On June 2nd, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE, lifted its ban on Huawei experts to review papers submitted to it, backtracking from the banning decision made less than a week ago.
The New York headquartered academic and international industry standards organization for professionals said in a statement published on Sunday, that the decision to ban experts from the Chinese telecommunication giant “was motivated solely by our desire to protect our volunteers and our members from legal risk.”
The organization also said that it had been waiting for a clarification from the United States Department of Commerce, which put Huawei on the U.S. Export Administration Regulations, a list that essentially forbids U.S. companies and organizations from doing technology related business with Huawei and its subsidiaries.
IEEE now says a clarification from the Department of Commerce was received and Huawei’s employees who were individual members of the organization can now continue to participate in peer review and editorial activities during publication processes.
On IEEE’s website, Huawei remained Corporate Member status throughout last week.
On May 29th, IEEE originally announced that it banned employees of Huawei from reviewing submissions to its journals following the U.S. government sanctions against the company, which stunned global academic communities, especially those in China.
Later that day, Zhang Haixia, a senior member of IEEE and a professor at Peking University, sent an open letter to the institution, claiming that it's far below the baseline for the organization to remove all reviewers from Huawei. Therefore, she decided to quit from IEEE NANO and IEEE JMEMS, two separate editorial boards under the organization.
May 30th, Yu Yuan, the only Chinese national on the standards board of IEEE’s Standards Association told Fortune China that IEEE is doing its utmost to protect the cooperation with Huawei.
He insisted that IEEE did not prohibit Huawei employees from being editors and reviewers of its journals since the institute's statement clearly shows that employees of companies that are blacklisted by the US Department of Commerce can serve as editors and reviewers. The only restriction was that they are not allowed to participate in peer review until the academic papers are accepted by IEEE.
On the same day, China Computer Federation (CCF) officially announced to terminate academic and business cooperation with IEEE publication sector and advised its members to stop submitting any IEEE publications or contributing to research work.
On June 2nd, China Institute of Communications(CIC), in conjunction with 10 other Chinese institutes, issued a statement on its official website, expressing “deep shock to IEEE's unreasonable restrictions” on Huawei employees and Huawei-funded individuals participating in the review. CIC pointed out that the participation of researchers in journal review is a fundamental right regardless of nationality, race, or institution.
On the evening of June 2nd, China Youth Daily, the official newspaper of Communist Youth League of China which serves as a party affiliate to the ruling Communist Party of China, reported that IEEE is in talks with the Department of Commerce to clear Huawei of the ban.
Then on June 3rd, the merely week-old ban was lifted. In the latest statement, IEEE claimed that it has received the requested clarification from the U.S. government. “Based on this new information, employees of Huawei and its affiliates may participate as peer reviewers and editors in our publication process. All IEEE members, regardless of employer, can continue to participate in all of the activities of the IEEE.”