WASHINGTON — The simmering conflict between security officials and Huawei boiled over Tuesday when the Chinese telecom accused the U.S. government of trying to hack its networks and committing a slew of other abuses.

In addition to “launching cyberattacks to infiltrate Huawei’s intranet and internal information systems,” Huawei accused the U.S. government of menacing its employees “to turn against the company,” urging other companies to bring unsubstantiated claims of wrongdoing against it and denying visas to Huawei employees.

The charges came in a bulleted list at the end of a news release that focused mainly on denying claims that Huawei has stolen other companies’ intellectual property.

Huawei has consistently rejected U.S. charges it assists Chinese government spying, but the long list of counter-accusations against the U.S. government – all offered without supporting evidence – marked a serious escalation of the company’s rhetoric.

The bottom line, the company said, is the United States is waging an unfounded battle “to discredit Huawei and curb its leadership position in the (telecom) industry.”

The counter-assault could help Huawei as it battles a U.S. effort to convince other nations to block the company from building its next-generation 5G wireless networks over espionage concerns, Graham Webster, a fellow at the New America think tank focused on China’s digital economy, said.

“Huawei’s audience is never just the Americans,” Webster told me. “They’re concerned about Europe and other markets around the world and they may believe they can convince governments that are on the fence that the U.S. is acting in bad faith.”

Indeed, the charges came as Vice President Mike Pence is in the midst of bad-mouthing Huawei to European allies. Pence signed a joint agreement with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki over the weekend pledging to cooperate on protecting the security of 5G networks against threats such as Huawei. He also urged Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar on Tuesday to eschew Huawei technology.

Other nations, including Britain and Germany, however, have been more hesitant to follow the U.S. lead on restricting the Chinese telecom. Just a handful of nations including Australia and Japan have adopted the U.S. stance.

Huawei’s charges also play into doubts about the Trump administration’s motives as it moves to restrict and penalize the company, including by barring U.S. firms from supplying Huawei with software and other components.

Those doubts have largely been spurred by President Trump, who has repeatedly suggested he may pull back some Huawei penalties as part of a broader trade deal with Beijing, suggesting the penalties are more about gaining leverage in trade negotiations than about national security.

“At this point the U.S. is just not as credible when it says it’s doing its duty and acting in an unbiased way because of the way the president has been acting,” Webster said.

Trump’s comments are especially damaging in this case, Webster said, because many of Huawei’s accusations – if true – could be chalked up to legitimate national security and intelligence operations.

Law enforcement officials, for example, routinely try to get compromising information from the employees of companies they suspect of wrongdoing – including stealing U.S. companies’ intellectual property or assisting foreign government spying. And the NSA routinely tries to hack into foreign telecom networks to spy on U.S. adversaries.

But Webster said because the U.S. accusations against Huawei have been linked to the U.S.-China trade dispute, it’s a lot easier for Huawei to argue the Trump administration is doing it for other reasons.

“Even if (government agencies) are acting in a totally unbiased way, they, unfortunately, have a credibility problem because of the president,” he said.

Huawei did not respond to a query asking for details about the alleged U.S. cyberattacks against its networks.

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