China's Ministry of Commerce has urged the United States to "create fair, just, and stable legal and policy environment for Chinese companies", with regards to the ZTE decision.

And perhaps more notably, it also said it was prepared to take action to protect the interests of Chinese firms.

ZTE is not the only Chinese tech firm that's been targeted by the West.

China's Huawei, for example, has been blocked from striking a deal to sell its new smartphone via a US carrier over security concerns.

And Broadcom, a firm formerly domiciled in Singapore, had its bid to takeover Qualcomm blocked because of US national security concerns that specifically cited Huawei and Chinese technology.

At the crux of this is a suspicion that Chinese companies are the eyes and ears of the Chinese government in Western markets.

Whether those suspicions are warranted is hard to prove, but "there is no question that telecom and communications is a valid security risk", Mr DeAngelis told me.

"If you have a problem in a network, do you really want to rely on your vendor if you are in the middle of a trade war, for example?" he said.

Most of the narrative on Chinese tech is that they've copied American ideas and then sold them back to the West at cheaper prices.

While that may have been true in the past, it's certainly not fair to say that today.

My experience of reporting on Chinese tech over the last few years has shown me that Chinese companies are innovating at a pace that is often unparalleled by other countries.

Recently, Chinese firms have also beaten global firms in China, as ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing proved recently by driving Uber out.

Some say the West's fear originates in envy and an ignorance of just how hard Chinese firms can make their staff work.

"Unless people have seen the Chinese tech culture known as 996, they don't understand Chinese tech," writes Lawrence Kuok in supchina.com.

(The number 996 refers to the Chinese tech firms' practice of working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week.)