Chinese telecommunications companies are under the radar of US, British, and French oversight authorities for industrial espionage, racketeering, theft, and cyber espionage. Despite Western accusations, companies like Huawei, Tencent, and ByteDance fend off allegations. The Chinese government helps companies with legal assistance. It offers national corporations’ massive lifelines to feed their domestic markets as they project soft power influence in the contents that the public in the West consumes in regards to entertainment. For Governments worldwide, relying on just one provider for telecommunications is a national security issue: What happens if the provider fails? Or if the provider decides to wage aggressive or passive war against those using their technologies? For Orwellian, as it may sound, technological dependence is a matter of concern for public debate.
Tencent’s Clientele
Tencent is a cardinal example of soft power execution. The company owns stakes in League of Legends, Fortnite, Epic Games, Clash of Clans, and it even owns rights in Mainland China for the distribution of Nintendo’s Switch console. Of the many tentacles that Tencent operates, its gaming branch, Tencent Gaming, is a giant that dominates the entertainment industry in earnings, dwarfing companies like Nintendo and Microsoft together.
Just in the last trimester of 2019, Tencent Gaming raked into their coffers more than five billion US dollars. According to Chinese law —the Counterespionage and National Intelligence act —, all companies must collaborate with Chinese authorities in handing over their data. If asked, Tencent has no other choice but to comply with Chinese authorities. They must hand over the personal information of billions of people worldwide without their consent. These sorts of details must be a matter of public debate for the billions of citizens in the Western world who only care about their business and intend to keep it that way. Still, that segment of the gaming population remains small, the more significant section of Tencent Gaming’s clientele is too busy entertaining themselves with the vast catalog that they offer.
Huawei Sells Submarine Cable Venture, Faces Racketeering Charges and Ranked No. 1 In the World
Huawei, the giant telecommunications corporation with evident links to the Chinese military, is the number one manufacturer of smartphones in the world. The company is the bulwark for all things related to 5G; they handle every aspect of telecommunications and have a presence in all five continents. The Shenzhen-based corporation invested in a stake in the submarine cable business, a sensitive issue for signals and communications intelligence as anyone within the industry could tamper with the data those undersea cables transmit. Slapped with US sanctions, Huawei sold in the past year its submarine cable venture to Hengtong Group, a critical fiber optic cable manufacturer, and expanded further into consumer electronics, managing to be in the first place.
ByteDance Can’t Find a Buyer and CEO On CCP Radar.
Chinese telecoms company ByteDance is at the center of a bitter fire sale as the Washington DC gave the company an ultimatum to sell its TikTok assets. Corporate courtship of TikTok’s massive database began with a Microsoft inquiry, then with Oracle. In Mainland China, criticism towards Zhang Yiming rose from the hardcore internet trolls of the Chinese Communist Party who deem ByteDance’s CEO, a traitor for acquiescing to Washington DC’s sanctions.
