"The University of California at Berkeley has removed a Huawei video-conferencing system, a university official said, while the UC campus in Irvine is working to replace five pieces of Chinese-made audio-video equipment. * * *
"UC San Diego, meanwhile, has gone a step further. The university in August said that, for at least six months, it would not accept funding from or enter into agreements with Huawei, ZTE Corporation (000063.SZ) and other Chinese audio-video equipment providers, according to an internal memo. The document, reviewed by Reuters, said the moratorium would last through February 12, when the university would revisit its options. 'Out of an abundance of caution UC San Diego enacted the six-month moratorium to ensure we had adequate time to begin our assessment of the equipment on campus and to prevent the campus from entering into any agreements that could later be viewed as inconsistent with the NDAA,' UC San Diego spokeswoman Michelle Franklin said in response to Reuters' questions about the memo.
"These actions [are] not previously reported * * * The moves are a response to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which President Donald Trump signed into law in August. A provision of that legislation bans recipients of federal funding from using telecommunications equipment, video recording services and networking components made by Huawei or ZTE. Also on the blacklist are Chinese audio-video equipment providers Hikvision, Hytera 海能达通信股份有限公司 [1993- ; based in Shenzhen], Dahua Technology and their affiliates. * * * US universities that fail to comply with the NDAA by August 2020 risk losing federal research grants and other government funding.
"In the 2016-2017 academic year, the UC system received $9.8 billion in federal money. Nearly $3 billion of that went to research, accounting for about half of all the university's research expenditures that year, according to UC budget documents.
"In addition, Trump last year signed legislation prohibiting the US government [separate fro public and private universities, the main topic of this report] from buying certain telecom and surveillance equipment from Huawei and ZTE. And he is considering a similar ban on Chinese equipment purchases by US companies.
"In addition to an explicit equipment ban, the NDAA calls for creating regulations that would limit research partnerships and other agreements universities have with China. The law requires the Secretary of Defense to work with universities on ways to guard against intellectual property theft and create new regulations aimed at protecting academics from exploitation by foreign countries. Universities that fail to comply with those rules risk losing Defense Department funding.
"In June, 26 members of Congress sent a letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, sounding an alarm over Huawei's research partnerships with more than 50 US universities that 'may pose a significant threat to national security.' The lawmakers called on DeVos to require universities to turn over information on those agreements.
separately: "The United Kingdom’s Oxford University this month cut ties with Huawei, announcing it would no longer accept funding for research or philanthropic donations.