U.S. - China agreement
On December 13, China and the U.S. agreed to extend their 1979 science and technology cooperation agreement for five years, effective from August 2024.
The agreement has been renewed every five years and expanded in scope, involving various areas from agriculture to nuclear fusion.
Why Bilateral S&T Agreements Matter
These agreements promote joint research, collaboration, and mobility for students and scientists.
They pave the way for cooperation beyond state institutions, such as bilateral research centers and institutional partnerships.
For success, countries need to actively pursue cooperation, and the U.S.-China agreement is one of the most successful.
What the Renewed Agreement Stipulates
The new agreement limits cooperation to intergovernmental basic research and excludes emerging critical technologies.
Measures for researcher safety and data reciprocity are added to address concerns over intellectual property rights and technology extraction.
Before the Agreement was renewed this year, the U.S. was faced with three options:
to renew it as usual for five years, to rescind it or to renew it with new measures to restrict the scope and add additional conditions.
The U.S. opted for the third
What the U.S. Has Gained
China’s rapid rise in R&D spending and scientific output is partly due to the cooperation with the U.S.
The agreement has helped China develop into a global scientific contender, while the U.S. benefited from Chinese research collaborations.
The U.S. sees the agreement as valuable for maintaining leverage over China’s scientific rise, even if it adds more conditions moving forward.
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