EXCLUSIVE: Biden administration quietly seeks to resume expired tech settlement with China

The Biden administration and China’s government are quietly working to renew a 44-year-old science and technology cooperation agreement that congressional Republicans say should be permanently killed because now it only serves to boost the Chinese military and undermine American security.

The 1979 U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement, seen at the time as an important milestone in bilateral relations, expired August 27 after a six-month extension and both governments are trying to come to terms on renewal.

A State Department official said this week that the Biden administration continues to “work towards strengthening the agreement to advance and protect U.S. interests in science and technology.”

“The United States continues to hold productive conversations with the PRC regarding the Science and Technology Agreement,” the official said, using the acronym for China.

The official declined to say whether the agreement had been secretly renewed, as occurred during an earlier extension, or has lapsed.

Chinese Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said Washington and Beijing “are maintaining communication” on renewal of the accord.

The Science and Technology Agreement was the first bilateral deal reached after the Carter administration formally recognized China’s communist government in Beijing in 1979, a time when China lagged behind the rest of the world in science and technology. The agreement was renewed nearly automatically every five years and is supported by many scientists and university research centers that view cooperation with Chinese counterparts as beneficial.

But last year, amid growing tensions on a number of fronts, the renewal agreement was limited to six months, and the pact  expired on Aug. 27 without an extension.

That left the academic communities in both the United States and China with uncertainty on future ties. Both countries have remained silent on whether the agreement has ended.

Negotiations on new terms began in August.

Science and spies

One issue for the U.S. side is the current anti-spy campaign underway being conducted by China’s security services. The campaign includes a crackdown on sharing any data broadly defined by authorities as national security information.

Critics say China also has conducted coercive investigations of several American companies operating in China and restricted some foreigners from leaving the country.

Beijing also is seeking to dissuade students and researchers from studying and working in the United States at the same time the United States is encouraging the influx.

China also criticized the Justice Department’s now-cancelled “China Initiative,” a legal offensive that targeted Beijing’s program of hiring American specialists and the theft of technology. The Biden administration shut down the initiative amid criticisms that the program was biased against Asian-Americans.

A government source, however, said most of the aggressive FBI and Justice Department anti-China spying efforts are continuing without the name.

Critics of renewing the science and technology pact say the program facilitated China’s massive theft of U.S. technology and played a role in Beijing’s risky virus research that some have blamed for setting off the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

Rep. John Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, said he opposes renewing the 1979 agreement, citing a committee report released in September on the dangers of joint research with government-linked institutions in China.

“We absolutely should not encourage additional science or tech collaboration with the CCP,” the Michigan Republican said.

The select committee report concluded that federal research funding helped advance Chinese military-related technologies. The report said Chinese partnerships with U.S.-funded researchers and universities advanced Beijing’s technology in fields such as hypersonic and nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and semiconductors.

“This collaboration directly facilitates[China’s] military modernization, and under no circumstances should the administration renew this deal,” Mr. Moolenaar said.

Hill fight

The Republican-led House recently approved legislation aimed at restricting the agreement. The bill would increase congressional oversight for any executive branch extension or renewal of science and technology agreements, and for any future pacts, an aide to the House Foreign Affairs Committee said.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul urged the Senate to pass the bill.

“Without it, Congress is kept in the dark on these science and technology agreements,” the Texas Republican told The Washington Times. “We must have proper oversight to ensure these agreements are protecting U.S. national security interests, including intellectual property/data and researchers themselves, and ensure any research is not used to modernize China’s military or support its human rights abuses.”

In the Senate, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said he also supports scuttling the agreement.

“We must take China’s threat seriously,” Mr. Rubio said. “Any agreement with a communist regime that spies on our nation and steals our intellectual property is a horrible idea.”

In recent years, U.S. scientific engagement with China has given way to strategic competition as both nations seek to shelter advanced technology in such areas as artificial intelligence, quantum.

The Biden administration imposed curbs on China buying advanced microchips, especially those needed for AI computing.

Cooperation in recent years has been restricted by both governments to prevent the loss of advanced know-how and to prevent each side from losing the edge for both civilian and military technology.

But the Biden administration also sought to cool tensions toward China last year, saying the U.S. seeks to both compete and find areas where the world’s two biggest economies can cooperate.

A separate channel for talks on artificial intelligence was set up after the summit between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in California last November that was based on signals from Beijing that increased areas of cooperation were wanted.

Rep. Andy Barr, sponsor of the House legislation to restrict the agreement, said previous versions of the Science and Technology Agreement are outdated and leave the United States vulnerable to national security threats. The new legislation will close “dangerous loopholes,” he said.

“China has repeatedly exploited these agreements to advance its military and technological ambitions,” said Mr. Barr, Kentucky Republican. “… We cannot afford to allow blind trust in these partnerships — rigorous transparency and accountability are essential if this agreement is to be renewed.”

Miles Yu, a former State Department China policymaker in the Trump administration, said the agreement should be killed, saying it was based on a faulty strategy of engagement to try to moderate Chinese policies and behavior.

“That engagement strategy has been thoroughly discredited, with a bipartisan consensus, as it has empowered [China] to become the leading tormentor of its enabler, the United States,” said Mr. Yu, now with the Hudson Institute’s China Center.

The agreement played a crucial role in the creation of “a CCP Frankenstein,” he said, and its renewal is contrary to American interests.

The Pentagon, NASA and other government agencies funded research in China that led to more than 1,000 U.S. patents for Chinese inventors since 2010, including in sensitive areas such as biotechnology and semiconductors, according to data from the U.S. patent agency reported by Reuters.

‘Low-hanging fruit’

There are some who argue the tech cooperation pact is worth saving.

Roger Pielke, a researcher with the American Enterprise Institute, said he is disappointed the agreement lapses and urged renewal and continued negotiation.

“Science and technology agreements are low-hanging diplomatic fruit — by design,” he said.

The United States and Soviet Union engaged in scientific cooperation during the height of the Cold War and therefore U.S. cooperation with China can do so now, said Mr. Pielke, who also writes the Substack blog, “The Honest Broker.”

The case for cooperation with China is stronger now since the world is much more reliant on science and technology, he said.

“Whether we like it or not the U.S. and China are coupled together in the global economy,” he said. “We may wish to tinker with the exact terms of that coupling but there is no scenario where the U.S. and China do not depend upon each other.”

The accord created a Joint Commission on Scientific and Technological Cooperation with co-chairs from each nation. For the U.S. side, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is in the lead while China’s  Ministry of Science and Technology represents Beijing.

The cooperation was expanded under former President Obama, but since the Trump administration, cooperation has been shifted toward protecting U.S. technology based on the new view of China as a strategic competitor.

China has used the agreement to advance its technological capabilities, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.

“The state’s role in China’s economic and research ecosystems has allowed the PRC to shape[science and technology] ties with the United States to fill research gaps, develop competencies and IP in priority areas targeted in its industrial policies, and develop PRC talent,” the report said.

The accord also facilitates study in the United States by Chinese students and scholars, “a phenomenon that has been central to China’s S&T advances,” the report said.

The agreement has been central to the administration’s “green energy” agenda.

Since 2009, cooperation with China has increased on joint projects for electric vehicles, energy efficiency, renewable energy, coal, and shale gas, and the creation of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center.

Some American companies opposed the technology sharing over concerns China would steal advanced technology.

Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, believes U.S.-China scientific research cooperation allowed U.S. funds to be used to help create dangerous viruses in China through the research work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, located close to where the 2019 COVID pandemic first emerged.

The FBI and Energy Department intelligence units believe virus research at the Wuhan Institute led to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr. Paul did not respond to a request for comment on whether the U.S.-China Scientific and Technology Agreement should be renewed.