China has stricken Apple, Intel, Cisco, Citrix, and McAfee from approved vendors for governmental purchase. Ferocious to protect national security interests, the move appears to be more about giving state run and other Chinese companies a leg up on procurements in the country, similar to regulations inside the US government that does the same.
“The Snowden incident, it’s become a real concern, especially for top leaders,” said Tu Xinquan, Associate Director of the China Institute of WTO Studies at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing told Reuters. “In some sense the American government has some responsibility for that; (China’s) concerns have some legitimacy.”
Ignoring the previously mentioned US procurement rules, a state department official said that the US is “very concerned that many aspects of China’s recent regulatory actions — touted as means to bolster cybersecurity — are neither effective cybersecurity measures nor consistent with the principles of free and open trade.”
Despite the cut in US manufacturers, the approved product list has swelled to just under 5,000 items, from 2,000 in 2012. The number of approved security vendors from non-China sources dropped by 33 percent.
