US lawmakers urge end to decades-old science and tech agreement with Beijing to curb Chinese military advances
South China Morning Post
5 min read
US lawmakers have called on Washington not to renew a four-decade-old science and technology cooperation agreement with China that they claim has likely developed knowledge threatening United States interests, including balloon and agricultural technologies.
According to analysts, if the agreement was ended it would be proof of Washington's attempt to decouple from Beijing and would spark a forecast of an even more fragmented, as opposed to globalised, scientific research environment.
In a letter submitted to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, 10 Congress members, including chairman of the select committee on China Mike Gallagher, urged the administration not to extend the agreement after it expires on August 27.
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Gallagher's 24-strong committee dedicated to China was created in January and focuses on economic and security competition with Beijing.
Known fully as the "Agreement between the United States and the People's Republic of China on cooperation in science and technology" (STA), the pact was signed in 1979 under then US president Jimmy Carter to "strengthen friendly relations between both countries", among other objectives.
"We are concerned that the [People's Republic of China] has previously leveraged the STA to advance its military objectives and will continue to do so," the letter stated, adding that there had been reports suggesting research partnerships organised under the scheme "could have developed technologies that would later be used against the US".
The lawmakers accused Beijing of using a "balloon technology" - similar to the one jointly developed by the US' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the China Meteorological Administration under a STA project - to "surveil US military sites on US territory".
Agricultural technologies, on which the US and China have "a dozen active research projects", was also an area of concern for the Congress members, after Chinese President Xi Jinping called on his country to boost self-reliance in agriculture technology.
At March's "two sessions", China's annual parliamentary gathering, top leaders highlighted the need to ensure stable and safe supplies of grain and other important agricultural products, with the aim to establish the country as a great agricultural power by the middle of this century.
US Republican Mike Gallagher is chairman of the US select committee on China which focuses on economic and security competition with Beijing. AP Photo alt=US Republican Mike Gallagher is chairman of the US select committee on China which focuses on economic and security competition with Beijing. AP Photo>
According to Xu Qinduo, a political analyst at the Chinese think tank the Pangoal Institution, while the STA's role promoting collaboration between the countries has been curtailed by Washington's anxiety about China's growing technological prowess, whether it continues carries symbolic significance.
"The US agreeing to renew the agreement will likely create some optimism, in the sense that Washington does believe scientific exchanges to be necessary for stable relations; on the contrary, ties between the world's most critical countries can be expected to get worse," said Xu, adding that no country would benefit from a fragmented scientific world.
The lawmakers also accused Beijing of using "academic researchers, industrial espionage, forced technology transfers, and other tactics to gain an edge in critical technologies, which in turn fuels the People's Liberation Army modernisation".
"It should come as no surprise that the PRC will exploit civilian research partnerships for military purposes to the greatest extent possible. The PRC openly acknowledges its practice of military-civil fusion," the letter continued. "The United States must stop fuelling its own destruction. Letting the STA expire is a good first step."
According to Josef Gregory Mahoney, a politics professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai, the lawmakers did not believe the US could gain anything by continuing this agreement because of a lack of respect for Chinese ingenuity.
"It also effectively conveys once again a fantasy that both Democrats and Republicans have embraced, that China has risen because the US gave, sold or allowed China to steal sensitive technologies from the US," said Mahoney, who also directs the International Centre for Advanced Political Studies at the university.
"In many technological fields China is now a global leader, particularly in green innovation, battery development and genetics, which the US needs," he said. "China does not need help on quantum computing or AI or military applications."
Mahoney said the letter, signed by 10 Republicans, was an "exploitative tactic" for them to garner support by fuelling more "anti-China fear mongering" amid growing polarisation in American politics.
"The one dangerous example the lawmakers cite is an errant weather balloon, which clearly posed such little, if any, threat that the US allowed it to hover over the nation for days before dramatically shooting it down once it drifted over the ocean."
Xu said Washington's recent measures directed at China's tech industry made competition unfair. He said the trend of academics and institutions in both countries being forced to terminate ongoing projects with the other was not likely to be reversed.
"US-style competition in science and technology has created an atmosphere of terror for American scientists and researchers, with the chip ban disrupting global supply chains and relevant alliances reminiscent of a cold war mentality," Xu said.
Washington's pressure on its allies to follow its ban of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, as well as hurdles faced by Chinese students wanting to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in the US, were clear signs of an eroding bilateral relationship, he said.
