The US based Insitute banned employees of Huawei Technologies and denied it access to participate in a peer review process for its research papers.

IEEE China said in a statement on its website it had decided to lift the restrictions after receiving further clarification from the US Department of Commerce.

“Our previous restrictive approach was wholly meant to protect our volunteers and members and to avoid relevant legal risks. After we received the relevant instructions, the legal risks were lifted”, it said.

On Thursday, IEEE confirmed the restrictions and stressed that the curbs applied only to Huawei employees and peer review. It added that Huawei employees can continue to submit papers for publication and participate in the IEEE’s conferences.

IEEE’s move last week was met with strong responses from China’s academic community. The Beijing-based technology research group The China Computer Federation (CCF) said it would suspend communications with IEEE.

Beijing University professor, Zhang Haixia said she would resign from the organization as a result of the restrictions.