Huawei founder says 'no way the US can crush us'
Ren Zhengfei warned countries risked falling behind in areas like 5G rollout if they turned their back on Huawei
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The founder of Huawei has said that the firm can withstand attempts by foreign governments to shut out the Chinese technology giant.
Ren Zhengfei said US was attempting to "crush" his company by encouraging allies not to use Huawei-made equipment.
He warned that by turning their back on Huawei they risked falling behind in areas like 5G rollout, which Huawei has helped pioneer in recent years.
"There's no way the US can crush us," he told the BBC. "The world cannot leave us because we are more advanced. Even if they persuade more countries not to use us temporarily, we can always scale things down a bit."
In 2012, a US House Intelligence Committee report detailed alleged links between Huawei and the Chinese government. Since then a number of other western governments have also questioned Huawei's ties.
US government officials have since been banned from using Huawei devices, with FBI director Christopher Wray claiming that the Chinese-built phones were can be used to "maliciously modify or steal information" from foreign governments.
Huawei claims that the US's findings and current stance is motivated by trade policy rather than security fears. In a letter to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee earlier this month, Huawei president Ryan Ding denied any links to state-backed spying operations.
A recent report by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in the UK found that any threat to UK national security that Huawei poses could be mitigated.
The findings by the cyber security bosses were a blow to US-led plans to freeze Chinese firms out of the global roll-out of 5G technology.
"The National Cyber Security Centre is committed to the securit of UK networks, and we have a unique oversight and understanding of Huawei engineering and cyber security," an NCSC spokesperson said.
"As was made clear in July's [Huawei] oversight board, the NCSC has concerns around Huawei's engineering and security capabilities. We have set out the improvements we expect the company to make."
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