As the accusations and tensions surrounding Huawei and ZTE and their business expansion across the US mount, it is time to cast an objective eye on the situation. But before doing so, it is important to know the context in which this maelstrom of innuendos and finger-pointing has reached boiling point.

Huawei and ZTE both are part of the successful corporate story of China. So impressively spectacular has their, especially Huawei's, growth been that they can now boast that the majority of their sales revenue comes from customers outside China and even the region.

Incidentally, both companies were set up fairly recently with some help from the Chinese government, as has been the case with many of China's better known, large enterprise such as Lenovo.