The Trump administration's global campaign against telecom giant Huawei is pitting Europe against itself over China.

In the midst of a ballooning U.S.-China trade conflict, Washington has spent the past few months pressing its EU allies via its ambassadors to take a stronger stance against Chinese telecom vendors such as Huawei and ZTE.

The American push, which continued Wednesday with public accusations by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, is exposing fault-lines between U.S. allies in Europe as well as the so-called "Five Eyes" intelligence community — which have largely followed the U.S. lead — and others that resist the American pressure by stopping short of calling out Chinese tech.

It's another Cold War — this time over information technology.

In the first group there is the United Kingdom, which pushed Huaweito take sides in a global dispute and measure their economic interests — often deeply embedded with the Chinese vendors — against the value of a security alliance with Washington.

"The message of the U.S. [on Chinese tech] is targeted in part at European governments," said Paul Triolo, head of the "geo-technology" practice at think tank Eurasia Group.

Part of that message has to do with pointing a finger at China. Pompeo did that on Wednesday when he accused the Chinese government of hacking the Marriott hotel chain and stealing the information of up to 500 million people. Top U.S. intelligence officials also testified to senators Wednesday that they sense an "awakening" among allies regarding how they deal with Chinese tech vendors.

"As we shift into 5G, it is important to