain’s access to US intelligence if it pursues a relationship with Huawei. 

Last month the UK Government confirmed that the National Cyber Security Centre had launched a review of Huawei's involvement in Britain's 5G network in the wake of US sanctions.

During Prime Minister’s Questions today the Prime Minister said that while the UK should continue to work with the "great and rising power" of China it must feel "absolutely free" to raise concerns with Beijing. 

Mr Johnson made the comments after he was pressed to publish a consultation paper on the UK's engagement with China following concerns over several issues, including Covid-19, Hong Kong and the involvement of Huawei in 5G.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader and one of the leaders of the newly formed Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (ipac) told The Daily Telegraph that the “free world” needed to “work together” to make the telecommunications market competitive again. 

“The telecoms companies in the market right now who can build the network are no longer in the USA but in Scandinavia and South Korea,” he said.  Sir Iain added that 12 years ago “there were about 10 companies in this field”, but today outside China it was only Samsung, Nokia and Ericsson.

“Huawei has driven so many out of business with its subsidised business undercutting them all. We need to rebuild the industry.”

It comes after Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, warned that the West "cannot ignore the consequences of the rise of China".

Tobias Ellwood, Chairman of the Defence Select Committee, said that “when the man in charge of the world’s largest security alliance gives warning of a rising global threat, we should listen”. 

“Britain and the United States must lead in re-setting Western foreign policy before other nations are ensnared into China’s web of political influence.

“Pompeo’s offer to stand with allies should be taken before the shifting global balance of power in China’s favour takes us closer to a bi-polar world and another Cold War.”

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Reuters

U.S. failed to properly oversee Chinese telecom carriers: Senate panel

David Shepardson
Reuters

By David Shepardson

ttps://www.yahoo.com/news/china-telecom-urges-fcc-not-010313383.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate report released Tuesday says the U.S. government failed to properly oversee Chinese-owned telecommunications companies for nearly two decades.

The report from the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations says the U.S. government "provided little-to-no oversight of Chinese state-owned telecommunications carriers operating in the United States for nearly twenty years."

It faulted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and "Team Telecom" - an informal group comprised of officials from the Justice, Homeland Security, and Defense Departments - in their oversight of China Telecom (Americas) Corp <728.HK>, China Unicom (Americas) <0762.HK>, and Pacific Networks Corp, which all received FCC approval for U.S. operations about two decades ago.

In April, the FCC issued show-cause orders requiring the three state-owned Chinese carriers to explain why the agency should not revoke their authorization to operate in the United States. All three carriers have urged the FCC not to do that.

The report urged the FCC to quickly decide whether to revoke the three Chinese carriers' authorizations.

"Federal agencies have done little to protect the integrity of U.S. telecommunications networks and counter national security threats from China," the panel's chairman, Rob Portman, a Republican, said in a statement.

The panel's top Democrat, Tom Carper, said the report shows "how we've allowed Chinese government-owned companies gain a foothold in our telecommunications industry while their American competitors face significant barriers to entry in China."

In May 2019, the FCC denied approval for another Chinese carrier, China Mobile Ltd <0941.HK>, to operate in the United States, citing national security concerns.

An FCC spokesman said the commission looks forward to reviewing the Senate report.

Team Telecom until recently conducted limited oversight of the Chinese state-owned carriers and had no interaction with China Unicom Americas since the FCC's authorization in 2002, the report found.

The White House issued an executive order in April to formalize Team Telecom's scrutiny of foreign telecommunications firms, but the panel wants Congress to grant formal legislative authority to "provide for greater oversight over foreign carriers."

(Reporting by David Shepardson. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

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World

Boris Johnson told to give legally-binding Huawei 5G exit date or face Commons defeat

Anna Mikhailova
The Telegraph

Boris Johnson must provide a legally-binding date to strip Huawei from Britain's 5G network or face a Commons defeat, senior Tory MPs have warned.

Conservatives are pressing for a concrete pledge by the Government within the next two months, while crucial legislation is expected to go through Parliament.

Writing in The Telegraph, Sir Iain Duncan Smith and Bob Seely said: "Parliament is feeling increasingly restless about the UK's dependency on China. More and more legislators are recognising that how we handle this issue hugely affects our constituents."

They said a ban on new Huawei equipment being installed into the UK network from 2023 or 2024, which the Government has been discussing, will "not be sufficient". Instead, they have called on the Government to agree to having "all Huawei equipment removed from the UK network, root and branch, by a fixed date".

Sir Iain and Mr Seely pointed out that 59 MPs have now joined the Huawei Interest Group of Conservative MPs. 

A source close to the group said on Monday that they could all vote against the Government by supporting rebel amendments to three potential bills due to go through Parliament before the summer recess. These include the Telecommunications Infrastructure  (Leasehold Property) Bill, currently going through the committee stage in the House of Lords.

Lord Alton is expected to lay down an amendment to stop companies with links to human rights abuses from supplying telecoms to leasehold properties. A draft of his amendment, seen by The Telegraph, says no operator should be allowed to use the UK's telecommunications infrastructure "to breach human rights after 31 December 2023".

Sir Iain and Mr Seely said the Parliamentary arithmetic on upcoming legislation is "troubling ministers". 

They wrote that MPs are "no longer prepared to sit idly by as a nascent superpower, run by a repressive and intolerant government, undermines the global rules-based order", adding: "In allowing Huawei into our 5G networks, we have undermined the unity of the shared Five Eyes approach to the global conduct of the Chinese Communist Party."

Neil O'Brien, the Conservative MP who co-leads the China Research Group, told The Telegraph: "There are important choices to make on whether changes will only affect the 5G network or also older Huawei 3G and 4G equipment that is in the network now. 

"There are also choices on whether to set a date for stopping new inflow of Huawei equipment, or a date to have eliminated it by."

It comes amid Government plans to introduce new legislation that would prevent foreign takeovers by companies that represent a threat to national security.

As part of the Government's National Security and Investment Bill, ministers are working to make it compulsory for British companies to report any attempted takeovers that could be a cause for concern over security. Anyone who fails to comply with the rules after takeovers could risk imprisonment and fines.

Mr Johnson's official spokesman said the bill would "strengthen the Government's power to scrutinise and intervene in takeovers and mergers to protect national security, wherever risks may emanate from". He added that details of the legislation would "be announced in due course", saying: "It's a Queen's speech commitment, so I'm sure it won't be too long before we bring the legislation forward."

The Prime Minister wants "academic partnerships" and research projects to be included under the rules amid concern about links between British universities and Chinese companies, the Times reported on Monday.

Last month, The Telegraph revealed that Huawei backed 17 scientific papers with UK universities about cutting-edge "dual use" technologies in an attempt to forge close ties to western culture.

Meanwhile, Huawei published an open letter in several national newspapers on Monday, pledging that it was as "committed as ever" to building internet networks "quickly, affordably and securely".

In the letter, the Chinese telecoms giant said: "For nearly 20 years, we've supplied the UK's mobile and broadband companies with 3G and 4G. But some now question our role in helping Britain lead the way in 5G.

"We're also playing our part in creating jobs, training the engineers of tomorrow, investing in new technology and supporting universities."

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Business

Ericsson flags losses from China 5G contracts, takes 1 billion SEK charge

Helena Soderpalm and Supantha Mukherjee
Reuters
An Ericsson logo is pictured at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Shanghai
An Ericsson logo is pictured at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Shanghai
By Helena Soderpalm and Supantha Mukherjee
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Ericsson expects to take a second-quarter writedown of about 1 billion crowns ($109 million) on product inventory in China, the Swedish telecoms gear maker said on Monday.
The company, which has won 5G contracts from three major operators in China, said it expected negative gross margins in China in the quarter reflecting the high initial costs for new products.
Ericsson had warned in its first-quarter report that an increasing share of strategic contracts would hurt profitability in the second quarter, primarily due to negative gross margins in China.
Ericsson shares, which have gained 7% this year, were down 2.2% in early trade.
China's three largest telecom operators - China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom - have awarded 5G contracts worth billions of dollars this year, mostly to Huawei and ZTE, according to media reports.
Ericsson's writedown was likely associated with free products given to the Chinese telecom companies and is not a real one-off and needs to be taken into the gross margin estimates, JP Morgan analysts wrote in a client note.
"This has always been an issue with China contracts in our opinion that they cause gross margin issues so though this announcement is not a surprise, investors will want further clarity on the extent of the impact," the investment bank said. Ericsson, which maintained its financial targets for 2020 and 2022, said while the deployment of 5G in China will hurt in the short term, it is expected to have healthy profitability over the life of the contracts.
European rival Nokia won a share of China Unicom's 5G core network, but has been on the sidelines for larger China radio orders which often mean taking losses in the early years of a contract.


(Reporting by Helena Soderpalm and Supantha Mukherjee; editing by Niklas Pollard and Jason Neely)