US President Joe Biden (left) shakes hands with China’s President Xi Jinping (right) at an economic summit in November.Credit: Leah Millis/AFP via Getty
The United States and China have signed a brand-new, five-year agreement that dictates how the nations will cooperate on science and technology research. The pact is narrower in scope than its predecessor, covering only collaboration on basic science projects between departments and agencies of the two governments and excluding work on ‘critical and emerging technologies’ potentially important to national security, such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors. Unlike its predecessor, the pact does not include any information about collaboration among Chinese and US universities and private companies.
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Experts in US–China relations welcome the agreement, saying that it will enable scientists to pursue projects with confidence.
“I am relieved to see this pact renewal,” says Duan Yibing, a science-policy researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, who hopes the pact will do what it’s designed to: promote collaboration in basic research between the two countries.
“It appears they scrubbed everything and started from scratch,” says Caroline Wagner, a specialist in science, technology and international affairs at The Ohio State University in Columbus. The narrow focus “seems appropriate” given China’s new status as a scientific and economic power. “The United States has recognized its relationship with China is now more symmetrical” than when the original agreement was signed 45 years ago, she says.
The agreement, “demonstrates a pragmatic, if constrained, approach to maintaining scientific collaboration amid geopolitical rivalry”, says Marina Zhang, an innovation researcher who focuses on China at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia.
A modernized agreement
The original pact was forged in 1979 to thaw diplomatic relations between China and the United States. It is normally renewed every five years, but it expired on 27 August last year amid rising tensions. Although the two nations recognized that new terms were needed in the agreement, they were unable to finalize the details before the deadline. Instead, they extended the old pact and kept negotiating.
US and China inch towards renewing science-cooperation pact — despite tensions
