I'm vaguely familiar with the Huawei company and its (loose?) ties to the Chinese military. 


I had also heard concerns that the Huawei hardware could phone home back to China, spying on NZ citizens and government.  I had mostly written that off to paranoia, but after hearing more about the level of monitoring that the NSA does on the net inside and out of the US, I'm starting to side with the conspiracy theorists.


As I understand it NZ had allegedly welcomed the company to help out in the UFB project.  In other countries, such as US, Canada + Australia, they have been blocked in national telecommunication infrastructure projects.

 

I see in a recent article, that NZ is perhaps back-peddling now with welcoming Huawei.

 

Can anybody fill in gaps or add to my vague understanding? Anybody else change their opinion about Huawei after hearing about all the monitoring in the US? Do you think NZ government does any better at respecting citizen's privacy than the US?  Should they be?