Huawei has lashed out at US attempts to steer its allies away from usingthe company’s equipment, accusing Donald Trump’s administration of a “co-ordinated, tactical political campaign” against the Chinese telecoms group.

Eric Xu, one of Huawei’s three rotating chairmen, said yesterday that warnings this week by Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, to eastern European countries against using the group’s equipment were the latest example of how Washington was “using the government machine [against] a small, weak sesame-seed company”.

Washington has been pushing its allies to reject Huawei equipment as the company has become increasingly dominant in 5G, the next generation of wireless technology. Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is the daughter of the company’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Vancouver at the end of last year on sanctions-busting charges. She is currently under house arrest in Canada pending possible extradition to the US.