Well, it's not just that one US incident, the level of paranoia regarding Huawei is much wider than that. For example IIRC the UK blocked a Huawei bid to provide cell phone service during the olympics. I'm not sure why exactly they have such a shitty reputation compared to other Chinese companies. For example, has anyone every said that running ssh on a ThinkPad completely negates the point? But the reputation is there, which is what makes it a decent joke.

(And yes, I chuckled at the image before reading the caption.)