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Ever-advancing science and technology cooperation benefits both China and US

He Weiwen

A sign outside of TikTok's Los Angeles headquarters in Culver City, California, United States, January 17, 2025. /CFP
A sign outside of TikTok's Los Angeles headquarters in Culver City, California, United States, January 17, 2025. /CFP

A sign outside of TikTok's Los Angeles headquarters in Culver City, California, United States, January 17, 2025. /CFP

Editor's note: He Weiwen is a senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The positive and constructive remarks and actions of high-ranking Chinese and US officials during Donald Trump's presidential inauguration ceremony augur well for China-US bilateral relations in the coming years, at least in this new window period.

Among all the core issues in the bilateral relationship, a steady and growing cooperation in science and technology is crucial.

The world has entered a new big-data era with artificial intelligence (AI) that is changing the landscape of production, services and human life. 

China and the US are by far the two largest economies and technology giants in the world. In Hurun's 2024 unicorn list that shows the world's leading unicorn companies, the US tops 703, China has 340, and Germany, UK and France combined possess 116.

The sound cooperation between China and the US will be the most powerful force driving the world's technology and economy forward.

However, increasing hostility and restrictions on Chinese technology has prevailed in Washington over the past few years. 

The US Supreme Court ruled to ban TikTok as from January 19 on the eve of Trump's inauguration. Trump has voiced his stand to keep TikTok operating in the US temporarily, a positive stance signifying a new vision on the most popular social media in the US with its parent company in China.

The Biden administration, during his four-year term, issued a series of bans or restrictions on trade and investment against China in terms of chips, AI, quantum telecom and computing under the pretext of "national security".

The US had put over 800 Chinese companies and institutions on the "entity list" for trade restrictions in what is known as the "small yard, high fence" approach, in an attempt to cut China off the latest technology and its supply chain, and keep US dominance in the world's frontier technologies.

Those bans and restrictions, based on a Cold War mentality and the concept of China being a threat, have caused all kinds of damage to science and technological cooperation, trade and investment between the two countries over the past few years, but have failed to put a stranglehold on China's advance.

The US Commerce Department has put iFlytech, a leading Chinese computing company on the "entity list," to ban its access to advanced quantum-computing technology.

iFlytek, on its part, has cooperated with Huawei and succeeded in creating "FlyingStar One" Supercomputing Platform, the first indigenous computing platform supporting a trillion parameters model and the world's first non-US supercomputing platform. 

The longer the US ban, the more indigenous computing platforms will rise in China. Moreover, while the US leads China in quantum computing, but lags behind China in quantum telecommunication. There is no point in such a ban.

Washington has a strict ban on the trade and investment on AI technology with China. Drones typically use AI technology, and 90 percent of the drones used by the US army are made in China, according to Mark Anderson, co-founder of a16z. Then Washington put Dajiang, the world largest drone maker based in Shenzhen, China, on the entity list, switching to US-made drones. However, all drone batteries are made in China.

The industry or service robots are also typical AI products. The US has advantages in lab research but is far behind China's manufacturing capacity. As a result, a Boston robot dog, with the world's top technologies, is sold for $50,000 on the market. China, on its part, offers robot dogs with language abilities, is sold for $1,500 only, according to Anderson. 

Why? China has a huge manufacturing capacity while the US does not. Would it be better if China and the US work together, with the US developing more AI robots with world-leading technology and China putting it into mass production, creating huge benefits for both?

Washington has banned the export of high process chips and chip processing equipment to China. 

The facts in the past three years have been proven useless. 

After a brief fall in 2023, Chinese chips imports in 2024 reached 99.4 percent of the level in 2021. The ban has actually stimulated Chinese chip industry, as its chip exports increased by 16.2 percent during this period. 

It has been estimated that China will account for 40 percent of total world chip making capacity by 2027, leaving a diminishing share for the US. Would it be better if China and the US set up a full collaboration mechanism on the chip industry supply chain?

The Biden administration approved the extension of the China-US science and technology agreement for another five years, a landmark instrument for China-US institutional collaboration in science and technology. 

Over the past four decades and more, the agreement has been proved convincingly good for both countries. It has been good for the US scientists and technology institutions to keep abreast of the science and technology development in China, and for China to learn from the latest US science and technology findings. 

The US scientists could obtain China's latest information on pregnancy nutrition, earthquake forecasts, flu data collection, air quality monitoring, pest control and so on, all conducive for the US scientists to hit new achievements in key areas. 

The China-US joint neutrino test in Daya Bay, China's Guangdong Province, has been listed by "Science" magazine as one of the 10 annual significant scientific breakthroughs. Hence, the continuous, constructive cooperation in science and technology will offer an infinite future for both countries.

It is highly recommended that China and US open a new page in setting up a new mechanism of dialogue and joint working groups on cooperation in science and technology. 

While addressing each other's reasonable concerns, more emphasis should be put on a forward-looking area of cooperation in world future technologies, thus making both countries stronger and the world better.

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