Don't even need to involve politics
Hikvision cameras are a dumpster of bad software that nobody should be shipping. They phone home. They have backdoors. They're completely insecure even when it's unintentional. I must have bought and returned 6 security cameras because they were whitelabel Hikvisions. Do everything possible to secure them then put them on the WAN. They're crashed, destroyed, or compromised in minutes.
Before you all go screaming about putting cameras on the WAN: Some network cameras are designed to be self-contained devices on the Internet. No 3rd party services, no subscriptions, and no VPN tricks. They can run be configured with multiple network addresses at once.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
