Professor Song-Chun Zhu of UCLA is one of the world’s leading authorities on computer vision. He has won numerous grants, including from the Pentagon—and more recently from Huawei Technologies. Now, Mr. Zhu, who has already received one-third of the $450,000 Huawei grant, says he doesn’t want to accept the rest because of the controversy swirling around the Chinese telecom equipment maker.

Huawei has been thrust into the center of geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China. U.S. federal law enforcement is investigating Huawei for alleged violations of federal laws restricting technology exports to sanctioned countries such as Iran. The investigation reportedly stretches back to 2016, and earlier this month led to the arrest in Canada of company CFO Meng Wanzhou, at the request of the U.S. The sale of Huawei’s telecom equipment was already effectively banned in the U.S., due to security concerns.