Biden govt renews science cooperation deal with China despite Republican objections

WASHINGTON - The US and China renewed a science cooperation agreement on Dec. 13, the US State Department said, this time with "robust national security guardrails", despite objections from Republicans who argue that the decision should have been left to the incoming Trump administration.

WASHINGTON - The US and China renewed a science cooperation agreement on Dec. 13, the US State Department said, this time with "robust national security guardrails," despite objections from Republicans who argue that the decision should have been left to the incoming Trump administration.

For 45 years, the landmark US-China Science and Technology Agreement (STA) has yielded cooperation across a range of scientific fields, creating a framework for agency exchanges and giving the US access to Chinese data useful in areas such as monitoring earthquakes, weather, and influenza.

But the deal, renewed about every five years since it was first signed in 1979, lapsed in 2024 amid mounting concerns that China too often failed to uphold intellectual property provisions or reciprocity in data exchanges.

Even US analysts who had supported renewing the agreement had said it needed to be fundamentally reworked to safeguard US innovation given that China is now a scientific powerhouse in its own right.