Tit-for-tat tensions have spread to research groups.

China’s leading computer science research community announced Thursday it will “temporarily suspend communications and cooperation” with a unit under the world’s largest technical community, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

The move comes after U.S.-based IEEE confirmed earlier this week that it is banning Huawei staff from being editors or reviewers during the peer-review process for research papers, to comply with the U.S. government’s “Entity List” as a New York-registered “non-political and non-profit organization.” 

The China Computer Federation (CCF) responded by saying that the IEEE unit, a publication arm called Communications Society (ComSoc), has betrayed any research group’s fundamental principles — “openness, equality, and being non-political” — using local laws as excuses. ComSoc also failed in its pledge to serve "professionals everywhere,” CCF said.

Apart from the communications and cooperation suspension, CCF recommended that its members neither submit papers to any ComSoc-led conferences or journals, nor participate in its scholarly events, such as paper-reviews.

CCF said the decisions will take effect immediately.

Read Caixin’s trade war coverage here and Huawei coverage here.