SHANGHAI - China's Huawei has refused to back down after a US Congress panel voiced security concerns about the technology giant's acquisition of US computer technology and shunted the issue to US President Barack Obama, a report said on Tuesday.

Huawei said it would suffer "significant damage" to its brand and its reputation if it was forced to go back on May's $2 million deal in which the Chinese outfit acquired the computer company 3Leaf Systems, according to a report in the Financial Times (FT).

The report cited Huawei as saying that the decision not to back down means Obama himself must decide whether the company must reverse the deal.

AFP was not immediately able to reach Huawei officials who would comment.

The FT report cited experts as saying that Huawei's decision to resist the advice of the US Committee on Foreign Investment, which vets deals on security grounds, was "virtually unprecedented" and in most cases when companies have been quietly advised to walk away from such a deal, they have done so.

The move puts Obama in a difficult position following last month's state visit to the United States by Chinese President Hu Jintao. US officials have also been lobbying Beijing to give US technology companies greater market access.

But lawyers said Obama, who has 15 days to make a decision, was likely to uphold the decision by the Committee on Foreign Investment, according to the FT.

Huawei is at the forefront of Chinese companies' efforts to shift from being the world's workshop to becoming creators of genuine global brands.

Its consumer products include smartphones that run on Google's Android platform and technology to connect laptops to the Internet using 3G networks.

Huawei's technology is also used to build mobile phone networks around the world.

3Leaf makes software that allows computer resources to be reallocated according to a user's needs across a computer network.

Agence France-Presse

(China Daily 02/16/2011 page16)