While we're looking at the three red stripes / red flags we should consider lumping the Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson in with the pack. A quick dig on their website show that they changed their logo to include the stylized 'E' in 1981.

I nabbed the PDF for trading year 1981 from their website.

Then there's this:

"Many years would pass before Ericsson established operations in China. After the birth of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and until the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, the market was closed to Ericsson. In the late 1970s, however, the ruling Communist Party slowly began to open the enormous country to foreign companies.

At this time, Ericsson began sales of AXE stations to China. In 1985, the first representation office was opened in Beijing, and two years later, China signed what was its largest-ever telecom contract at the time for 200,000 lines of AXE."

Sourced from here: https://www.ericsson.com/en/about-us/history/places/asia/china

China began opening up her economy from 1978 onwards. I wonder if something happened behind the scenes to prompt the change of logo?