Young scientists at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center celebrate the successful landing of China's first Mars exploration mission. (PHOTO: XINHUA)

By HU Dingkun & TANG Zhexiao

After the Chang'e-6 probe returned to Earth with the first-ever lunar sample collected from the far side of the moon, China announced that researchers from all countries are welcome to apply to study the samples.

However, American scientists are in a dilemma. The scientific value of lunar soil from the far side of the moon is self-evident, but cooperation with China is illegal, according to the Wolf Amendment. Bill Nelson, the 14th administrator of The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), said it is necessary to ensure that cooperating with China does not violate the law or the Wolf Amendment.

Proposed by then-U.S. representative Frank Wolf and passed by the U.S. Congress in 2011, the Wolf Amendment prohibits NASA from conducting bilateral cooperation with China in any form or manner, and hosting official Chinese visitors at facilities belonging to or utilized by NASA, unless such cooperation is approved by the Congress and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

There is no doubt that the amendment is to impede the rise and development of China's space technology by curbing Sino-US space cooperation. 

However, it underestimates China's determination to realize self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology. From 2011 to 2024, with the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System has become China's addition to the prevailing options, the Tiangong space station has been fully assembled and has been permanently crewed, the Tianwen-1 probe successfully landed on Mars and the Mars rover Zhurong explored the red planet, while the Chang'e-6 brought back 1,935.3 grams of lunar sample...China's space development has changed with each passing day.

In 2021, just a decade after the Wolf Amendment was proposed, the U.S. Secure World Foundation held a webinar to assess its effects and outcomes.

Charles Frank Bolden Jr., who served as NASA administrator from 2009 to 2017, questioned Wolf's purpose, "If we're looking at slowing their program or keeping them from developing a space program, it did not do that at all," he said.

Being excluded from U.S.-led missions has not discouraged Chinese space scientists. Makena Young, a fellow with the Aerospace Security Project at the American think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, observed, "Rather it's almost propelled them to make their own programs and missions to rival those in the U.S."

If the Wolf Amendment has played any role, it is to push Sino-U.S. space cooperation into a dilemma. In early October 2023, China announced that Chang'e 5 moon samples were open to international researchers for scientific studies. But it was not until the end of November that NASA obtained approval from Congress and the FBI for its scientists to cooperate with China.

Greg Schuster, research scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center, once commented, "The Wolf Amendment has really handcuffed earth sciences here at Langley. I've been told not to even answer email from Chinese domains. From this perspective, the Wolf Amendment has stopped much earth science work from ever getting started."

The Wolf Amendment is the result of the morbid psychology of some American politicians toward China. But it benefits no one in the United States while it may harm the space exploration of all mankind.

Marco Aliberti, a senior research fellow at the European Space Policy Institute, said, "You cannot build effective solution for a global space governance without China participating in it." No defined norms or rules for the safety, security, and sustainability of space activities can be set without China's participation.

"The common view is that the amendment has been, in a sense, effective in achieving only one objective, that is, preventing substantive cooperation between the United States and China, but has been, in a sense, disastrous in terms of effects," Aliberti added.