US Can Better Balance Research Collaboration, Stopping Tech Theft, Report Says
The U.S. needs to strike a better balance between targeting Chinese technology theft and encouraging open and collaborative technology research environments, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in an Oct. 28 report. While the government is concerned Chinese students and scientists work as “‘nontraditional collectors’ in pursuit of [China’s] technology priorities,” CSIS said those risks “can and must be dealt with while simultaneously maintaining the fundamental openness of the system.”
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If the U.S. imposes too many controls, CSIS said, China will simply shift its technology acquisition efforts elsewhere, because most of the world’s “cutting-edge” research and development takes place outside the U.S. This shift would hurt the U.S. by dissuading top foreign talent from studying at American colleges, the report said, and wouldn’t slow China’s technology goals. “These problems are familiar from areas such as export and investment controls,” CSIS said, “where the United States was a key player in building multilateral structures for policy coordination and intelligence sharing.”
The U.S. should build similar multilateral initiatives “in the domain of research security and technology transfer” with other top destinations for Chinese students, including Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, South Korea and European countries, CSIS said. “If the United States imposes restrictions unilaterally,” the report said, “Chinese technology acquisition would simply shift elsewhere, decreasing U.S. competitiveness without meaningfully slowing China’s technological growth.”
The U.S. can also better “streamline” information sharing across U.S. science agencies to better scrutinize “undisclosed” ties to foreign governments, CSIS said. Improved integration of U.S. science agencies’ data systems would allow information and “potential red flags,” including on academic funding applications, to be shared across the government and caught early. The report said this would “help enforce research integrity rules while also benefiting researchers and universities by reducing administrative requirements.” Many universities don’t have the resources or the expertise to do as much due diligence as the U.S. government would like, especially regarding export-controlled technologies and research (see 2110070042).