Not able to choose an entity with different language then current

A client site uses entity translation and content translation. It has two active languages, lets say English (default) and Chinese.

There is a content type Page using entity translation.
There is a content type Articles using content translation.

The page content type contains an entity reference autocomplete field with unlimited items and field translation OFF.

First i create a new article with language Chinese.
Then i create a new language neutral page.
When i try to reference this Chinese article i cant, it is not available.
Only when i add the node when the Chinese language prefix is active, i am able to select the Chinese node.

The same 'issue' occurs when i try to import pages with article references, all references to Chinese articles are lost because the import is language neutral.

Translated entity reference module is not(!) active on this site.

I tried ofcourse using a entity reference view to overrule the language validation and indeed all articles are then selectable, irrespective of the language. However, i consistenly get memory timeouts using the views workaround when importing pages with feeds, so for that usecase this is not a solution.

Anyone else encountered this? It seems not the default behaviour, hence the existence of the translatable entity reference.

I will see if i can get around this by a custom plugin but as i am not an experienced programmer, any help is appreciated.