Earthquake forecast for Puerto Rico: Dozens more large aftershocks are likely

Richard Aster, Professor of Geophysics and Department Head, Colorado State University,
The Conversation•January 14, 2020

The Immaculate Conception Catholic Church lies in ruins after a magnitude 6.4 earthquake in Guayanilla, Puerto Rico, Jan. 7, 2020. AP Photo/Carlos Giusti

Multiple strong and damaging earthquakes in southern Puerto Rico starting around Dec. 28, 2019 have killed at least one person, caused many serious injuries and collapsed numerous buildings, including a multistory school in the town of Guánica that luckily was empty at the time. These quakes are the most damaging to strike Puerto Rico since 1918, and the island has been under a state of emergency since Jan. 6, 2020.

This flurry of quakes includes onshore and offshore events near the town of Indios and along Puerto Rico’s southwestern coast. So far it has included 11 foreshocks – smaller earthquakes that preceded the largest event, or mainshock – with magnitudes of 4 and greater. Major quakes occurred on Jan. 6 (magnitude 5.8) and Jan. 7 (magnitude 6.4 mainshock), followed by numerous large aftershocks.

Seismologists like me are constantly working to better understand earthquakes, including advancing ways to help vulnerable communities before, during and after damaging events. The physics of earthquakes are astoundingly complex, but our abilities to forecast future earthquakes during a strong sequence of events in real time is improving.

Forecasting earthquakes is not a strict prediction – it’s more like a weather forecast, in which scientists estimate the likelihood of future earthquake activity based on quakes that have already occurred, using established statistical laws that govern earthquake behavior.
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An undersea fault zone

Puerto Rico spans a complex boundary between the Caribbean and North American tectonic plates, which are sliding past each other in this region at a relative speed of about 2 centimeters per year. Over geologic time, this motion has created the Muertos Trough, a 15,000-foot depression in the sea floor south of the island.

This plate boundary is riddled with interconnected fault structures. The present activity is occurring on and near at least three interrelated large faults.


Faults are pre-existing weak zones between stronger rocks. In response to surprisingly small force (stress) changes, they rapidly slip to produce earthquakes. The “hair-trigger” nature of fault slip means that predicting the precise timing, location, and size of individual quakes is extremely challenging, if not impossible.

During an earthquake sequence, changing stresses act on nearby fault systems as stress is gradually redistributed within the Earth. This process generates thousands of protracted aftershocks.

Many earthquake sequences simply start with the mainshock. But it is not especially rare for scientists to recognize after the fact that foreshocks were occurring before the main event. Improvements in earthquake instrumentation and analysis are helping scientists detect foreshocks more often, although we have not yet figured out how to recognize them in real time.

Will one shock lead to another?

Researchers have known for over a century that the rate of earthquakes following a mainshock declines in a way that we can characterize statistically. There is also a well-established relationship between the magnitude of earthquakes and their relative number during an earthquake sequence. In most seismically active regions, for a decrease of one magnitude unit – say, from 4.0 to 3.0 – people can expect to experience about 10 times as 3s compared to 4s in a given time period.

Using such statistical relationships allows us to forecast the probability and sizes of future earthquakes while an earthquake sequence is underway. Put another way, if we are experiencing an aftershock sequence, we can project the future rate of earthquakes and what magnitudes we expect those quakes to have.

For example, as of Jan. 14, the U.S. Geological Survey forecast estimated a 3% chance of one or more quakes larger than magnitude 6.4 in Puerto Rico over the next seven days. It also noted that the region should expect between 40 and 210 smaller quakes, with magnitude 3 or larger – sizes that are likely to be felt – during that time.

With extended statistical modeling of earthquake sequences that include foreshock and aftershock probabilities, seismologists can forecast the likelihood of key earthquake scenarios to inform public safety efforts while earthquakes are occurring. For example, the USGS also estimated as of Jan. 13 that there was an 81% chance that the largest shock had already occurred – namely, the magnitude 6.4 quake on Jan. 7. The agency calculated a 17% chance that a closely sized “doublet” 6.4 earthquake could yet occur.

Recognizing in real time when a set of earthquakes is likely to be a foreshock sequence is a challenging and active area of earthquake forecasting research. Progress in the effective forecasting and communication of ongoing earthquake hazards could mean the difference between life and death for people in the eastern Caribbean and other seismically active areas on an increasingly urbanized planet.

[ You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can get our highlights each weekend. ]

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:
A new way to identify a rare type of earthquake in time to issue lifesaving tsunami warnings

A political stalemate over Puerto Rican aid is leaving all US disaster funding in limbo

Richard Aster has received funding for earthquake research from the National Science Foundation, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and the U.S. Geological Survey. He is a past president of the Seismological Society of America (SSA) (2009-2011) and current chair of the board of directors of Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology. Aster also chairs the U.S. Geological Survey's Advanced National Seismic System Advisory Committee, and is a member of the Southern California Earthquake Center Advisory Council.

LIVING MACHINES: FIRST SELF-HEALING ARTIFICIAL ORGANISM BUILT USING FROG STEM CELLS, HARDWARE

The bot furthers scientific understanding of the algorithms that define form and function in living beings.

JAN 15, 2020 10:52:17 IST

Scientists from the United States have succeeded in using living cells from frog embryos into other new life-forms, which they are referring to as a 'living, programmable organisms'.

The newly constructed self-healing creature is now known as and can approach towards targets. They may also help in carrying medicine inside a patient's body or conduct similar work. "These are novel living machines," says, a computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont who co-led the new research, also adding "They're neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. It's a new class of artefact: a living, programmable organism."

These creatures were designed on a supercomputer at UVM — and then assembled and tested by biologists at Tufts University.

Co-leader Michael Levin who directs the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology at Tufts says that they can search out compounds or radioactive contamination, can be used for gathering microplastic in the oceans, or for traveling in arteries to scrape out plaque.

The results of the new research were published on 13 January in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A 'Xenobot' living motor on the move. Image credit: PNAS US/Bongard et. al.

People have been manipulating organisms for human benefit since long and genetic editing is becoming widespread with time, and a few artificial organisms have been manually assembled in the past few years -- copying the body forms of known animals.

But this research, for the first time ever, "designs completely biological machines from the ground up," the team writes in their new study.

Many technologies are made of steel, concrete or plastic. That can make them strong or flexible. But they also can create ecological and human health problems, like the growing scourge of plastic pollution in the oceans and the toxicity of many synthetic materials and electronics.

"The downside of living tissue is that it's weak and it degrades," said Bongard. "That's why we use steel. But organisms have 4.5 billion years of practice at regenerating themselves and going on for decades."

And when they stop working — death — they usually fall apart harmlessly.

Both Levin and Bongard say the potential of what they have been learning about how cells communicate and connect extends deep into both computational science and our understanding of life.

"The big question in biology is to understand the algorithms that determine form and function," says Levin.

To make an organism develop and function, there is a lot of information sharing and cooperation — organic computation — going on in and between cells all the time, not just within neurons. These emergent and geometric properties are shaped by bioelectric, biochemical, and biomechanical processes, "that run on DNA-specified hardware," Levin says, "and these processes are reconfigurable, enabling novel living forms."

"As we've shown, these frog cells can be coaxed to make interesting living forms that are completely different from what their default anatomy would be," says Levin.

People worry about the implications of rapid technological change and complex biological manipulations. "That fear is not unreasonable," Levin says, adding, "When we start to mess around with complex systems that we don't understand, we're going to get unintended consequences."

A lot of complex systems, like an ant colony, begin with a simple unit — an ant — from which it would be impossible to predict the shape of their colony or how they can build bridges over water with their interlinked bodies.

"If humanity is going to survive into the future, we need to better understand how complex properties, somehow, emerge from simple rules," shared Levin.

Much of science is focused on "controlling the low-level rules. We also need to understand the high-level rules," he expressed.

"This study is a direct contribution to getting a handle on what people are afraid of, which is unintended consequences," Levin said.

Whether in the rapid arrival of self-driving cars, changing gene drives to wipe out whole lineages of viruses, or the many other complex and autonomous systems that will increasingly shape the human experience.

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SCIENTISTS CREATE FIRST ‘LIVING ROBOTS’ IN MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH

'They're neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal,' says creator. 'It's a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism'

Andrew Griffin @_andrew_griffin

Scientists have created what they claim are the first ”living robots“: entirely new life-forms created out of living cells.

A team of researchers have taken cells from frog embryos and turned them into a machine that can be programmed to work as they wish.

It is the first time that humanity has been able to create “completely biological machines from the ground up”, the team behind the discovery write in a new paper.

That could allow them to dispatch the tiny “xenobots” to transport medicine around a patient’s body or clean up pollution from the oceans, for instance. They can also heal themselves if they are damaged, the scientists say.

“These are novel living machines,” says Joshua Bongard, the University of Vermont expert who co-led the new research. “They’re neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. It’s a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism.”

The new creatures were designed using a supercomputer and then built by biologists. They could now be used for a variety of different purposes, those behind the creation say.


“We can imagine many useful applications of these living robots that other machines can’t do like searching out nasty compounds or radioactive contamination, gathering microplastic in the oceans, travelling in arteries to scrape out plaque,” said co-leader Michael Levin who directs the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology at Tufts University, where the xenobots were actually created.

The team described the major breakthrough in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Humanity has been changing the way organisms work in some form for perhaps as long as it has been around. In recent years, there have been major leaps forward in that discipline, with genetic editing and the creation of artificial organisms.

But the researchers say that their work is the first time that a completely biological machine has been entirely designed and created by researchers.

They started to do so by using a supercomputer to create thousands of possible designs for the new life-forms. It did so through a virtual version of evolution, with scientists setting the computer a task and it calculating what design might work best.

If it was asked to create a being that moved in a certain direction, for instance, it would try out hundreds of different possible ways to combine simulated cells into different shapes that would allow the life-form to do so. It worked using rules about what the simple cells that would serve as the materials could do, and at the end gave scientists theoretical designs for the life-forms.

The second part of the research then saw a microsurgeon and other researchers turn those designs into real life. They took stem cells from the embryos of African frogs, incubated them, and then used incredibly tiny tools to cut them apart and assemble them into the design that the computer had created.

That meant that scientists had stuck real organic material together to create a life-form that had never been seen before in nature.


After that happened, the cells started to work together. Just as the computer had suggested, the robots were able to move on their own, eventually doing so in a coherent fashion and exploring their environment over a matter of weeks.

They were able to work to push pellets around, organising themselves spontaneously and collectively, according to the researchers.

And scientists think they will be able to create even more complex versions of the xenobots. Computer simulations suggest that it should be possible to design the xenobots with a pouch on their body that could be used to carry an object – delivering a drug by swimming through the body, for instance.


Designing robots out of such living materials could lead to vast changes in the way that technology is used, the scientists suggest. The xenobots can regenerate, and are entirely biodegradable when they die.

What’s more, they are able to repair themselves. Unlike traditional materials, the robots can be sliced almost in half and will fix themselves back together again, they claim.

The researchers admit that there is the danger that such developments could be harnessed in ways that we don’t even understand, leading to unintended consequences. If the systems become sufficiently complex, it might be impossible for humans to predict how they will start to behave.

“If humanity is going to survive into the future, we need to better understand how complex properties, somehow, emerge from simple rules,” said Mr Levin n a statement. “This study is a direct contribution to getting a handle on what people are afraid of, which is unintended consequences,” he said.

He said that the new study is an important step towards understanding such systems. By learning more about how living systems decide how they will behave, and whether and how that might be changed, we will be able to better understand their outcomes

America dreams of Chinese state capitalism
JAMES PETHOKOUKIS

The U.S. economy is in the 11th year of a record-long expansion. Unemployment is at a 50-year low. And most of the biggest, most innovative companies in the world hail from America. Given such abundant good news, one might think that American policymakers would exude deep confidence in the American Way of Capitalism.

Not so much. Democrats are making their usual arguments about inequality, saying the economy has been failing workers for decades. No surprise there. What's new is the skepticism coming from some Republicans who, not so long ago, enthusiastically extolled the wonder-working power of free-market economics. As Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a speech at Catholic University last month, "The market will always reach the most efficient economic outcome, but sometimes the most efficient outcome is at odds with the common good and the national interest."

One aspect of the national interest that concerns Rubio and many other conservatives is the geopolitical threat from China. They're worried that the Chinese Way of Capitalism — particularly government backing of key sectors such as AI and robotics — might actually work and make China the economic and technological leader of the 21st century.

So maybe it's time for Washington to play China's game. Chinese capitalism with American characteristics. Rubio, for instance, wants a "pro-American industrial policy" that would target funding to "strategically important" sectors such as aerospace and telecommunications. Others on the right would greatly expand basic research funding, as well as applied research fields like advanced materials. At the core of these approaches is an acceptance that if China can successfully pick winners and losers, so can America.

But maybe China can't. It may seem like the central planners in Beijing have figured a new and better way to do capitalism. After all, their managed version continues to produce high economic growth growth rates — though many observers think they're overstated — as well as some large and innovative tech firms such as Tencent and Huawei. But a deeper dive shows a troubled economic model. Compared to the U.S., China is an old country and a poor country, at least on a per capita basis. It needs to become far more productive, which is one reason Beijing massively funds cutting-edge technology.

But state capitalism isn't working so well anymore. As The Economist recently noted, "There is evidence that China's heavy-handed intervention is becoming increasingly ineffective. Total factor productivity growth in China in recent years has been a third of what it was before the 2008 global financial crisis." Indeed, some analyses see no productivity growth at all. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review concludes that "absent a major pivot in thinking and approach, [Chinese firms] will be unable to deliver the productivity gains needed to offset the consequences of the steepening decline in the country's working-age population." And as Reuters recently reported, "Chinese productivity growth has gone into reverse for the first time since the Cultural Revolution tore the country apart in the 1970s, according to a new study, highlighting the failure of recent reforms to set China on a sustainable development path."

The bottom line here is that for China to succeed over the long-term, it must return to the pro-market path. It must become a lot more like America where companies rise and fall based on market forces, not the whims of politicians. And while America could surely use more science investment, that's far different than creating a massive new system of business interventions and subsidies directed from Washington and influenced by all manner of interest groups.

America has a history of overestimating the economic strength of rival nations. Back in the 1980s, the U.S. also flirted with industrial policy because Japan seemed so successful at it. That was just before Japan entered a long period of stagnation. Then there was the Soviet Union. And after the Evil Empire's sudden implosion, some in Washington attacked the Central Intelligence Agency for producing analysis that overestimated the USSR's economic strength. With more accurate estimates, some critics suggested, perhaps the United States would have avoided its expensive military buildup during the Reagan era.

Maybe there's again more reason for confidence and optimism than we think.

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Trump administration said to be moving toward blocking more tech sales to China’s Huawei

If other government agencies sign off on the measure, the rule could be issued in a matter of weeks as a so-called final rule

Reuters Published:15 Jan, 2020





The US Commerce Department in May placed Huawei 

Technologies on a trade blacklist, citing national security 

concerns. Photo: AFP

The US government is nearing publication of a rule that would vastly expand its powers to block shipments of foreign-made goods to China’s Huawei, as it seeks to squeeze the blacklisted telecoms company, two sources said.

The US Commerce Department in May placed Huawei Technologies on a trade blacklist, citing national security concerns. That allowed the US government to restrict sales of US-made goods to the company and a small number of items made abroad that contain US technology.

Under current regulations, key foreign supply chains remain beyond the reach of US authorities, fuelling frustration among China hawks within the administration and a push to expand US authority to block more shipments to Huawei.

But US businesses say an effort to enable the government to regulate more sales to Huawei to include low-tech items made overseas with very little US technology could end up needlessly hurting US companies while encouraging Huawei to source more goods abroad.

Reuters reported in November that the Commerce Department was considering broadening the De minimis Rule, which dictates how much US content in a foreign-made product gives the US government authority to regulate an export.

Under current regulations, the United States can require a license or block the export of many hi-tech products shipped to China from other countries if US-made components make up more than 25 per cent of the value.

According to two people familiar with the matter, the department has drafted a rule that would lower the threshold only on exports to Huawei to 10 per cent and expand the purview to include non-technical goods like consumer electronics including non-sensitive chips.

According to one of the people, the Commerce Department sent the rule to the Office of Management and Budget, following an inter-agency meeting last week.

If other government agencies sign off on the measure, the rule could be issued in a matter of weeks as a so-called final rule, with no opportunity for public comment before it goes into effect, the people said.

The Commerce Department has also drafted a regulation that would expand the so-called Foreign Direct Product Rule, which subjects foreign-made goods that are based on US technology or software to US oversight. This would be broadened to include low-tech items made abroad that are based on US technology and shipped to Huawei, the people said.

In December, Huawei, the world’s largest smartphone maker, reported an 18 per cent jump in revenue for 2019 and a 20 per cent increase in shipments of smartphones.

HUAWEI UBC 
Huawei spends millions at Canadian university, but some professors fear US crackdown

At least three University of British Columbia professors have shunned Huawei funding because they fear being labelled ‘enemies of the US’, colleague says 

Huawei has continued to pour money into UBC projects, even after the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, as Canada’s allies tighten screws on the firm

Ian Young in Vancouver Published: 8 Jan, 2020

UBC President Santa Ono (left) and Huawei Canada Research President Christian Chua sign a 2017 deal for Huawei to provide C$3 million in umbrella funding to UBC researchers. Photo: CNW Group/Huawei Canada

Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, has said she might study for a doctorate in business administration at the University of British Columbia while on bail in Vancouver, as she undergoes a lengthy extradition process to face accusations of fraud in the US.


But at western Canada’s most prestigious university, some academics fear that connections to the Chinese tech firm could put them in peril, even as Huawei continues to spend millions on research there.

Since the arrest of Meng in December 2018, 18 new projects have been earmarked for Huawei funding at UBC, costing the company C$2.6 million (US$2 million), according to a spreadsheet provided by the university.

However, UBC engineering professor Lukas Chrostowski said he knew of at least three department colleagues who have refused to take part in Huawei-financed projects because they worry they will be swept up in US action against the firm.

If funding were to be cut off [from Huawei], then that is a major risk for academics in Canada UBC computer science professor Ivan Beschastnikh

His own work in photonics – the use of light to transmit and process data – is heavily funded by Huawei, including a C$900,000 (US$694,000) grant in January 2019. His other projects in recent years have received C$70,000 (US$54,000) from Huawei.

“You’ve got concerns – I’ve heard that because you are working with Huawei you would be labelled an enemy of the United States,” said Professor Chrostowski.

The fears come as Washington pressures Ottawa to follow its lead by banning Huawei from developing its national high-speed 5G internet infrastructure. US authorities have said that Huawei might imperil Canadian security – as well as that of its intelligence allies – by illicitly accessing state secrets or individuals’ private data.


UBC engineering professor Lukas Chrostowski is an expert in the field of silicon photonics, with some of his research funded by Chinese tech giant Huawei. Photo: UBC / Janis Franklin

Vancouver has meanwhile been at the centre of the Huawei story since Meng was arrested at its international airport a year ago, at US request. With Meng still under guard at her Vancouver mansion and the formal stage of her extradition hearing to begin on January 20, the city remains on the cutting edge of tensions between China and the West.

Chrostowski – who said he personally knew three UBC professors who refused to work with Huawei, but declined to name them – said he had been closely following Meng’s case, and he and his colleagues were well aware of the security fears around the firm.

But their own concern, he said, “is not with Huawei, the concern is with the United States”.

“The concern is that the United States has policies that change in time and it is difficult to predict what kind of actions the US government will take,” he said.

Huawei, the telecommunications giant, has committed or spent C$7.8 million (US$6 million) on UBC projects since 2017. Projects under way are devoted to cloud computing, the privacy and security of artificial intelligence, digital image forgery detection and silicon chip fabrication, among other topics.

That includes an umbrella grant of C$3 million signed in 2017 by UBC President Santa Ono and Huawei Canada Research President Christian Chuat in a ceremony flanked by Chinese and Canadian flags.

University students move in to campus accommodations at UBC in Vancouver in this 2015 file photo. Photo: Xinhua

UBC computer science professor Ivan Beschastnikh, whose recent projects have received C$420,450 in Huawei commitments, said the risk that a political decision would cut off such financing was “the biggest thing that I worry about”.

Other researchers were “biting their nails” waiting for a Canadian policy decision that could doom Huawei funding, Beschastnikh added. Because his own research was “tightly entwined with the fate of Huawei in Canada”, he said he was pursuing collaborations with other companies to hedge his bets.

The South China Morning Post sought comment from the lead researchers on all 32 UBC projects that have received Huawei funding since 2017. Of the 18 academics, only Chrostowski and Beschastnikh agreed to discuss their work and relationship with the firm.

“If funding were to be cut off [from Huawei], then that is a major risk for academics in Canada,” Beschastnikh said. “We need a heads up if this is going to happen. This can’t happen overnight.”

Fears of a Huawei ‘Trojan horse’

Nevertheless, critics of Canada’s government say it has been dragging its feet by failing to announce a strategy for handling Huawei, as allies such as the US, Australia and New Zealand ban it from 5G work or take other steps to mitigate potential security risks.

Instead, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has issued vague warnings to universities about working with Huawei.

US President Donald Trump and his national security adviser Robert O'Brien. O’Brien has said Huawei would act as a “Trojan horse” if allowed to help build Canada’s 5G network. Photo: AP

Yet without an official policy framework, these “nebulous” intelligence briefings represented a challenge to academic freedom, said telecoms security expert Christopher Parsons, a senior research associate at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

Parsons said that the US was developing a “substantive firewall” of policies to limit what intellectual property US researchers could share with Chinese companies and institutions.

“In Canada we don’t have those directives. It’s not the fault of the universities. They’re following the law,” he said.

But he echoed the concerns of Chrostowski and Beschastnikh that, without policy guidance, academics in Canada risk running afoul of a US crackdown.

“They are put in a very challenging situation … Canadian researchers are engaged in research and sharing with Chinese companies including Huawei and it may turn out that those engagements run counter to US policies,” he said.

“That has implications for universities receiving status for their academics travelling in the United States. It could lead to broader socio-economic problems between Canada and the US.”

Gail Murphy, vice-president of research and innovation at UBC, said the university “is not aware of any restrictions regarding working with Huawei and will continue with its partnership with Huawei”.

She added it was up to faculty and student researchers to “choose whether or not they embark on research projects that are permitted within UBC policy”.

But looming over those decisions is the escalating US pressure.

You get Huawei into [the 5G network of] Canada or any other Western country, they’re going to know every health record, every banking record, every social media post Robert O’Brien, US national security adviser

In November, US national security adviser Robert O’Brien told a security forum in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that Huawei would act as a “Trojan horse” if allowed to help build Canada’s 5G network.

Even setting aside the risks to strategic intelligence, “you get Huawei into [the 5G network of] Canada or any other Western country, they’re going to know every health record, every banking record, every social media post”, O’Brien warned.

Huawei has repeatedly denied it poses any security risk to western countries.

Song Zhang, vice-president of research strategy and partnerships at Huawei Technologies Canada, said that Huawei had spent about C$650 million on research and development projects in Canada in the past decade, with about 10 per cent of that going to research partnerships, mostly at universities.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported in November that Huawei had made about C$56 million (US$43 million) in funding commitments to Canadian universities in recent years.

Working with Huawei was “a very natural thing” for Canadian researchers and not practically different to working with any other firm, he said.

Zhang said the rapid evolution of “negative pressures” on Huawei in Canada and the arrest of Meng had come as a “huge surprise” to him. “But we quickly realised, this is part of global politics that is beyond any individual’s control,” he said.

“Canada has always been a very open environment. That’s the underlying strength. Ultimately that gives me confidence.”

In the 10 years that Zhang has worked at Huawei, its Canadian R and D team had grown from a staff of 40 to 50 to about 1,000. Zhang said Canada held particularly importance as a global talent centre for Huawei, because the firm was no longer welcome in the US.

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, Meng’s father, told The Globe and Mail last month that Huawei was moving its US research centre to Canada in response to American sanctions, which he claimed made it impossible to even call or email staff in the US. In June, the firm said it had cut hundreds of jobs at its Silicon Valley centre.

Considering the restrictions Huawei faced in the US, Zhang said, it would not be surprising to see even more focus on Canada in the future.

That prospect will likely depend on whether Canada eventually follows Washington’s lead and takes a harder line on Huawei, and with its China policy in general.

Other voices in Canada have been trying to counter the US drumbeat. The waters of the Canada-China relationship had been “muddied” by former officials, now working for companies using Huawei products, making policy suggestions that reflected business interests, said Parsons of the Munk School.

Huawei clash with US ‘inevitable’, says tech giant’s founder Ren Zhengfei

“These are people with money in the game,” he said.

He pointed specifically at former deputy prime minister John Manley, now a director of telecom firm Telus, who last month called for a “prisoner exchange”: in return for China releasing the Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who are being held on accusations of espionage, Canada could free Meng, Manley suggested.

Telus uses Huawei equipment in its infrastructure and is the Canadian firm most exposed to the impact of any ban on its gear.

“It is increasingly pressing that the Canadian government figure out broadly what its strategy is towards China,” Parsons said. “Part of that includes how they are going to deal with Huawei.”

Canada has always been a very open environment. That’s the underlying strength. Ultimately that gives me confidence Song Zhang, vice-president of research strategy and partnerships at Huawei Technologies Canada

Canadian researchers and Huawei alike deserved clarity, he said: the government had been “kicking the can down the road for more than a year and a half”.

Compared with its Five Eyes intelligence allies – the US, Britain, Australia and New Zealand – “Canada is the laggard” in addressing the Huawei situation, said Parsons.

Washington has introduced a range of sanctions on Huawei, effectively banning it from 5G networks in the US by prohibiting federal contractors from working with the firm and putting it on an export blacklist. Top US universities have frozen funding links with Huawei as a result.

Australia and New Zealand last year followed Washington’s lead by banning Huawei from 5G projects on security grounds.

Britain has deferred a decision on a possible ban, but last month Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the key criterion would be that it not “prejudice our ability to cooperate with other Five Eyes security partners”. The University of Oxford has already banned grants and donations from Huawei.

“The Americans have been very clear – both in the current and former [US] administrations – that if Canada allows the adoption of Huawei technology into our 5G networks, that will have possible substantive, perhaps irreparable, consequences for the types of information the Americans are willing to share with Canada,” Parsons said.

“If Canada loses that, we will go increasingly blind in the world.”

Meng’s ‘shadow’ looms over researchers

Meng, whose lawyer relayed her musings about studying for a PhD during her bail hearing in December 2018, has not yet been reported on UBC’s sprawling campus, about 8km from her C$13.6 million home on the west side of the city.

But her presence is felt in other ways.

Engineering professor Chrostowski said Meng’s arrest had “cast a shadow” over UBC researchers’ US interactions.

“Last summer the US imposed restrictions on who is able to work, and under what circumstances, with Huawei … so now we have restrictions where we can’t use US technology in the research we do with Huawei,” he said.

His C$900,000 neuromorphic computing project, launched just a month after Meng’s arrest, involves machine-learning using photonic processors.

Intellectual property generated by the research will be owned jointly by Huawei and UBC, although the university is not allowed to sell the technology to Huawei’s rivals for a window of several years, said Chrostowski. (Other partnerships involved Huawei as part of a consortium of tech firms, including US-based companies.)

The funding comes from Huawei Canada, “not Huawei China”, he stressed. “That’s an important distinction because Huawei Canada operates under the laws of Canada … any time we share information they have to ask us if it’s OK to share it with China. The information stays in Canada unless we agree to having it exported.”

Chrostowski’s relationship with Huawei dates back to 2011, when he met Huawei staffers at a course on silicon photonics he was teaching.

He said Huawei did not just finance research but was “highly involved” in previous joint projects – describing his first 2014 project with the company, he said that meetings were held every two weeks or monthly with a team of Huawei researchers.

UBC computer science professor Ivan Beschastnikh's recent projects have received C$420,450 (US$324,000) in Huawei funding. Photo: UBC

He said these were all Canadian citizens, ex-employees of Nortel scooped up by Huawei after the Canadian firm, once a world leader in telecoms technology, collapsed in 2009.

The demise of Nortel coincided with the rise of Huawei. In 2012, a former Nortel security adviser accused Huawei of having benefited from years of Chinese hacking of the Canadian firm; Huawei’s founder Ren has denied any role in Nortel’s collapse.

Asked whether he worried that Huawei posed a potential security risk to Canada, Chrostowski said: “I have been given assurances [by Huawei] that Huawei is not stealing information and data from Canadian users.”

He added: “I don’t have any reason to doubt that.”

Canada’s view of China worsens as Huawei, detention rows drag on
12 Dec 2019

Computer scientist Beschastnikh has worked as principal investigator on four Huawei-financed projects at UBC since 2017. Topics have included optimising cloud data storage, finding bugs in cloud software and designing “peer to peer” machine learning that does not depend on a single centralised service or company.

He said his software-related topics were “in the clear” compared to hardware research, where security concerns about Huawei were focused. He had made it a condition of working with Huawei – and other firms – that resultant code be open source and available for public scrutiny.

Security concerns about Huawei were largely due to “fundamental weaknesses of the internet infrastructure we have created”, said Beschastnikh, with internet service providers having full control of how information was routed.

“So there’s a technical concern about the infrastructure that leads to these problems with power – power relationships at a nation-state level,” he said.

Previously, he said, the US had enjoyed a hegemony on the designs that underpinned the internet, and he believed some security concerns about Huawei were linked to protecting that hegemony. “Once you have a monopoly, you don’t want to give that up.”

Beschastnikh said that the computer science department at UBC had held discussions about the risks involved with Huawei funding. Ultimately, he felt “totally confident that the security risks [of working with Huawei] are mitigated by working on open source and staying away from certain topics”.

“A lot of the discussion [about Huawei] is very high level, nation-state level. But there’s a story to be told about the individual researchers who [are] biting their nails because the funding situation could be put in jeopardy.”


Who is JW00237? Secret Canada campaign to ban Huawei’s ‘spies’
6 Mar 2019

Meng Wanzhou: judge rejects media request to broadcast Huawei executive’s extradition hearing

A consortium of media, including the South China Morning Post, had applied to have video cameras at next week’s hearing in Vancouver

But a judge said a broadcast could affect impartiality of witnesses and jurors in a potential US trial

Ian Young in Vancouver Published:14 Jan, 2020


Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou arrives at court in Vancouver last September. Photo: Reuters

A Canadian judge has rejected a request by media organisations to televise
Huawei executive 

Meng Wanzhou’s extradition hearing next week, saying that doing so could influence witnesses and jurors at any potential trial in the United States.

“Broadcasts would almost inevitably reach the community of the trial, given the high profile of this case in Canada and abroad, the political commentary relating to the case, and the sensationalised nature of some of the media coverage,” Justice Heather Holmes said in a ruling released late on Monday.

The formal case to determine whether to allow the US’ request to extradite Meng, Huawei’s chief financial officer – who was arrested in December 2018, on a flight stopover in Vancouver – will begin next Monday after months of preliminary hearings.

Meng is accused of defrauding HSBC by allegedly misleading it about Huawei’s relationship to a firm that was doing business in Iran, to reassure the bank that it was not in breach of US sanctions on Iran by doing business with the Chinese telecoms company.

Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou returns to court

Holmes said members of a consortium of media who had applied to film the proceedings had so far reported “responsibly and professionally” but would not be able to control how others used the footage once it appeared online.

The South China Morning Post and 12 other media organisations, including CNN, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, had applied for video cameras to be allowed into the British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver.

The case has been at the centre of tensions between China and the West, amid a US-China trade war and debate about whether to let Huawei participate in high-speed 5G internet networks around the world.

Cameras in the courtroom would have represented a break from convention in British Columbia courts, although allowing them remains at the discretion of judges.

Summarising the consortium’s case, Holmes wrote in her judgment that there were “powerful factors” adding weight towards the granting of the request, given its “significant public interest and news coverage locally, nationally and internationally”.

Under the application, the recording would have been conducted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on behalf of the consortium, with its release delayed by at least two hours.

Judge releases video of Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou being searched at airport before arrest

However, both Meng and the lawyers for the attorney general of Canada, representing US interests in the proceedings, were united in opposing the request.

“Ms Meng opposes any video recording or broadcast of any portion of the proceedings because of the adverse effects she submits they would have on the proper administration of justice and on the fairness of these proceedings and her trial in the US, should she be extradited,” Holmes wrote.

In their submission, Meng’s lawyers had also said that a broadcast could draw the attention of Donald Trump and risk him making a “threatening and intimidating” intervention in her case. Holmes did not address this in her ruling.

The Canadian government’s lawyers, meanwhile, said a broadcast risked “distorting the public perception of the proceedings and of disturbing the serenity of the court process”.


In her decision, Holmes said that “the key concern is Ms Meng’s right to a fair trial in the US, should she be extradited”.

“For portions of these extradition proceedings to be broadcast ... would in my view put that right at serious risk by potentially tainting trial witness testimony and the juror pool,” she said.

Holmes expressed particular concern about showing the double-criminality portion of the hearing, which will consider whether the charges against Meng would have represented a crime in Canada, had her alleged misconduct been committed there as well as in the US, the requesting state. Double criminality is a requirement for any suspect to be extradited from Canada.

China accuses detained Canadians of spying, following Huawei CFO extradition approval

Meng’s lawyers have argued that the US case is based on alleged breaches of American sanctions on Iran, which are not crimes in Canada. But the Canadian government’s lawyers say the underlying charge is one of fraud, rather than breaking US sanctions.

“A broadcast of counsels’ submissions without an explanation of their proper context could well lead an observer unfamiliar with extradition law to take counsel to be accepting the truth of the allegations, rather than assuming their truth for the purpose of the double-criminality hearing,” Holmes wrote.

A false perception that her own lawyers were acknowledging Meng’s guilt “could seriously damage Ms Meng’s right to a fair trial”, Holmes said.

“Similarly, broadcasting sound bites out of context would detract from the public understanding of the proceedings,” she said.

Meng Wanzhou fears cameras in court would trigger Trump ‘threats’
30 Nov 2019

Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou defrauded HSBC into loaning billions with ‘misrepresentations’ about Iran, Canada says, telling court to reject her bid for release

HSBC only continued to do business with Huawei because of Meng’s claims that the firm had cut ties with Skycom, a company operating in Iran, lawyers say

The government lawyers say the fraud charge satisfies a requirement of ‘double criminality’ for her to be extradited to the US

Ian Young in Vancouver Published: 11 Jan, 2020

Banking giant HSBC took part in billions of dollars of loans to Huawei because CFO Meng Wanzhou (pictured with an ankle bracelet at her home in Vancouver) allegedly had deceived the bank about its activities in Iran, says the Canadian government. Photo: Reuters

Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s request for the dismissal of the US extradition case against her must be rejected because her alleged offence was not breaking US sanctions on Iran, but defrauding HSBC, Canada’s attorney general said on Friday.

Meng’s lawyers had argued that she should be discharged because the US case was based on alleged breaches of American sanctions on Iran, which are not crimes in Canada. This failed the extradition requirement of “double criminality” under which an extraditable offence must represent a crime in Canada, as well as the requesting state, they claimed.

But in a submission released on Friday, the Canadian government lawyers representing US interests in the extradition case said “the essence of the Applicant’s offending conduct is fraud, not violating sanctions”.

The bank had taken part in billions of dollars of loans to Huawei because Meng allegedly had deceived the bank about its activities in Iran, they said.

Meng Wanzhou leaves her home in Vancouver for a court appearance in October, wearing an electronic ankle tag. Photo: Bloomberg

“[Meng’s] misrepresentations put HSBC’s economic interests at risk by preventing the bank from accurately assessing the risks of maintaining a business relationship with Huawei,” said the attorney general’s lawyers, referring to a 2013 meeting in Hong Kong at which Meng told HSBC that Huawei had cut ties with Skycom, a company operating in Iran.

This was intended to reassure the bank that it was not in breach of US sanctions on Iran by doing business with the Chinese telecoms giant, the lawyers said.

Relying on Meng’s assurance, the bank continued to do business with Huawei, the Canadian lawyers said. But “had HSBC known of Huawei’s activities that breached American sanctions against Iran, HSBC would have re-evaluated its relationship”, they said, and “as a result of [Meng’s] misrepresentations about the Huawei/Skycom relationship, HSBC risked fines and penalties”.

Meng Wanzhou wins Canada court fight to see documents related to arrest
11 Dec 2019

Nevertheless, “this case is not about sanctions against Iran”, and the fraud case could be established without reference to the US sanctions regime, they said.

Meng was arrested on December 1, 2018, on a flight stopover in Vancouver, where she remains ahead of her formal extradition hearings.

The submission by the attorney general’s lawyers said that based on Meng’s assurances, HSBC had negotiated a US$900 million credit facility for Huawei in 2014, and took part in a syndicate that loaned US$1.5 billion to Huawei in 2015.

Huawei launches new legal action against FCC’s rural carrier purchase ban

“The fact that HSBC may have suffered no financial loss is legally irrelevant,” the lawyers said, adding that her “alleged dishonest act induced HSBC to continue to provide financial services when otherwise it would not have done so”.

“At the very least HSBC was denied the opportunity to make a decision about its economic risk based on an appreciation of material facts,” they said.

The submission described how HSBC had already been hit with US$1.7 billion in forfeitures and penalties in 2012 as a result of its violation of US sanctions on Iran, Cuba, Libya, Sudan and Myanmar.

As part of a deferred prosecution agreement with the US, HSBC would have been subject to criminal charges if it was caught breaking US sanctions again.

Meng Wanzhou fears cameras in court would trigger Trump ‘threats’
30 Nov 2019


It was only because of Meng’s alleged misrepresentations at the 2013 Hong Kong meeting that HSBC retained Huawei as a client, the submission said.

After months of preliminary hearings, Meng’s formal extradition hearing is expected to begin in the British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver on January 20, with appearances pencilled in to continue as late as November.

Her detention has been at the centre of escalating tensions between China and the West, amid a trade war with the US and intense debate about whether to allow Huawei to participate in high-speed 5G internet networks around the world.

Canada-China relations are at an all-time low, after China arrested Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor 13 months ago. They are accused by Beijing of espionage, but the arrests are widely seen in Canada as reprisals for Meng’s arrest.
.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Meng extradition case ‘about fraud, not US sanctions’

Ian Young is the Post's Vancouver correspondent. A journalist for more than 20 years, he worked for Australian newspapers and the London Evening Standard before arriving in Hong Kong in 1997. There he won or shared awards for excellence in investigative reporting and human rights reporting, and the HK News Awards Scoop of the Year. He moved to Canada with his wife in 2010.

Huawei’s latest US headache: Senate bill would spend US$1 billion on developing a 5G competitor

STATE CAPITALISM BY ANY OTHER NAME

‘We cannot allow Chinese state-directed telecommunications companies to surpass American competitors,’ says sponsor Senator Marco Rubio 

The bill is introduced a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tells Silicon Valley group China ‘presents unique challenges, especially to your industry’

Mark Magnier Published:15 Jan, 2020

Huawei smartphones last week at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Photo: AFP

New legislation introduced in the US Senate on Tuesday aims to create a viable Western alternative to Huawei Technologies and undercut China’s dominance in global 5G networks.

One of the biggest problems in Washington’s bid to counter Chinese strength in 5G networks – the faster and higher capacity fifth generation of telecommunication systems – is the lack of global alternatives to Huawei.

The US does not now have a viable competitor, while Finland’s Nokia, Sweden’s Ericsson and even South Korea’s Samsung cannot match the complete technological package and attractive financing that Huawei offers.

The Senate bill tries to address that gap. If passed, it would spend more than US$1 billion to bolster Western competitiveness, allocate new spectrum and support research and development in the telecommunications industry.

“We are at a critical point in history for defining the future of the US-China relationship in the 21st century, and we cannot allow Chinese state-directed telecommunications companies to surpass American competitors,” said Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, a sponsor of the bill.

Senator Marco Rubio, a sponsor of the Utilising Strategic Allied Telecommunications Act: “We are at a critical point in history for defining the future of the US-China relationship in the 21st century.” Photo: AP

Rubio added that Washington’s efforts at convincing foreign allies to ban the Shenzhen-based Huawei from their networks have been encumbered by a lack of viable, affordable alternatives. Those, he said, were needed to counter “malign state-directed telecommunications companies that pose a clear and growing threat to the economic and national security of the US and our allies”.

Speaking in Silicon Valley a day earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed the senators’ contention that excluding Chinese carriers from 5G systems in the West was essential.

“China – specifically the Chinese Communist Party – presents unique challenges, especially to your industry,” Pompeo told the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a civic group.

“We’re putting our allies and partners on notice about the massive security and privacy risks connected to letting Huawei construct their 5G networks inside of their countries.”

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in San Francisco on Monday. Photo: AFP

“This isn’t about selling American stuff. It’s not an American commercial effort. It’s a national security effort,” Pompeo added.

The bill is the latest pressure applied on Huawei by Washington. The Trump administration has blocked government agencies from using Huawei devices; added it to on an “entity list” of foreign companies banned from buying US technology; lobbied allies not to use Huawei equipment in their 5G networks; and pushed Canada to detain Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and the founder’s daughter, on charges she had violated sanctions against doing business with Iran.

And the administration is considering a rule change aimed at restricting sales to Huawei of non-sensitive items, such as standard mobile phone chips, made in third countries that rely on US technology, software, or components, Reuters reported.

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14 Jan 2020


The six Democratic and Republican senators who introduced the bill – the Utilising Strategic Allied Telecommunications Act – underscore that moves aimed at challenging China enjoy broad bipartisan support in Washington these days.

The US and China, the world’s two largest economies, have hit the pause button on their 18-month trade war with Wednesday’s scheduled signing of a phase-one trade agreement. But US tariffs remain on US$250 billion worth of Chinese goods. And Washington’s suspicions towards Beijing has spread to the education, justice, investment and espionage sectors, among others.

Even so, while it is relatively easy to introduce a bill, even one with bipartisan support, it remains far more difficult to get it passed – particularly in the current environment.

At the best of times, only about 5 per cent of bills that are introduced become law. And these are not the best of times.

In addition to turf battles between the executive and legislative branches, the Senate is poised, ready or not, to consider the impeachment trial of US President Donald Trump, which could start as early as Thursday. Moreover, the political lines are drawing taut in advance of the presidential election in November.

Huawei said the bill was misguided.

“Huawei has spent billions in 5G research, so it would be unfortunate to see such a waste of US taxpayer’s money to duplicate effrts when there are more cost effective ways to ensure the security of a network,” said Donald J. Morrissey, the company’s US director of government affairs.

A better approach, he added, “is to verify through testing, setting high global standards, and providing risk assurance and risk mitigation procedures and standards to ensure network security.”

The bill’s provisions include a requirement that the Federal Communications Commission spend at least US$750 million of the revenue it receives from auctioning new spectrum licenses to create a research and development fund. This would be used to spur innovation in open-architecture, software-based wireless technologies and the US mobile broadband market.

It also calls for creating a US$500 million fund in partnership with foreign allies to speed up adoption of “trusted and secure equipment globally” – backed up by required reports to Congress ensuring that progress is being made.

US lawmaker seeks ban on sharing intelligence with countries using Huawei’s 5G


The bill also calls for a blueprint on how small and rural telecoms companies – many of whom have purchased Huawei equipment in part because of its lower cost – can shift to open source, non-Chinese equipment. It would also push for stronger US leadership in international standards-setting bodies amid concern that Chinese companies will create and dominate the standards that govern the next generation of telecommunications technology.

Finally it would encourage suppliers to become larger and adopt common standards as a way to help drive down the cost of their products and offer a more attractive alternative to Huawei equipment.

Huawei launches new legal action against FCC’s rural carrier purchase ban

“Every month that the US does nothing, Huawei stands poised to become the cheapest, fastest, most ubiquitous global provider of 5G, while US and Western companies and workers lose out on market share and jobs,” said co-sponsor Senator Mark Warner, a Virgina Democrat. “It is imperative that Congress address the complex security and competitiveness challenges that Chinese-directed telecommunication companies pose.”

Telecoms industry and national security groups said the bill was a step in the right direction. “This bill goes right to the core of the concerns of the US intelligence community, which is securing communications networks with US-allied intelligence services,” said Kyle Sullivan, the China practice lead at Crumpton Group, an intelligence-based business consultancy. “Providing an American alternative to Huawei would go a long way.”



Huawei says relationship with government ‘no different’ from other private firms in China


One telecoms executive, who asked not to be identified given his work with the US government, called the bill’s objectives a bit muddled.

While the sponsors speak repeatedly about excluding Huawei and creating an alternative, he noted, much of the funding appears aimed at bolstering open technical systems that allow easy connections among all carriers, presumably including Huawei as well as ZTE Corp, the Chinese telecoms equipment maker. “It’s a little obscure as to what they’re actually talking about developing,” he said.

But the bill focus on encouraging US software companies and allowing others to make hardware isn’t a bad strategy, he added. “This actually looks like a fairly interesting and realistic response,” the executive said. “This would appear to focus resources to capitalise on US core competencies. Which makes sense, because $1 billion isn’t going to somehow … create a box maker powerhouse in the US.”


The US Commerce Department in May placed Huawei Technologies on a trade blacklist, citing national security concerns. Photo: AFP

The US government is nearing publication of a rule that would vastly expand its powers to block shipments of foreign-made goods to China’s Huawei, as it seeks to squeeze the blacklisted telecoms company, two sources said.

The US Commerce Department in May placed Huawei Technologies on a trade blacklist, citing national security concerns. That allowed the US government to restrict sales of US-made goods to the company and a small number of items made abroad that contain US technology.

Under current regulations, key foreign supply chains remain beyond the reach of US authorities, fuelling frustration among China hawks within the administration and a push to expand US authority to block more shipments to Huawei.

But US businesses say an effort to enable the government to regulate more sales to Huawei to include low-tech items made overseas with very little US technology could end up needlessly hurting US companies while encouraging Huawei to source more goods abroad.

Reuters reported in November that the Commerce Department was considering broadening the De minimis Rule, which dictates how much US content in a foreign-made product gives the US government authority to regulate an export.



Under current regulations, the United States can require a license or block the export of many hi-tech products shipped to China from other countries if US-made components make up more than 25 per cent of the value.

According to two people familiar with the matter, the department has drafted a rule that would lower the threshold only on exports to Huawei to 10 per cent and expand the purview to include non-technical goods like consumer electronics including non-sensitive chips.

According to one of the people, the Commerce Department sent the rule to the Office of Management and Budget, following an inter-agency meeting last week.

If other government agencies sign off on the measure, the rule could be issued in a matter of weeks as a so-called final rule, with no opportunity for public comment before it goes into effect, the people said.

The Commerce Department has also drafted a regulation that would expand the so-called Foreign Direct Product Rule, which subjects foreign-made goods that are based on US technology or software to US oversight. This would be broadened to include low-tech items made abroad that are based on US technology and shipped to Huawei, the people said.

In December, Huawei, the world’s largest smartphone maker, reported an 18 per cent jump in revenue for 2019 and a 20 per cent increase in shipments of smartphones.

Additional reporting by Reuters

Mark Magnier is a US correspondent based in Washington. Before joining the Post, he worked for the Wall Street Journal in China and for the Los Angeles Times in India, China and Japan. He’s covered the Chinese economy, China and India’s explosive rise and conflicts in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.


US venture capital in China tumbles as tech decoupling deepens 

Canada says Huawei’s Meng defrauded HSBC, tells court to reject release bid
11 Jan 2020

Judge rejects request to broadcast Huawei executive’s extradition hearing
15 Jan 2020