With (deserved) increased scrutiny in Huawei and friends, I'm half tempted to get the discarded gear to actually put in production use. China/Huawei is no longer in a position to pull something stupid.

Current gen functioning gear at a discount price will be very tempting.

What do you mean? China has economic problems, but international escalation is often a great way to distract from donestic problems.

Huawei was always subject to a much higher level of scrutiny for obvious reasons.

In the UK, for example since around 2010, Huawei turned over code to an independent oversight board: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/huawei-cyber-secu...