The world’s largest association of technology professionals backed away from barring staff of Chinese tech giant Huawei from some of its activities as Beijing fired back at the U.S. over the two nations’ trade dispute.
Huawei said Monday that it had no comment on an announcement by the IEEE, pronounced “Eye-triple-E,” about allowing employees of Huawei and its affiliates to participate in its publication process as peer reviewers and editors.
The IEEE, which stands for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, made the announcement after the U.S. Department of Commerce clarified its stance on the issue, which arose after the U.S. put Huawei on an “Entity List,” effectively barring U.S. firms from selling it technology.
After the U.S. expanded its sanctions against Huawei, several leading U.S.-based global technology standards-setting groups announced restrictions on its participation in their activities.
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But the IEEE, a leading science publisher and leading developer of telecommunications, information technology and power generation standards, said it allows all members, “regardless of employer,” to participate in all of its activities. It said an earlier, “more restrictive” stance was meant to protect its members from legal risks.
“Our initial, more restrictive approach was motivated solely by our desire to protect our volunteers and our members from legal risk,” IEEE said in a statement Sunday. “With the clarification received, this risk has been addressed. We appreciate the many questions and comments from our members and volunteers around the world and thank them for their patience as we worked through a legally complex situation.”
“Science has no borders,” said a statement issued by 10 Chinese scholars’ associations that condemned the IEEE’s restrictions on Huawei employees, saying they cast a “shadow” and politicized on international academic exchanges.
Zhang Haixia, a nanotechnology scientist at Peking University, said she would rejoin the organization after having resigned from two IEEE boards last week because of its Huawei policy.
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“This is a moment that we, the academic community, should be proud of,” Zhang wrote in a social media post Monday. “Let’s work to make IEEE, an international academic community, great again.”
The New Jersey-based IEEE is a leading developer of telecommunications, information technology and power generation standards and claims 422,000 members in more than 160 countries , more than half of them outside the United States. It has about 200 different publications.
Stock markets take a hit
Global stock markets, meanwhile, slumped Monday, as investors reacted to the prospect of a drawn-out trade war.
China on Sunday said it will “not back down” in a trade fight with the United States, two days after signaling it could blacklist foreign companies from its huge market.
“The series of actions over the weekend means that China’s ‘long march’ has begun,” Iris Pang, an economist with ING said in a research note Monday.
“It means that the trade war has not only become a technology war but also a broad-based business war. There will be more retaliation actions from China, especially for the technology sector,” she added.
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The Chinese government released a document on Sunday that blamed the United States for the breakdown in trade talks.
Wang Shouwen, a vice minister of commerce and deputy trade negotiator, said the United States can’t force a trade deal on China and that the country “will not back down.”
Beijing also said on Sunday that it is investigating FedEx after embattled Chinese tech firm Huawei said the delivery company diverted to the United States two packages intended for the company’s offices in China.
The move on FedEx comes after China announced Friday that is building an “unreliable entity list,” effectively preparing to blacklist foreign companies as trade tensions with the United States continue to escalate.
On Sunday, Wang Shouwen, China’s vice commerce minister and deputy international trade representative, told reporters in Beijing that China would issue more detailed information on its own list of “unreliable entities” soon. Wang said it would be aimed at enterprises that “violated market principles” and that cut supplies of components to Chinese businesses for non-commercial reasons.
He reiterated suggestions that China might limit exports of rare earths, minerals such as lithium that are used in many products including cell phones, electric vehicles and the batteries that run them.
