The United States has pressed allied countries to ban technology made by the Shenzhen, China-based company, saying its devices and telecommunications systems could potentially pose a threat to a nation's security. That warning is premised primarily on perceptions that Chinese companies are not able to refuse Beijing's directives to support its intelligence gathering efforts. Huawei, for its part, has repeatedly denied that it would ever allow its products to be used for spying.

As many countries grapple with how seriously to take U.S. warnings that Huawei's technology can't be trusted, Malaysia's leader says the answer is unambiguous for his country.

Despite the back and forth about potential risks, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad shrugged off such worries during an appearance Thursday in Tokyo when asked if his country has any plans to follow Washington's lead.

"We are too small to have any effect on a huge company like Huawei, whose research is far bigger than the whole of Malaysia's research capability," Mahathir said during a question and answer session at a conference sponsored by Japan's Nikkei media group.

"So we try to make use of their technology as much as possible," he said, dismissing concerns it poses a security threat to his country, at least.

Mahathir acknowledged there may indeed be some intelligence threat from Huawei. "But what is there to spy in Malaysia?" he asked.

Now 93, Mahathir served as Malaysia's prime minister from 1981 to 2003, and returned to the position last year after a shock election result that saw the long-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition swept from power. He has long been a critic of the West, particularly during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis when Malaysia, unlike Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea, avoided an international bailout, imposing capital controls instead.

Mahathir said that the U.S. pressure on Huawei, along with the dispatching of warships to the South China Sea, demonstrate a weakening of the country and those actions show it needs to compete with China rather than confront it.

"We have to accept that the U.S. cannot forever be the supreme nation in the world that can have the best technology in the world," he said.