To be fair, ZTE has been called out by the US intelligence community as a potential security risk. My guess is that if ZTE is involved in any sort of spying, they are looking to get things like government or trade secrets. Personally, I would pass on a ZTE phone, but unless you are a C-level employee at a fortune 500 or a high ranking government official, its probably not anything to be too worried about.
P.S. this is my first post on the forums. Hi everybody!