US politicians have underestimated Huawei, says the beleaguered Chinese company's CEO, Ren Zhengfei. At the same time, its chip-manufacturing arm revealed that it had long been prepared for a US ban. Zhengfei's comments at a press conference on Tuesday, and a letter issued by He Tingbo, president of Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon, suggested that US President Donald Trump had fallen far short of the killer blow he may have imagined he was dealing to Huawei when he placed it on the "Entity List" - requiring any US company to get government approval to sell technology to Huawei. On the surface, it appeared this week that the ban on Huawei's supply of crucial technology would eliminate it as a global leader in smartphone sales. Google was first to accede to government requirements, announcing that it would revoke Huawei's licence to use the Android operating system for future phone models, along with Google's app service, the Play Store. This means that Huawei will be barred from including...

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