China-based telecoms and IT giant Huawei said it is planning to exit the US market after accusations from Congress that it is spying for China's military.

Huawei chief executive Ren Zhengfei said in an interview with French publication Les Echos that, in order to avoid tensions between the US and China, Huawei has "decided to exit the US market, and not stay in the middle".

A Communist Party member since 1978 and formerly a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) engineer, Ren had not given interviews before last May when he spoke to a group of New Zealand journalists. He told them that intense scrutiny from the US over Huawei’s contracts with the Chinese government and the military was due partially to jealousy about the company’s success.

The 68-year-old has firmly denied any espionage links, but his low profile and presumed links to the PLA are among the reasons the Americans are wary of Huawei.

Broader mistrust
The announcement highlights a broader mistrust in the West that China-based technology companies are connected with Chinese intelligence.

The announcement is fairly vague, but it probably means Huawei will no longer seek telecommunications deals on US networks, although it is unlikely to stop selling equipment in the US. Huawei sells products to more than 140 countries and, by the end of last year, served over one-third of the world’s population. The company had revenues of 113.8 billion yuan (€13.85 billion) in the first half of the year.

In July, the former head of the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) said he believed Huawei Technologies was a significant security threat to the US, that it had spied for the Chinese government and that intelligence agencies had hard evidence of its activities.