Concerns about the potential for a national security threat posed by the Chinese networking concern Huawei have been simmering at a low intensity for some time. They burst out into the full glare of publicity today with the release of a report by the House Intelligence Committee saying that Huawei and another Chinese telecom-equipment concern, ZTE, pose sufficient security risks that government agencies should avoid buying their equipment.
关于中国电信网络提供商华为技术有限公司(Huawei Technologies Co.)可能对美国国家安全构成威胁的担忧已经不温不火地持续了一段时间。如今，由于美国众议院情报委员会发布的一份报告，此类担忧急剧升温并成为公众关注的焦点。这份报告称，华为和另一家中国电信设备公司中兴通讯股份有限公司(ZTE Corp., 简称:中兴通讯)对美国国家安全构成了风险，为此政府机构应该避免购买这两家公司的设备。
There aren't a lot of specifics to get excited about in the 52-page report, though there are presumably some items of interest in classified portions of the report not released to the public. Huawei has had a difficult time showing to the satisfaction of Western sensibilities that its ties to China's People's Liberation Army are severed. If ordered, the thinking goes, Huawei gear could be turned into a valuable espionage tool in the event of war with the U.S. or another country.
这份长达52页的报告中并没有提供很多值得兴奋的具体信息，不过，报告中未向公众发布的保密部分可能会有一些让人饶有兴趣的东西。华为表明自己与中国人民解放军的关系已经断绝的努力一直难以让西方人满意。美国国会认为，如果订购华为的设备，在中国与美国或其他国家交战的时候，这些设备可能成为重要的间谍工具。
The concerns on the part of U.S. lawmakers and the national security establishment are certainly valid, but not for the reasons you think. While Chinese actors have certainly been among the most active when it comes to attacking the networks of large U.S. corporations and stealing their secrets, the U.S. and its allies fret about letting Huawei in because they know from their own experience how imported electronics can be turned into a weapon of espionage and outright sabotage.
美国议员的担忧和有关国家安全的说法毫无疑问是成立的，但原因并非你所想的那样。尽管在攻击美国大型公司的网络和窃取这些公司的机密方面，中国参与者毫无疑问属于最活跃的一群，美国及其盟友不愿让华为进入美国是因为他们自己的经验告诉他们，进口的电子设备可以成为进行间谍和破坏活动的武器。
Remember that it was intelligence agencies of the U.S., in partnership with Israel, that turned deep knowledge of the numerous variants of Microsoft's Windows operating system combined with specialized knowledge of industrial control systems to create the Stuxnet worm that damaged the Iranian nuclear research program. Later discoveries included other U.S.-Israeli cyber weapons called Flame and Gauss. Taken together, they amount to evidence that the countries had mounted a less-than-covert military campaign against Iran that could in time have significant unintended consequences.
人们应该记得，正是美国的情报机构与以色列合作，凭借对微软Windows操作系统各种版本的深入了解以及对工业控制系统的专业知识，才创造了蠕虫病毒震网(Stuxnet)，并利用这种病毒破坏了伊朗的核研究项目。人们后来还发现了美国和以色列制造的其他网络武器，如Flame和Gauss。所有这些证据表明，这两个国家已经发动了针对伊朗的不那么隐秘的军事行动，这些行动最终可能引发始料未及的后果。
Prior efforts include a largely forgotten 1982 campaign of electronic sabotage against the natural gas pipeline being built by the Soviet Union that caused so large an explosion that U.S. military forces briefly thought it was an early sign of a nuclear attack. The episode was documented in the book 'At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War' by Thomas Reed, the late former secretary of the Air Force under President Reagan.
人们很可能已经忘了1982年发生的针对苏联天然气管道进行的电子设备破坏行动，这次行动引发了大规模的爆炸，以至于美国军队一时以为这是核袭击的早期信号。这个情节被记录在了《在深渊：一名知情者讲述的冷战史》(At the Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War)一书中，作者是已故的里根时代前空军部长里德(Thomas Reed)。
Another incident, this one not as well documented but the subject of a great deal of informed speculation, concerns a 2007 Israeli air strike against what was at the time a suspected nuclear weapons research facility in Syria. A report by the IEEE Spectrum the following year traced reports that a French chip company that supplied the manufacturer of Syrian radar defense gear included a 'kill switch' that allowed Israeli bombers to carry out their attack undetected.
另一起事件则没有被很好地记录下来，不过这件事也引发了诸多消息灵通人士的猜测。2007年以色列空军袭击了当时被怀疑是核武器研究机构的叙利亚的一处设施。第二年，《IEEE波谱杂志》(IEEE Spectrum)的一篇报道追踪到的消息显示，一家法国芯片公司提供给叙利亚的雷达防御设备中包含一个“切断开关”(kill switch)，使叙利亚无法监测到以色列轰炸机正在执行的袭击活动。
So it's not from out of nowhere that such national security concerns arise about a Chinese telecom concern.
因此，担心中国的一家电信公司可能威胁国家安全并非空穴来风。
One fundamental failure of all this official hand-wringing is that it neglects the fact that many if not most of the components, with the exception of certain higher-value chips like those from Intel, are manufactured in China. Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks in the U.S., Alcatel-Lucent in France and Ericsson in Sweden, all use Chinese-made parts and carry out at least some portion of the final assembly of their equipment in China.
美国官方对国家安全威胁的担忧存在一处根本性的疏忽，那就是它忽视了这样一个事实，即除英特尔(Intel)芯片等某些价值更高的芯片外，很多、甚至可以说大部分电信设备组件都是在中国制造的。美国的思科系统(Cisco Systems)和瞻博网络(Juniper Networks)、法国的阿尔卡特朗讯(Alcatel-Lucent)和瑞典的爱立信(Ericsson)都使用中国生产的零部件，并且设备的最终组装至少有部分是在中国进行的。
Huawei certainly hasn't done itself any favors. While its most senior U.S. employee described the company as 'an open book' in a surprisingly short segment on CBS's '60 Minutes' last night (see the video below), its founder and chief executive, Ren Zhengfei, has never sat for an interview with a Western media outlet. And the precise ownership of the company's shares are murky. U.S. regulators have prevented it from making certain acquisitions, and in Australia it was blocked from bidding on portions of a project to build a national broadband Internet network.
华为无疑也没有给自己带来任何助益。尽管在周日晚间CBS电视台“60分钟”(60 Minutes)节目一个出奇短的环节中，华为级别最高的美国员工将该公司描述为一个“让人一目了然的公司”，但该公司创始人兼首席执行长任正非却从未接受过西方媒体机构的采访。此外，该公司股份的确切所有权也晦暗不明。美国监管机构阻止其进行某些收购，在澳大利亚，华为被禁止竞标国家宽带网络建设项目的部分工作。
It hasn't gotten to be the world's largest telecom equipment concern for nothing. Wireless phone networks in Africa rely heavily on inexpensive gear sold by Huawei. There are suspicions about its dealings in this area too, though they are mostly economic. Huawei has a history of undercutting Western rivals in competitive bids by as much as 5 percent to 15 percent, raising suspicion that it is the benefactor of state-sponsored subsidies. However, it's also to the benefit of these rivals to stoke the national security concerns as much as possible.
华为成为世界上最令人担忧的电信设备公司自有原因。非洲的手机网络严重依赖华为销售的低价设备。有人还对华为在非洲的业务表示怀疑，不过大部分是经济方面的怀疑。华为历来在竞标时出价比西方竞争对手最多可低5%至15%，这令人怀疑该公司是政府补贴的受益者。不过，这些竞争对手也会从尽可能地为国家安全担忧推波助澜中获得好处。
All told, it's not as though there is no reason to be suspicious of Huawei, if only because the U.S. and its allies know too well from their own actions in recent years about the potential for electronic espionage, surveillance and warfare.
总之，华为并非毫无值得怀疑的地方，美国及其盟友从近年来自身行动中就已经深刻理解到了可能出现的电子间谍、侦察和战争。
For its part, Huawei defended itself and attacked the report in a response today (read it in full here). The company said the committee's report, an 11-month effort, 'failed to provide clear information or evidence to substantiate the legitimacy of the Committee's concerns' and 'appears to have been committed to a predetermined outcome' and 'employs many rumors and speculations to prove non-existent accusations.'
华为周一为自己进行辩护，在一份回应中对美国会报告进行了反击。该公司说，委员会经过11个月的调查得出的报告未提供明确信息或证据来证明委员会的担忧是合理的，报告似乎是在为预先设定的结论自圆其说，使用了很多传言和猜测来证明无端的指控。
Without having read the classified portions of the report, which are said to contain more specifics - it mentions only vague instances of 'beaconing,' which is intended to mean sending data back to China - it's hard to argue with Huawei's position.
在未看到报告保密部分内容的情况下（据说包括更多详情），很难反驳华为的立场。报告只提到一些隐约的“信标”活动，“信标”活动指的是向中国传回数据。
Nor is it easy to dismiss the committee's fears out of hand. Which brings us to the possible unintended result of all this: Might China respond with its own restrictions against U.S. telecom firms like Cisco and Juniper? Is this the first shot of a telecom trade war? We'll see.
当然，我们也难以完全忽略委员会的担忧。这就让我们可能面临这样一种意想不到的结果：中国是否可能做出回应，针对思科和瞻博网络等美国电信公司推出限制措施？这是否意味着一场电信贸易战打响了第一枪？我们将拭目以待。
If that happens, expect Cisco to be hurt more than Huawei. U.S. sales account for only 4 percent of its overall revenue, whereas Cisco's operations in Asia, the Pacific Rim and China account for more than 16 percent, and China was its second fastest-growing market in that region after Japan.
如果发生电信贸易战，预计思科将比华为更受伤。美国销售额仅占华为总收入的4%，而亚洲、环太平洋地区和中国业务却占了思科总业务的16%以上。此外，中国是思科在该地区仅次于日本的增长速度第二大快的市场。