U.S. policies toward China on academic collaboration that focus on intellectual property theft could impact U.S.-China competitiveness, researchers said in a Center for Strategic and International Studies Big Data China event.

The CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics and the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) presented their latest publication, “How U.S.-China Tensions Have Hurt American Science” on Dec. 9. The panel discussion highlighted the work of professors Ruixue Jia and Molly Roberts of the University of California San Diego.

“International collaborations can cause legitimate concerns, such as the leakage of military technology or international proper intellectual property, or also the ethics of collaboration when certain technologies can be used for human rights abuses or other types of domestic repression,” Roberts, associate professor of Political Science, UC San Diego, said.

Roberts said the most productive scientists are involved in international collaboration.

Examples of cyber theft and economic espionage by China’s military targeting U.S. research have caused concern for a leak of international intellectual property or military technology, she said. These and ethical concerns led to the Department of Justice working to counter national security threats.

Hundreds of scholars were investigated after an NIH letter sent to American institutions in 2018 about foreign interference in research, she said. A few years ago, 54 researchers lost their positions. More than 90% of those investigated listed their source for foreign support came from China.

“But this has caused a chilling effect among scientists, that scientists have just wanted to avoid collaborations with China,” Roberts said.

Scientists collaborating with counterparts in China told Roberts and Ruixue that the U.S.-China tensions have been costly for them as they need to figure out new requirements and regulations from their universities. Some quit working with collaborators in China and were required to reorient research toward other topics as a result.

“That loss of access to resources from China like machines, students and ideas has been scientifically costly for them,” Roberts said.

There aren’t necessarily Americans who can take the spots of the Chinese students who are being hindered to come to the United States for graduate school, Abigail Coplin, assistant professor of Sociology and Science, Technology and Society, at Vassar College, said.

“And so, preventing Chinese students from doing their PhDs, from working in these high-tech fields, really is going to hinder American research,” she said.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter and vice premier sort of Deng Xiaoping signed the U.S.-China science and technology agreement that both countries felt would lead to greater wealth and advancement, Deborah Seligsohn, senior associate Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics, said.

But the 1998 Cox report accused China of stealing a lot of intellectual property, she said. What triggered this concern was two companies that voluntarily gave rocket technology in violation of export controls.

No support was given for the accusations, she said.

“Researchers are super savvy if I mean at times, downright sociopathic about protecting their findings, they want credit for them,” Coplin said.

As they understand the intricacies of these technologies, she said they need to be brought into the national security conversation.

“There are parts of the national security community that recognize that there are important areas of scientific inquiry between China and the United States that have absolutely no bearing on U.S. national security and in fact, have tremendous collective scientific benefit. Climate science and biological sciences are always in internal meetings cited as the top two issues,” James Mulvenon of Peraton Labs said.

The flip side is that other areas have important implications for national security and the increasing possibility of military conflict over Taiwan, he said.

"I really think that there's a long-standing problem with an insufficient level of expertise in specific fields in the people who are making a lot of the decisions about technology risk,” Seligsohn said.