The case for the U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Culture, China News, Hangzhou, Chinese, International Relations, Chongqing, Beijing, Sichuan, Currentaffairs, China, Politics, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China Economy, News, China Politics, Business, Film, Shenzhen

4.8 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2023

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Sinica, Kaiser is joined by Karen Hao, a reporter recently with the Wall Street Journal whose previous work with the MIT Technology Review has been featured on Sinica; and by Deborah Seligsohn, assistant professor of political science at Villanova University, who has been on the show many times just in the last three years. Both Karen and Deborah have written persuasively about the importance of renewing the U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement, first signed in 1979 shortly after the normalization of U.S.-China relations under Jimmy Carter and renewed, for the most part, every five years without much fuss — until this year. Karen and Debbi make clear what has been accomplished under the agreement's auspices, and why GOP concerns are largely misplaced.

03:45 – The origins of the STA and the reasons for establishing it

07:34 – Criticisms against the agreement — the question of IP theft and PLA’s engagement

17:53 – What is the real reason behind such a strong opposition towards the agreement?

22:23 – How have the dynamics between China and the U.S. contribution to the STA changed over the years?

30:36 – The consequences of ending the scientific relationship with China on the example of the terminated space exploration cooperation

35:23 – Which specific projects would be put on hold in case of lack of renewal of scientific cooperation with China?

41:23 – Other scenarios for cooperation in the area of AI in the possible absence of the STA

50:10 – Are there parts of the agreement that should be enhanced or improved?

53:50 – What’s the chance for a renewal of the agreement after the six-month extension?

A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com

Recommendations:

Debbi: Abortion Opponents Are Targeting a Signature G.O.P. Public-Health Initiative by Peter Slevin (in The New Yorker)

Karen: Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity by Daren Acemoglu and Simon Johnson

Kaiser: King’s War (Chinese TV series 《楚汉传奇》Chǔhàn chuánqí on Netflix

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Cynical Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China, produced in partnership with the China Project.
0:15.7	Subscribe to Access from the China Project to get access, access to not only our great newsletter, the Daily Dispatch,
0:23.0	but to all the original writing on our website at theChinaproject.com.
0:27.8	We've got reported stories, essays, and editorials, great explainers, regular columns,
0:33.1	and of course, a growing library of podcasts.
0:36.3	We cover everything from China's fraught foreign relations
0:38.5	to its ingenious entrepreneurs, from the ongoing repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples
0:43.5	in China's Xinjiang region, to Beijing's ambitious plans to shift the Chinese economy
0:49.3	onto a post-carbon footing. It's a feast of business, political, and cultural news about a nation
0:55.7	that is reshaping the world. We cover China with neither fear nor favor. I'm Kaiser Guo,
1:01.8	coming to you from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For 40 years, an agreement signed in 1979
1:08.1	between U.S. President Jimmy Carter and then Paramount Chinese leader
1:11.9	Deng Xiaoping on scientific and technological cooperation between the U.S. and China was renewed
1:17.6	every five years, except briefly after Tiananmen in 1989, without much fuss or fanfare.
1:24.6	Until this year, in late August, the Biden administration, under pressure from some legislators, not to renew
1:31.0	the agreement, decided instead to provisionally extend it for six months, a stay of execution,
1:36.7	as it were, with U.S.-China relations so badly frayed, with technology so central to the
1:42.2	tensions in that bilateral relationship, and, you know, to Sino-American
1:46.5	competition more broadly. And given the association, I think, that so many congressional
1:51.0	Republicans especially seem to have between COVID-19 and the U.S.-China research collaboration
1:56.4	in places like the Wuhan Institute of Virology, NIH funding for that sort of thing.
2:02.4	It's no wonder that it has come under attack from those quarters.
	...

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