Subbing Science for Diplomacy
Terry H. Schwadron
Aug. 8, 2023
A tussle is quietly raging in Washington over whether it is better to talk with perceived enemies or to shun them.
Directly at stake is an expiring, 44-year-old agreement that aims to allow cooperation across scientific and technical fields at a time of rising economic and military tensions between China and the United States.
It is called the U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement (STA), an arrangement that has been renewed every five years or so since 1979, that allows or even encourages contacts among scientists and university researchers in both countries to talk over technical matters.
The agreement came about to support non-political contacts between the countries towards either cooperative scientific or even business developments out of a relatively altruistic idea that knowledge ought to be sharable and that joint understanding of politically safe topics eventually can build diplomatic bridges.
Of course, that was then, and this is now.
In part, is seems that China’s ascendance in artificial intelligence, quantum sciences, biomedicine, and space — and their ability to turn knowledge into business and military applications — have put scientific cooperation between the two countries in the crosshairs.
Suspicions on High
Our suspicions and findings of Chinese military and scientific espionage is on full alert; the nearly weekly incidents of brushes with Chinese ships, planes, and spy balloons have shattered trust. Just this week, we saw a flotilla of Chinese and Russian warships operating jointly just off the shores of Alaska as some kind of unclear threat that prompted American response. The continued independence of Taiwan is a particular sore point between the two countries,
American voices finding fault with Chinese reengineering of U.S. technology or with Chinese non-cooperation over covid origins have been easy to find on both sides of the political aisle. Selected voices, like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., have targeted folks like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the virology expert, for any engagement with Chinese labs.
Our trade agreements with China, broken off with tariffs imposed by Donald Trump and continued by Joe Biden, remain in trouble. American manufacturers are fleeing China for Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam, and U.S. imports from China are reported down 24 percent through the first five months of this year as compared with last year, according to the Census Bureau.
Bigger than Politics?
Clearly, this is a bigger issue than partisan politics. But House Republicans have been the most vocal since they identify any efforts by the Biden administration to keep talks with the Chinese alive as a sign of American weakness.
Republican lawmakers have lobbied for non-renewal of the scientific agreement, and candidate Donald Trump, echoed by other Republicans, has singled out Biden China policy — which mostly has mirrored his own — as weak.
Here’s Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chair of a congressional select committee on China.: “Extending the Science and Technology Agreement between the U.S. and China would only further jeopardize our research and intellectual property. The administration must let this outdated agreement expire.”
The State Department and the National Security Council have been silent as the discussion continues in the White House over crafting what they want the message to be to China.
Meanwhile, China says it wants the agreement renewed, even as its various public statements deny that it is pursuing espionage or military provocations.
As Axios.com recounts, scientific collaboration between the U.S. and China came under intense scrutiny during the Trump administration, when the U.S. Justice Department launched the China Initiative to investigate possible Chinese intellectual property theft and espionage. The program was shuttered after allegations officials racially profiled scientists, and cases fell apart.
Looking for Symbols
The politicians seem to love using these kinds of symbols as expressions of friendliness or the lack of it.
So, the exchange of cultural artists for performances or the admission of sports teams at the Olympics take on political colorations well beyond the meaning of the specific events. Yet, barring Russian gymnasts at international events have neither stopped Russian athletes from competing under a different flag nor ended the invasion into neighboring Ukraine.
Even direct economic sanctions against China or Russia don’t stop international trading with the perceived target country, including from U.S.-based companies.
Cooperation between the U.S. and China have helped China to transition from ozone-depleting CFCs and enabled the sharing of influenza data used to devise yearly vaccines, the science community notes. But the cooperative arrangements have not prompted the Chinese to open their investigative findings about covid origins, for example.
Nor has it addressed the wider concerns about state-backed intellectual property theft and the Chinese military benefitting from knowledge about U.S. scientific advances.
Still, we should be asking ourselves whether U.S. isolation helps us in the long run either to address bilateral business issues or in the acquisition of human knowledge. Surely, all human learning isn’t about building weaponry from lab-to-lab shared understanding.
Climate and environmental issues, public health and pandemics, seismology, mineralogy, and biology specifically ignore national boundaries. Is learning about agriculture and chemistry, space sciences and energy limited to promotion of American “exceptionalism”?
Shunning knowledge feels like its own weakness in the name of military superiority.
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