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01/14/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 01/14/2025 05:11

Being Tough on China is Bad for Science

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January 14, 2025

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In the face of mounting geopolitical tensions between the United States and China, a new Nature commentary calls for renewed efforts to preserve and enhance cross-border collaboration in scientific research.

The piece, jointly authored by three senior Chinese scientists and three senior U.S. scientists, including David Victor of the University of California San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy, highlights how the U.S.-China scientific collaboration is facing significant challenges.

Despite having the potential to create technologies and ideas that will benefit the world - such as clean-energy innovations and improved drugs - collaboration is waning due to worsening political tensions and restrictive policies from both countries.

The authors looked at data that shows the flow of students and researchers between the two countries has dropped sharply in recent years, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictive visa policies.

"If these communities are driven further apart, the flow of discoveries will slow and scientists will be less equipped to respond collectively to crises," Victor, a professor of innovation and public policy, and coauthors write.

The commentary comes days ahead before the Trump administration assumes office, and while the new administration is expected to implement policies that may weaken U.S.-China collaborations, the U.S. stance to be tough on China has been a bipartisan effort in the making for the past decade.

The authors looked at data that shows the flow of students and researchers between the two countries has dropped sharply in recent years, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictive visa policies.

For example, during the 2019-2020 academic year, the U.S. had an influx of nearly 400,000 students from China. Those numbers dropped to less than 300,000 in 2021-2022 and have remained stagnant ever since.

Student exchange from the U.S. to China reached its peak in 2012-2013 with nearly 15,000 U.S. students going abroad, but those numbers have dropped precipitously and were less than 1,000 in 2022-2023.

David G. Victor, professor at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy

The recent renewal of the U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement (STA), which provides consistent standards for U.S.-China bilateral government-to-government scientific cooperation, offers a glimmer of hope. However, the agreement's limitations - restricting collaboration to basic science and excluding security-sensitive areas - underscore the need for a more comprehensive framework for scientific partnerships.

"The United States and China have a long history of productive scientific collaboration that has advanced global knowledge and innovation," the authors write. "At this critical juncture, it is essential to protect and expand these connections to address shared challenges like climate change, public health and sustainable development."

The commentary offers several solutions to increase collaboration in the face of challenging times, such as:

  • Identifying "safe zones:" Collaboration should focus on less sensitive fields like polar science and cosmology. These areas could offer less blowback compared to research on machine intelligence or pharmacology. Scientists need to identify and champion these "safe zones" to reduce political interference.
  • Securing funding:Federal and philanthropic organizations should offer reliable funding mechanisms for cross-border research. The U.S. Chips and Science Act, for example, prohibits individuals receiving federal research funding from participating in "Malign Foreign Talent Recruitment Programs." The authors argue that "when funders take on these dual roles - supporters and punishers - it becomes harder for scientists to secure reliable funding for work involving cross-border collaborations."
  • Making the case for collaboration:Scientists must communicate the benefits of collaboration to policymakers, the public and funding agencies, countering nationalist narratives and fostering mutual understanding. "Scientists must better explain the benefits of joint work, root out and combat cases of mistreatment, racism and alienation, and restore science to its true purpose: a global pursuit of ideas that benefits from collective progress, not nationalism," the authors write.

Coauthors include Valerie J. Karplus and M. Granger Morgan, both of Carnegie Mellon University, Lan Xue and Kebin He, both of Tsinghua University in Beijing, and Shuang-Nan Zhang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

Read the full commentary, "How to sustain scientific collaboration amid worsening U.S.-China relations," in Nature.

Learn more about research and education at UC San Diego in: Climate Change

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