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The Nature of the Geopolitical Challenge

Anna Puglisi (Hoover Institution) spoke about the geopolitical challenge from the People’s Republic of China, noting that her research led to the creation of the term “nontraditional collector.” She said that “there is no room for xenophobia or ethnic profiling in open liberal democracies … it goes against everything we stand for. Precisely because of these values, we must move forward to find principled ways to mitigate the policies of a nation-state that is ever more authoritarian and seeks to undermine the global norms of science and our values.” Puglisi added that “extreme policy reactions, such as closing our eyes or closing our doors, only benefit China.”

Puglisi discussed how the Chinese research ecosystem works and how it is different from our own. The challenge coming from China is different than what the United States faced during the Cold War. While many assumed that China would become more like the United States as it became richer, this has not been the case. In China, there is a blurring between public and private entities and between civilian and military activities. The Chinese government treats technology and the robust science and technology (S&T) infrastructure needed to develop it as a national asset, however China operates under a different set of ethics than the United States in science and research. China has structured its S&T system in a way that is inherently at odds with global norms of science, which are built on transparency, reciprocity, and sharing.

China’s legal system adds complexity to international research collaborations, according to Puglisi, because Chinese laws require citizens to share

information and data with the government if asked. This is a requirement regardless of restrictions that others may place on that information and data and, more importantly, who owns it. The Chinese government increasingly intimidates and harshly silences its critics, including its citizens abroad and U.S. citizens who speak out against its policies and systems. Puglisi said that U.S. institutions “were not designed to counter the threat to academic freedom and manipulation of public opinion” posed by China’s policies. She added that there is a well-funded propaganda arm in the Chinese government dedicated to the manipulation of public opinion in the United States, which spends hundreds of millions of dollars on these efforts. Some of these propaganda efforts are put toward exacerbating societal tensions in the United States—which the Chinese government understands well—and promoting the idea that any changes in policy are ethnic profiling.

The United States’ system is not set up for the current challenge, Puglisi said, because it is focused only on military technologies, the involvement of an intelligence officer, and technology covered under narrow economic espionage statues. Most U.S. policy measures have been tactical and not designed to counter an entire system that is structurally different from our own. Just because something is not prosecutable under laws set up for a different set of challenges, it does not mean that the United States does not have a problem.

Puglisi said that the assumption that all international collaboration is good must be questioned. Just as we must find better ways to measure the threat posed by Chinese interference in the United States’ S&T ecosystem, we must also find better ways to measure the benefits of international collaboration. More importantly, we need to better understand who benefits. An individual principal investigator can feel like they benefit from a collaboration because they receive funding, students, or postdocs. However, individual benefit does not necessarily translate to institutional or national benefits. Moving forward, the United States needs clear-eyed policies related to China, including

ensuring true reciprocity exists in scientific collaborations. There must be repercussions for not complying with S&T agreements, not sharing data, not providing access to foreign facilities, or obfuscating true affiliations of Chinese scientists working in the United States.

The reality facing the United States regarding China is inconvenient to those benefitting in the short term, Puglisi said, including companies looking for short-term profits, academics who personally benefit from funding or cheap labor in their labs, and former government officials who become lobbyists for China’s state-owned and state-supported companies. Open democratic societies must have the difficult conversations needed to protect and retain competitiveness and our values. Puglisi added that if we do not “highlight and address policies that violate global norms and our values, we give credence to systems that undermine fairness, openness, and human rights.”

DISCUSSION

Jason Donovan (U.S. Department of State) said allies struggle with taking an actor-agnostic approach versus focusing policies on the Chinese Communist Party in particular. Puglisi said that it is essential to work with allies and like-minded countries and that we must acknowledge that China is not a neutral actor. In China, the role of the state is different; Chinese universities, companies, and courts do not act in the same way as they do in the United States.

In response to questions about how science fits into an approach of collaborating when we can, competing when we need to, and being prepared for—but trying to avoid—a conflict, Puglisi said that everything comes down to transparency and reciprocity when engaging in scientific collaborations. She does not agree with others who say that we need China in order to be able to work on global issues of proliferation, climate, and so forth. She recommended that we continue to have dialogues that involve government, civil society, and academia, but that we should be clear-eyed about the fact that China is always working in its own interests.

In response to a question about the feasibility of working only with a closed group of like-minded allies and positioning China on the outside of the scientific community, Puglisi said that she is not advocating that we totally cut off all collaboration with China, underscoring her previous point that extreme policy positions will not help the situation.

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