IEEE ban on Huawei staff peer reviewing papers sparks anger

The New York-based Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) confirmed on Thursday that it would ban Huawei employees from peer-reviewing its papers.

[File Photo: IC]

"IEEE complies with U.S. government regulations which restrict the ability of the listed Huawei companies and their employees to participate in certain activities that are not generally open to the public. This includes certain aspects of the publication peer review and editorial process," said a statement published on the website of what is the world's largest organization of technical professionals.

Huawei staff will be banned from serving as reviewers or editors for the peer review process of IEEE journals unless the United States government clarifies that it would not be a breach of the country's Export Administration Regulations.

The IEEE said Huawei and its employees could remain members of the organization and continue to exercise their membership voting rights, attend IEEE standards development meetings, submit new proposals for standards, and participate in and comment on public discussions on proposals for technology standards.

The decision to exclude Huawei from the peer review process was announced in an email sent by the IEEE to its fellows after Huawei was added to the U.S. Commerce Department's export control list.

The announcement quickly sparked an outcry.

Professor Zhang Haixia, an IEEE editorial board member, wrote an open letter to the IEEE president elect claiming that the move goes "far beyond the basic line of science and technology" that she has followed during her career. The Peking University professor has applied to withdraw from her roles on the editorial boards of two IEEE journals. "I joined an academic organization, not a political one," Zhang told journalists with the Shanghai-based news agency The Paper.

Liu Yiqun, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Tsinghua University, announced on social media that he would be leaving the IEEE. "If the IEEE chooses not to be free from politics, I choose to be free from the IEEE," Liu said on his WeChat timeline.

The IEEE has more than 422,000 members in over 160 countries, and IEEE journals are consistently among the most highly cited in electrical and electronics engineering, telecommunications, and other technical fields. The organization's goal is to "foster technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity".

Huawei is yet to comment on the ban.