Yuan Longping leads Chinese and foreign experts to inspect new hybrid rice in Hainan province on April 2, 2004. (PHOTO: VCG)

By QI Liming

According to some websites, ten republican lawmakers wrote a letter to the U.S. State Department in late June, calling on Washington not to renew the four-decade-old science and technology cooperation agreement with China, which will expire on August 27.

The pact, called The US-China Agreement on Cooperation in Science and Technology (STA), was first signed by the two countries in 1979 and supposed to be renewed every five years.

According to analysts' opinions released on South China Morning Post, if the agreement was not renewed it would be proof of Washington's attempt to decouple from Beijing and could lead to an even more fragmented, as opposed to globalized, scientific research environment.

During the past four decades, STA has fostered a sound environment for China-U.S. sci-tech collaboration, and boosted mind-breaking innovation, thus greatly advancing the progress and development of humanity.

So, what prompted U.S. lawmakers to break this cooperative cornerstone with China, and is smearing and suppressing China at all costs the only way for the U.S. to remain influence in the sci-tech arena? According to Physics World magazine, the notorious "China Initiative" (U.S. program which sought to fight economic espionage) has led to many Chinese scientists in the U.S. to consider leaving the country under enormous pressure of fear and anxiety, even though it was suspended in early 2022.

According to a new study themed "Caught in the Crossfire: Fears of Chinese - American Scientists" published on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the sentiment has stopped Chinese scientists from applying for U.S. government grants. The study's authors warned that if the situation is not resolved, the U.S. will lose "scientific talent to China and other  countries."

"Returning to normality will not be easy," said Junming Huang from Princeton's Center on Contemporary China who co-authored the study.

Meanwhile Kai Li, a computer scientist from Princeton University, who was not involved in the study, said  "The China Initiative and its chilling effects were caused by some policy-makers talking about national security."

Li pointed out that the pending cases of the initiative are continuing to have "a chilling effect." As a result, scientists and researchers, particularly in engineering and computer science, are not applying for federal grants for their research over fears of reprisals.

Instead of learning from experience and lessons mentioned above, U.S. politicians have once again launched provocations, which can be traced to the blind "imaginary enemy" speculation on China.

For one thing, according to Josef Gregory Mahoney, a politics professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai, lawmakers did not believe the U.S. could gain anything by continuing this agreement, because of a lack of respect for Chinese ingenuity. He said the letter, signed by 10 Republicans, was an "exploitative tactic" for them to garner support by fueling more "anti-China fear mongering" amid growing polarization in American politics.

Looking ahead, there will be a scientific landscape in which no single country dominates publications or sets the research agenda. "We're seeing a multi-polar world where new powerhouses are coming to the picture," said Xin Xu, a higher-education researcher at the University of Oxford,  adding that, "It's a more diversified picture of global science."

China's scientific achievements are not intended to dominate the world or contain the development of other countries. Instead, China's initiatives, such as "Building a community with a shared future for mankind" and "Global Development Initiative," have always been committed to the well-being and development of all of humanity.

If U.S. politicians do not want to look at science and technology in a calm and objective manner,  at least they should not politicize science and technology. Social development requires global cooperation, including China-U.S. cooperation, in science and technology. It is absolutely incorrect to campaign for more votes at the expense of human development.