America and China should keep doing research together

Since Deng XiaopingSTA and Jimmy Carter struck a deal in 1979, American and Chinese academics have co-operated on scientific research. Like so much else about relations between the two countries, that co-operation is now under threat. As we report this week are writing fewer papers together and the number of Chinese students and researchers entering America has fallen sharply. Now politicians are wavering about whether to renew the Deng-Carter deal, called the Science and Technology Agreement (). Republicans want to scrap the pact; Democrats want to renegotiate its terms.It is easy to understand America’s fears about boosting China’s technological capability, and therefore its ability to wage war. The widespread fear that China has exploited a naive American belief in openness has also sapped the will to work together. China has a long record of ordering Western companies to hand over technologies as a condition of selling into its vast market, and is often accused of intellectual-property theft.