Biden administration inks renewed science cooperation deal with China; Republicans cry foul

Source: Reuters

December 13, 2024 10:02 AM EST Updated 2 hours ago


WASHINGTON, Dec 13 (Reuters) - The United States and China renewed a science cooperation agreement on Friday, the U.S. State Department said, this time with "robust national security guardrails," despite objections from Republicans who argue that the decision should have been left to the incoming Trump administration.

For 45 years, the landmark U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement (STA) has yielded cooperation across a range of scientific fields, creating a framework for agency exchanges and giving the U.S. access to Chinese data useful in areas such as monitoring earthquakes, weather and influenza. But the deal, renewed about every five years since it was first signed in 1979, lapsed this year amid mounting concerns that China too often failed to uphold intellectual property provisions or reciprocity in data exchanges.

Even U.S. analysts who had supported renewing the agreement had said it needed to be fundamentally reworked to safeguard U.S. innovation given that China is now a scientific powerhouse in its own right. Signed just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration, the State Department said the new deal is significantly narrower than previous iterations and covers only basic research, not critical or emerging technologies core to the rivalry between the countries.

"As we negotiated this over the last year, we always kept in mind U.S. national security interests as our top and guiding consideration," a senior State Department official told reporters in a call detailing the STA. "We understood that failure to extend the STA could also have chilling effects in areas of scientific cooperation, which do benefit the United States," the official said.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-administration-inks-new-science-cooperation-deal-with-china-republicans-2024-12-13/