Ren Zhengfei, The founder of Huawei, has said there is "no way the US can crush" the company, in an exclusive interview with the BBC. “If the lights go out in the West, the East will still shine. And if the North goes dark, there is still the South. America doesn’t represent the world. America only represents a portion of the world,” Ren said. "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."

Ren Zhengfei described the arrest of his daughter Meng Wanzhou, the company's chief financial officer, as politically motivated. "They may have thought if they arrested her Huawei will fall, but we didn't fall," he said. "We are still moving forward." The US is pursuing criminal charges against Huawei and Ms Meng, including money laundering, bank fraud and stealing trade secrets. Huawei denies any wrongdoing. Mr Ren spoke to the BBC's Karishma Vaswani in his first international broadcast interview since Ms Meng was arrested - and dismissed the pressure from the US.

Analysts agree that Huawei's vast global business, which is strong in many emerging markets, could survive even if the US government persuades more of its allies to exclude the company's products from 5G networks, according to CNN.