The Chinese daily Sina cited eight companies, including Cisco, IBM, Google, and Apple, as the firms that are used by the U.S. government to spy on China. Another news outlet, Global Times, said that the country should reduce its reliance on American companies, adding that they pose a "terrible security threat."

The Global Times said that Huawei, Cisco's competitor in the country, could benefit greatly as the Chinese government presses companies to switch from the U.S.-based company's equipment to those produced by China's own firms.

Cisco says that it has not helped the NSA in spying on China, and that the equipment it has installed there is similar to what it has installed elsewhere in the world.

According to the International Business Times, Shantou-based Huawei Technologies Co. is poised to benefit from any clients seeking alternatives to Cisco's products, according to China Daily, which publishes an English-language newspaper in the U.S. 

“Huawei will take this and run with it, to leverage its position with customers in its home turf,” Ray Mota, founder of U.S.-based ACG Research, a networking-equipment industry consulting firm told Bloomberg News.