“Extending the US-China Science and Technology Agreement would only further jeopardize our studies and intellectual property,” said Republican Congressman and House Select Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher.
The Science and Technology Agreement (STA), the first Sino-US cooperation document signed after the normalization of bilateral relations in 1979 and extended every 5 years, may not be prolonged due to debates between authorities of the US, reports Reuters citing sources familiar with the matter.
According to the agency, the STA, whose term will expire on August 27, has been considered “a stabilizing force” in bilateral relations. The document stipulates cooperation in a wide range of sectors, from atmospheric and agricultural science to fundamental studies in physics and chemistry. In addition, it established the bases for academic and commercial exchanges.
While the dominant position in the US is in favor of the extension of the STA, there are contrary opinions. “Extending the US-China Science and Technology Agreement would only further jeopardize our studies and intellectual property,” said Republican congressman and the head of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Mike Gallagher , who also called the STA “outdated”.
Likewise, Kurt Campbell, coordinator for the Indo-Pacific of the US National Security Council, pointed out that “technologies will be the most advanced arena of global competition in the coming period in the way in which nuclear missiles were the defining feature of the Cold War”.
In the National Security Council they refused to comment on the situation, while the State Department did not comment on it either, arguing “internal deliberations of negotiations.”
Meanwhile, the Chinese Embassy in Washington confirmed that Beijing last year expressed its willingness to address the STA, which laid the foundations for “fruitful” cooperation for more than 40 years, with the US. “As far as we know, the The US is still conducting an internal review on the extension of the agreement,” diplomatic mission spokesman Liu Pengyu said, adding that both sides may consider amendments to the original document. “We hope that the US side will speed up the internal review before the expiration of the agreement,” he stressed.
Expert Opinions
Meanwhile, Denis Simon, a professor at the University of North Carolina who studies China’s technology strategy, noted the importance of signing a mostly new deal with Beijing in this area to gain valuable information on China’s technical advances. “Whether China is friend or foe, the US needs access to China to understand what is happening on the ground,” he explained.
Senior researcher at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Anna Puglisi, said technology cooperation used to be an integral part of Sino-US relations, but the situation changed with China’s new legislation on data export and limitation of access to their academic databases from abroad.
“There must be transparency and there must be reciprocity,” he stressed. “And the US government needs to take a full stock of what we’ve gotten out of this, plus a couple of meetings,” she concluded.
Source: RT
