China US Photo:VCGAmerican scientists have voiced opposition to a proposed rule which seeks to ban federal funding for US science collaboration with China, saying that it would instead hurt US interest, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. Chinese experts also warned that the slew of US restrictions on China-US scientific cooperation is unlikely to deal a fatal blow to China's scientific development, but could instead backfire on the US.
The proposed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rule, set to take effect in December, would mark one of the biggest overhauls of US science funding in decades, giving political appointees greater authority over grant awards previously guided by scientific peer review and requiring that they "advance the President's policy priorities," according to the Washington Post.
It would also effectively expand the 2011 Wolf Amendment, which bars scientists from using NASA funding for bilateral collaborations with China, to all federal agencies and scientists receiving federal funds, marking the largest break in US-China scientific engagement in decades, the US media outlet reported.
So far, the proposed rule has garnered nearly half a million public comments, many from scientists and leading US science bodies. A Washington Post analysis of 50,000 of those comments found that around 88 percent were negative.
The rule, initially set to take effect in October, was pushed back to December after a bipartisan stopgap funding bill temporarily halted its adoption. Unlike the Wolf Amendment, the rule does not require congressional approval to take effect.
"I do think there are still members of Congress who think we have a monopoly on knowledge. They think we're still in the Cold War Soviet era ... where we were ahead in most areas of science and technology. That is not the case with China. We are no longer the leader in many areas of science," said Tobin Smith, senior vice president for government relations and public policy at the Association for American Universities, which advocates on behalf of leading US research universities, per the Washington Post.
Scientists warn that the rule risks subjecting long-term scientific research to four-year political cycles. "We will not succeed if with every new administration we are ping-ponging back and forth about priorities," the American Association for the Advancement of Science said in a blistering comment, urging the administration to withdraw the rule. "Fast-tracking such profound changes ... hands an easy victory to nations like China," it said, the Washington Post reported.
This reflects a fundamental divide between the US government and the scientific community over how science should develop, Wang Yiwei, a professor at Renmin University of China's School of International Studies, told the Global Times. He noted that politicians tend to believe that suppressing China as a competitor would allow the US to preserve its market dominance and technological edge.
Scientists, however, tend to follow a different logic, as scientific progress depends on openness, exchanges and collaboration. If science and technology are driven solely by competition and private capital, with the ultimate goal of maintaining technological monopolies, this could create greater risks and ultimately undermine US interests as well, Wang said.
The proposed rule change is the latest salvo in a broader battle in Washington over how to respond to China's rise as a scientific superpower. In July, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) also moved to ban collaborations between scientist it funds and many Chinese research institutions and their employees, according to Science magazine.
Liu Shaoshan, director of the Center for Embodied AI at the Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society and a former US-based researcher, told the Global Times in a previous interview that the NSF's new proposed rules created a "talent wall," arguing that restrictions based on nationality, institutional affiliation, and research partnerships could reduce the global talent pool available to the US, weaken its ability to attract leading scientists, and slow scientific innovation.
Liu also said scientific advancement relies not only on discovery but also on the exchange, validation, and dissemination of knowledge.
Wang also said China has built significant strengths through its vast pool of scientists and engineers, complete industrial chains and massive application scenarios, while increasingly moving from application-oriented innovation toward original research. Against this backdrop, US technological blockades and restrictions on cooperation are unlikely to halt China's progress, but could instead isolate American scientists from China's latest research and collaboration opportunities. Such an approach could also prevent the two countries from leveraging their respective strengths and ultimately undermine US competitiveness, Wang said.
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