The controversial Chinese telecom’s decision to cut 1,000 jobs and over US$72 million in R&D investments comes two years after the country banned both Huawei and ZTE from its 5G network. Huawei revenues in Australia will shrink to less than half their current levels because of the decision, according to Huawei’s chief corporate affairs officer Jeremy Mitchell. (Australian Financial Review)

Talking point: Amid tension between Ottawa and Beijing, Canada remains the last of the Five Eyes countries not to have made a decision on whether to let Huawei participate in building its 5G network. Huawei’s R&D footprint here is substantial. A 2018 Globe and Mail report found it spent about a quarter of its $600-million R&D budget for 5G in Canada and a CBC report finding it funded nearly $60 million in Canadian academic research. Last December Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei also floated the possibility of moving the company’s North American R&D hub from the U.S. to Canada. If promises like that are the carrot, Australia is now feeling the effects of the stick. But at least one former Huawei executive sees a silver lining in the company’s exit from Australia. Simon Lacey argued that Australia’s decoupling from Huawei is a necessary step to build redundancy into supply chains, which he said are over-reliant on China.