Just thought i'd leave some notes for those trying to setup on the global 10/100 version of the R4AC.
Thanks to excellent contributions from members like @Zorro, hoddy, woody4165 and others, i got my unit going.
WARNING
****DO NOT flash the Chinese-language firmware miwifi r4ac_firmware_e9eec_2.18.58.bin directly! I did unwittingly and I bricked my router. ***
I basically began my process by doing Zorro's recovery process as per below:
When you've got it back to the Chinese firmware, then you can update to the latest Chinese version r4ac_firmware_e9eec_2.18.58.bin manually through the xiaomi web interface.
Following this simply follow Hoddy's excellent video (you will need access to Ubuntu to complete the tutorial) and you're set.
FWIW i'm currently toying with 19.07.4 stable.