The controversy over a US Congressional panel’s decision to label Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE a ‘security threat’ refuses to go away, with Chinese media sources reporting that the accusations could well be motivated by certain politicians’ financial interests, together with pressure from the big shots in Washington.

Xinhua News claims that the Congressional report is unconvincing for three reasons – namely that the House Intelligence Committee fails to back up its claims that doing business with Huawei and ZTE could be risky with any concrete evidence; that Washington is politicizing the issue; and most importantly, that a number of Congressmen have significant financial stakes in one of Huawei’s chief rivals in the US, Cisco Systems.

Allegations that certain members of Congress could have somehow influenced the House Committee’s report are especially compelling, given that, according to one Chinese report, no less than 73 out of 535 house representatives are said to have a financial stake in Cisco.  Of these, one of the highest profile is Democrat John Kerry, who is said to own shares worth between $600,000 and $1.3 million in the telecommunications firm, according to MSNBC.

The prevailing opinion in China is that Cisco’s shareholders are determined to protect their investments at all costs by blocking any competitors to the company, hence national security concerns are being used as a smokescreen to suit this purpose.

Xinhua continues that whilst Huawei has been largely dominant across other world markets, the company has failed to make much of a dent in the US, largely as a result of barriers set up by lobbyists and politics.

While these arguments would normally be viewed with suspicion, coming as they do from Chinese media, recent revelations about Cisco’s questionable marketing tactics do lend credence to the view that political heavyweights or even Cisco itself may have somehow manipulated the House Committee’s findings.

Just last week, it was revealed that Cisco had published a marketing presentation last year titled: “Huawei’s & National Security” – essentially a propaganda item used to dissuade US firms from doing business with Huawei by warning of ‘possible national security issues’ with their hardware.

While the report may not be evidence in itself, it definitely highlights the lengths that Cisco will go to, in order to derail any competitors on its home turf.

Moreover, Cisco’s and the House Committee’s claims that Huawei and ZTE may be a security threat seem to be fairly hypocritical in any case, given that much of the US company’s hardware is manufactured in China anyway – the point being that despite its US ‘branding’, their own equipment could be just as much of a security risk as that of its Chinese competitors.

As ZTE pointed out in its official response to the ‘security threat’ claims:

“Given the severity of the Committee’s recommendations, ZTE recommends that the Committee’s investigation be extended to include every company making equipment in China, including the Western vendors. That is the only way to truly protect US equipment and US national security.”

“ Virtually all of the telecom infrastructure equipment now sold in the US and throughout the world contains components made, in whole or in part, in China. That includes the equipment manufactured and sold by every Western vendor in the United States, much of which is made by Chinese joint venture partners and suppliers.”