A view of Huawei's exhibition stand during the World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen, East China's Zhejiang Province in October 2019 Photo: Zhang Hongpei/GT

China will continue to take "necessary measures" to defend Chinese enterprises' legitimate rights and interests, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Tuesday. He urged the US to immediately correct its wrongdoing and stop smearing China and Chinese companies.

China firmly objects to the US purposely cracking down on Chinese companies such as Huawei, Zhao said at a regular press briefing. "Without solid evidence, the US has used 'national security' as a reason to abuse its power and impose a variety of restrictions on Huawei and other Chinese companies," he said, adding that "this is hegemony."

His comments come as the US government further restricted Huawei's semiconductor chip supplies on Monday by preventing it from acquiring chips developed or produced with US software or technology. It also added another 38 Huawei affiliates from 21 countries to its Entity List.

Zhao says that the US' actions 'rip away the fig leaf' of the market economy and fair competition the US has always trumpeted, violating international trade rules and global industrial and supply chains. "It will definitely harm US' national interests and its own image," he said.

Zhao said that the US' hysterical crackdown on Huawei and other Chinese companies only proves how successful they are, and that the US is hypocritical and a bully: "Many successful companies in other countries have had similar experiences and the US' dishonorable behavior has and will continue to see widespread rejection from and boycotts by other countries," he said.

The US accuses Huawei of threatening its national security, but Huawei has established 1,500 networks in more than 170 countries and regions over the past 30 years, successfully serving over 3 billion people. Not one of those countries has provided evidence demonstrating a much talked about 'backdoor' in Huawei's devices. Neither have any cases similar to the US' spying program Prism (as disclosed by Edward Snowden) been reported, Zhao added. 

"The US is the biggest country for cyber-hacking, and some US companies including Apple and Cisco acknowledged several years ago that there were loopholes and backdoors with their equipment," Zhao said. "It's a known fact that the US intelligence agencies have for a long time carried out illegal spying and surveillance on almost all foreign governments, including its allies."