“China will replace foreign technology with its own variants”

China would like to replace foreign technology in certain sectors with products and systems developed domestically. According to the anonymous sources, this mainly concerns organizations such as banks, the army, state-owned companies and government agencies.

The replacement program should be completed in 2020, Bloomberg writes, citing anonymous sources. Beijing is said to be concerned that its dependence on foreign technology could jeopardize national security. In one region, Windows would already have been replaced by the Chinese variant NeoKylin and servers of foreign origin would also be exchanged for variants of the Chinese company Inspur.

Companies could be exempt from the measure. The suppliers would then have to share their technology with China or grant Chinese security inspectors access to their products. In this way they could determine whether a certain technology is safe and verifiable.

According to Bloomberg, the measure is one of the consequences of the NSA’s espionage actions. The US government agency is accused of hacking into Tsinghua University, which is known as a major research center. The move could also potentially have financial implications for certain US companies, such as IBM and Intel.

In May, China already banned Windows 8 on new government agencies. Officially, Microsoft’s operating system would be banned due to energy consumption rules. Conversely, the US has been paying more attention to the use of Chinese technology. For example, in 2013 a law was passed that allows an import restriction of Chinese hardware. The NSA would also have investigated the Huawei hardware and the supplier has been linked to espionage several times by the US. The Chinese company has always denied being guilty of this.