If anyone hoped the holiday break would help passions to simmer down in the escalating disputes between the USA and China, those hopes were dashed with a new round of attacks on Huawei and ZTE. How far the threats to sanction the Chinese vendors are related to genuine national security fears, and how far they are part of the wider climate of trade wars, the uncertainty is damaging, especially when operators are trying to make critical decisions about 5G vendors and deployment plans. As more countries join the USA in accusing Huawei (and sometimes ZTE) of using infrastructure roll-outs to conduct espionage (charges they vehemently deny), the operators are faced with the prospect of having only three major OEMs to…