The United States is at risk of falling behind China in scientific leadership. It hasn’t happened yet, but it is a distinct possibility during the next decade. That’s the verdict of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute whose “Critical Technology Tracker” now ranks China first in 66 of 74 technologies. That is also a conclusion that can be reached by an assessment of prospective trends in US-China basic research, the seed corn of innovation. Meanwhile, President Trump, who just fired all 22 members of the governing board of the National Science Foundation, is likely to stay true to his earlier form and replace the NSF Board with non-expert sycophants.
Science will shape the future of humankind. This is a global statement, not directed to the one nation which might prevail in a worldwide science race. We are all in this together and the goal should be one of collaboration, not single-nation dominance. Is there any possibility that might ever happen with the US and China?
This question may seem far-fetched, especially today. But there is a long history to US-China scientific collaboration. In 1979, on the occasion of his celebrated visit to the US, Deng Xiaoping and US President Jimmy Carter signed “The US-China Science Technology Agreement (UCSTA).” It was the first accord after the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the two countries and has been the anchor of joint scientific investigation between the US and China ever since.
Unfortunately, at the same time the US-China relationship entered a period conflict escalation, America’s commitment to the UCSTA came under political pressure. In 2023 and 2024, bipartisan animosity on the US side required two six-month stopgap funding actions by the US Congress, eventually followed by a five-year extension of a significantly watered-down agreement signed by both countries on December 31, 2024. The current version is basically a government-to-government UCSTA that excludes collaboration between private companies, universities, and new emerging technologies such as AI.
The US and China should and can do much better than that. There is an important precedent for scientific collaboration between adversarial nations — US-Soviet, now US-Russia, joint space exploration. Starting with the Apolo-Soyuz docking in 1975, two conflicted nations, during and after the Cold War, built a lasting partnership for space exploration that culminated with their joint management of the International Space Station (ISS). From construction over 1998 to 2009, to ongoing missions of scientific exploration, this has been a shared project from the start. During the US space shuttle hiatus of 2011-20, Russian Soyuz rockets ferried US astronauts to the ISS. Since its full operational inception in 2009, the ISS has always been staffed jointly with US astronauts and Russian cosmonauts.
The International Space Station
This collaboration in space exploration, literally on the frontier of scientific and physical breakthroughs, occurred despite deep-rooted pressures of US-Soviet/ Russia conflict escalation. Comparable to the Deng-Carter science agreement of 1979, the origins of Soviet/ US collaboration were established in the early days of détente in 1972, through the “Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes” that initially committed the US and the former Soviet Union to the joint Apollo-Soyuz project. More than fifty years later and in the face of the outright disintegration of the USSR, followed by a collapse in the US-Russia relationship after invasions of Crimea (2014) and Ukraine (2022), ISS collaboration is still in place.
The ISS cooperation model between the United States and USSR/ Russia worked for one key reason: the project was designed for codependence, both in physical and human terms. That is true of the jointly coordinated efforts of the construction phase of the space station but also of the inseparable requirements of day-to-day operability — for example, splitting the tasks of thruster propulsion (Russia) and power sourcing via wing-like solar panels (US); in essence, one side couldn’t work without the other, underscoring a forced physical interdependence. The human aspect of the ISS project was equally codependent for support and management, as well as crews.
How might the ISS experience be translated into a model of US-China science collaboration?
An emphasis on physical interdependence would be especially important. Just as Russia or the United States could not build or operate the ISS alone, the broad case for partnered US-China scientific investigation is compelling. That is especially true in looking to a future in scientific applications that is likely to be dominated by large-scale endeavors such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and nuclear fusion. For massive projects such as these, cost and resource sharing is not only efficient but an important means to establish physical and financial linkages between scientific communities in the US and China.
Operational integration at the working level, one of the greatest strengths of the ISS, was able to supersede the national identity of both the United States and the Soviet Union. Mission support and crews are good friends and share the collective identity of “the ISS team.” As a result, operational integration was free of nationalistic biases, nurturing the repetitive nature of a process-based commitment to collaboration. That provided an important counterweight to the political economy of conflict between the US and the USSR/ Russia, and there is good reason to believe it can do the same for the United States and China. Enhanced people-to-people exchange, especially at the student level, would be an important building block to such efforts.
Increased break-up costs that bind partners together both intellectually and financially, add to the durability of collaborative scientific research. The ISS kept going even after the termination of the US space shuttle program in 2011. For eight years until 2020, the US preferred to ferry its astronauts to the space station in a Soyuz rocket rather than pull out of the joint project. The sunk costs of commitment were too high to consider other, more draconian, options like suspension, or cancellation. The same could apply to the US and China if they were to set up collaborative programs to tackle the mega-scientific projects noted above and establish joint labs and research centers under the spirit of renewed commitment to university and private sector collaboration.
Revising the now diluted US-China Science and Technology Agreement (USCSTA) should have a high priority. First, a new provision aimed at protecting academics of any ethnic or national origin from being detained or subjected to exit bans (i.e., as previously stipulated by the China Initiative). Second, the need to ensure reciprocal treatment regarding data security in the aftermath of China’s 2021 enactment of a Data Security Law. Third, developing new tools of technology interdependence, including, but not limited to, joint infrastructure, cross-credentialed staffing pipelines, and shared datasets. Fourth, re-establishing university-to university and private sector collaboration in both countries, as noted above. Fifth, a correction of USCSTA’s major design flaws; the agreement is nonbinding and must be renewed every five years, which exposes collaboration to the short-term whims of the political cycle, impairing the continuity of commitment.
All in all, there is both good and bad news on the possibilities of renewed scientific engagement between the United States and China. The good news is that, following the Soviet-US model, a foundational US-China framework is already in place in the form of “The U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement of 1979.” The bad news is that the politics of conflict escalation have gotten in the way. If we can put aside conflict as we have done with the Soviet/ Russia/ US joint ISS program, we can certainly do the same with Sino-American scientific collaboration. For the sake of humankind.