China and America-- Decoupling Scientific Research

Talk is not always cheap. Sometimes it is downright expensive. 

Moreso when it is loud and obnoxious, in defiance of Theodore Roosevelt’s dictum-- Speak softly, and carry a big stick.

I will recall, from yesterday’s post, that Lawrence Summers recommended that we dial down the rhetoric about China, lest we provoke a reaction. 

Nowadays, when it comes to China we speak loudly and leave the stick at home. It is hard enough to unravel the issues surrounding supply chain decoupling, but how do you gain any real grasp of what happens when we decouple scientific research?

If you believe that China steals all technology and all research, we are not losing very much of anything by shutting down scientific collaboration. And yet, we are reasonably confident that the Chinese researchers who are being cut off from contact are not slave laborers. 

As it happens, much of what is trafficked in the media and by out loud mouthed politicians is distorted beyond recognition. Some research involves matters that concern national security, while other studies involve technologies that can serve multiple purposes and goals.

For those of us who are not informed about these matters, the issue is maddeningly complex. I do not imagine for an instant that our intrepid sinophobic Congresspeople have even the most rudimentary grasp of the issues.

The Wall Street Journal offers something of an analysis. The complexity is maddening.

The story begins with an assertion. China is not a backwater that steals scientific research and technology. Besides, as a general rule, it is a bad idea to trash people for their achievements, but that is for another day.

The Journal opens:

China has built itself into a powerful engine of scientific discovery in recent decades, partly with American help, and many in Washington fear that China could gain a security and military advantage unless the U.S. takes decisive steps to cut off cooperation in scientific research.

Fair enough, but what will it cost us? And what will it cost our own scientists?

Many scientists warn, however, that Washington would be severing ties as China is making its greatest contributions to scientific advancements, and cutting it off risks slowing American progress in critical areas such as biotechnology, clean energy and telecommunications.

Scientific research is transnational. It cannot easily be confined to one or another nation:

While the U.S. remains the world’s pre-eminent science power, fundamental scientific research has grown borderless in the era of globalization, much as business has. More than 40% of America’s scientific production—measured by the number of high-quality papers that U.S.-based scientists produce—involves cooperation with researchers abroad, according to Clarivate, a London-based data firm that tracks global scientific research.

By the numbers, how much do we depend on China?

The U.S. depends more heavily on China than China does on the U.S. in some strategic areas, according to an analysis by Clarivate of studies in respected journals shared exclusively with The Wall Street Journal. Between 2017 and 2021, U.S.-China collaborations accounted for 27% of U.S.-based scientists’ high-quality research in nanoscience, for example, but only 13% of China-based scientists’. The gap in telecommunications was even wider, with collaborations accounting for 10% of China’s output but more than 33% of the U.S.’s.

What do we gain from these collaborations? The Journal asked scientists:

More than a dozen U.S.-based scientists interviewed by the Journal described productive collaborations with Chinese labs that provide a host of useful resources, including large teams of graduate students, massive and often unique data sets and cutting-edge equipment. Increasingly, they said, Chinese scientists are also coming up with some of the most innovative ideas and approaches to scientific problems.

We need to ask how well university labs are funded. How much funding is being siphoned off to promote diversity and equity? How much of advanced education has been corrupted by diversity quotas?

You will note that no small number of the American scientists who collaborate with their Chinese counterparts are Chinese or Chinese-American:

Tian Xia, a professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, collaborated with Chinese scientists on dozens of investigations into the ways that microscopic nanoparticles can damage the human body. In a field that requires testing large numbers of particles, Chinese scientists benefit from having big and well-funded labs, in addition to fresh ideas, he said. 

Much of that work has stopped, and Xia has distanced himself from his China-based colleagues since the U.S. began investigating scientists with ties to China five years ago. Meanwhile, China is pushing into new areas of nanotoxicology through research that doesn’t rely as heavily on foreign partnerships.

In some areas, like battery storage and semiconductors, China has been advancing:

Chinese researchers have leapt ahead of their American counterparts in the field of energy storage, according to a 2021 U.S. government report, and Clarivate’s analysis shows China driving scientific output in other strategic areas. That includes basic science around semiconductors, where China collaborations account for 20% of papers produced in the U.S.

Scientists are unhappy about the new policies and the new hostility toward China. We are seriously naive if we believe that we will not be paying a price for our scientific mercantilism:

The cost to human progress of severing U.S.-China science ties will be hard to measure. “There is no global problem that doesn’t require close U.S.-China collaboration,” said Denis Simon, who this month resigned as a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to protest what he described as an increasingly hostile attitude in the U.S. toward scientific engagement with China.