World’s largest technical professional society bans Huawei staff from peer review of research
- IEEE’s ban has ignited a backlash from its Chinese members, resulting in calls to boycott the organisation
The US government’s efforts to reduce the influence of Huawei Technologies, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment supplier, has extended beyond business to cover scientific research.
That development emerged as the New York-based Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) moved to ban Huawei employees from the peer review of research papers, including serving as editors for its journals, after the Chinese hi-tech champion was added to a US trade blacklist.
The decision by IEEE, the world’s biggest technical professional organisation, was leaked online across Chinese social media on Wednesday, igniting a backlash from some of the country’s leading scientists who described the move as “anti-science” and “violating academic freedom”.
Zhang Haixia, a professor with the Institute of Microelectronics at Peking University, announced on her WeChat account on Wednesday that she was quitting IEEE because the decision to comply with the trade blacklist went “far beyond the basic line of science and technology” and challenged her professional integrity.
“As a professor, I do not accept this,” Zhang wrote online in a public letter addressed to IEEE president-elect Toshio Fukuda.