The American electronics retailer Best Buy has stopped ordering Huawei mobile phones and will stop selling Huawei products altogether over the next couple of weeks, in a major setback for the company some link to Chinese intelligence operations.

The "ban" includes all Huawei products - smart phones, laptops, smartwatches, and phones from Huawei's Honor sub-brand.  This follows major carriers Verizon and AT&T also dumping Huawei.  That left Best Buy and Amazon along with some smaller carriers as the company's only remaining inroads into the US, and now half of that is gone.

The heads of America's top three intelligence agencies - the FBI, CIA, and NSA - all recommend against using the phones due to concerns about the company's ties to the Chinese government.  A bill making its way through Congress would ban government agencies from using phones from both Huawei and ZTE.

But the US has gone beyond that, urging countries within the "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance to avoid these phones. 

"Because of the high level of intelligence sharing between Five Eyes countries, I have concerns that the presence of Huawei or ZTE in any of these countries could present a significant risk to our co-ordination, and ultimately, US national security as a result," said Rep. Mike Conaway, a Texas Republican to the Australian Financial Review earlier this month.

Huawei denies the allegations and Huawei Australia CEO George Huang says he would be "very happy to work with the government" about using Huawei technology to build the next generation of 5G telecommunications in Australia.

But others worry the Chinese government could weaponize phones in case of an international conflict.

"Let's say for example there's a war," posited Fergus Hanson from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute to the ABC earlier this month.  "China decides to invade Taiwan, and then Australia suddenly becomes a hostile adversary," he continued.

"(China) can switch their intent, and therefore harness these tools that they've got sitting there latently.  Even if we believe in Huawei's independence, at any point it could be forced under the control of the Chinese Government."