As a top Huawei executive, I’m often asked why the US has launched a full-scale assault on us. The Americans have charged us with stealing technology and violating trade sanctions, and largely blocked us from doing business there. Mike Pence, US vice-president, recently told Nato of “the threat posed by Huawei”, and Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, warned allies that using our telecommunications equipment would make it harder for the US to “partner alongside them.”

On Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress, the industry’s largest trade show, a US delegation led by Ajit Pai, Federal Communications Commission chair, repeated the call to keep Huawei out of global 5G networks.

Washington has cast aspersions on Huawei for years. A 2012 report by the House Intelligence Committee labelled us a threat. But, until recently, these attacks were relatively muted. Now that the US has brought out the heavy artillery and portrayed Huawei as a threat to western civilisation, we must ask why.