Trade with China is Never Free

This is not another rant about products and food from the People's Republic of China poisoning us. Nor is it about the political and religious prisoners forced to work in Logai, Chinese Gulags, making said products. You've doubtless read those. No, this is about the Chinese government using technology that American companies provide or they steal to reduce liberty in China and threaten America.

And one name just keeps popping up; Cisco. Back in 1994 in order to set up shop in China and produce networking and security systems and electronics for less, Cisco sold its soul, by selling and continuing to sell the communist regime the systems set up systems to find dissidents and democracy activists. Now that decision has borne more poisoned fruit.
Back in January, the FBI released a report indicating that Chinese companies were counterfeiting Cisco and other network equipment and that US government contractors were installing this equipment. Of course the loss of intellectual capital and sales hurts Cisco and they deserve far worse. However, these shoddy products also pose a security risk since a Chinese company wrote the underlying code.

Does this have anything to do with 300 million/day cyber-attacks on the Pentagon? I don't have any clearance, but the answer is rather obvious. However, two congressmen have admitted that Congress has been hacked by China. Representatives Wolf (R-VA) and Smith (R-NJ) both have had their office computers broken in to. So far the only information, which has been publicly acknowledged to have been stolen, was that on Chinese dissidents. The true extent of the breach will never really be disclosed and the damage done to the US will never be acknowledged.

Of course, I shouldn't pick on Cisco. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Cisco, Sun Microsystems and Skype have all aided the Chinese censor information in the PRC. But the decision of Cisco to manufacture components and systems in China, a decision shared by too many companies, has helped solidify Chinese tyranny at home and undermine American security.

Just another cost of Most Favored Nation Status and American companies selling the rope, which will be used to hang us.