U.S. and China renew science and tech pact as officials brace for new tensions

The United States and China renewed but narrowed a long-running science and technology agreement on Friday, marking continuity in their ties while also accounting for bilateral tensions that are likely to only grow under the incoming Trump administration.

The U.S.-China Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement, which was first signed in 1979 to enable basic research collaboration between the two countries, will be renewed for five years under altered terms that reflect the fraught reality of today’s U.S.-China relationship, according to statements from the U.S. and Chinese governments.

“The United States continues to have significant concerns about PRC’s [China’s] national strategies on science and technology,” a State Department official said in a statement, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the administration.

The official said the pact is limited to “government-to-government cooperation in basic research on areas of mutual benefit” such as earthquake sensor data, and takes into account “extensive consultations” across the U.S. government.

With new guardrails around research security and transparency, as well as intellectual property protections, the agreement ensures that any federal science and technology cooperation with China “benefits the United States and minimizes risks to U.S. national security,” according to a State Department statement. “This Agreement does not facilitate the development of critical and emerging technologies.”

Still, the renewal drew protest from some Republican lawmakers who argue that the decision of whether to continue the agreement should have been left to President-elect Donald Trump. The pact had last been renewed for five years under the first Trump administration in 2018.

Beijing was circumspect immediately after the announcement, with the Ministry of Science and Technology releasing a one-sentence statement confirming the five-year renewal. The Chinese Embassy in Washington declined to comment.

The next Trump administration is set to take a hard line on China and has already vowed to implement extensive tariffs on Chinese goods. The science agreement’s renewal comes less than two weeks after the Biden administration tightened rules on advanced chip exports to China, the latest salvo in an ongoing tech contest between the world’s two largest economies.

Beijing has fired back in recent weeks with retaliatory measures against the United States, including an antitrust investigation into AI chip giant Nvidia and export controls on critical minerals being sold to the United States.

Some academic researchers welcomed the renewal, saying it was necessary for some scientific interchange to continue, despite the heightened competition between the two nations.

“It’s good news,” said Deborah Seligsohn, assistant professor at Villanova University and an expert on the U.S.-China scientific relationship. “The U.S. and China are the two leading scientific countries in the world, and our scientists do their best work when they’re able to work together.”

Fourteen Republican lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday night urging the administration to delay the action.

The lawmakers called a renewal of the agreement “a clear attempt to tie the hands of the incoming administration and deny them the opportunity to either leave the agreement or negotiate a better deal for the American people.”

If officials hadn’t successfully renewed the agreement before the Trump administration took power, Seligsohn said, she doubted it would have been renewed, adding that some of the additions to the text seemed partly aimed at making the agreement last.

“It does seem like the Biden folks put in a whole bunch of additional safeguards that they hope make the agreement palatable to the next group,” she said.

Previously, the science and tech agreement was routinely renewed every five years, but negotiations have become more difficult in recent years. The new agreement, the State Department release said, “is one way in which the United States is responsibly managing strategic competition” with China.