In almost every EU tech hub you will find a Huawei lab and usually a stone throw way from their major western competition (Nokia, Ericsson, ARM, Imagination) and in Paris, Apple hires cryptographers from ANSSI, the French National Cybersecurity Agency (France's NSA) to work on their DRM and Apple Pay.
Why would this be sad? Comparative advantages are useful.
If they are doing something we don't like, we have to address that. (Eg. child labor, unsafe work conditions, carbon tariff if they don't have a carbon tax.) In itself there's absolutely no problem with having an R&D hub in the EU for a US or Chinese company.
