China’s Global Times on Aug. 12 ripped into the Trump Administration’s announcement of its intention to ban all scientists working for U.S. government funded programs from any cooperation with Chinese scientists as both stupid and suicidal to the American economy and scientific progress. The proposed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rule, set to take effect in December, “would mark one of the biggest overhauls of US science funding in decades, giving political appointees greater authority over grant awards previously guided by scientific peer review and requiring that they ‘advance the President’s policy priorities.’” The Global Times reports that The Washington Post claims, “So far, the proposed rule has garnered nearly half a million public comments, many from scientists and leading US science bodies.” The Post analysis of 50,000 of those comments found that around 88 percent were negative.
Global Times points out that the move “would also effectively expand the 2011 Wolf Amendment, which bars scientists from using NASA funding for bilateral collaborations with China, to all federal agencies and scientists receiving federal funds, marking the largest break in US-China scientific engagement in decades,” according to the Post.
The Washington Post report from Wednesday also said: “For years, the National Science Board backed efforts to shield U.S. research funds from enabling academic theft, while maintaining that scientific engagement with China is essential to understanding and competing with an increasingly formidable rival. Days before the report was to be released, President Donald Trump dismissed all 22 board members and proposed a dramatically different course: sever virtually all federally funded research collaborations involving China.”
The Post adds: “Chinese universities now dominate global science publication rankings, claiming 19 of the top 25 universities in terms of academic output and displacing Harvard from the top spot for the first time this year, according to annual data published by Leiden University in the Netherlands.”
Global Times quotes Wang Yiwei, a Renmin University professor who has spoke at EIR events in the past, that “This reflects a fundamental divide between the US government and the scientific community over how science should develop. He noted that politicians tend to believe that suppressing China as a competitor would allow the US to preserve its market dominance and technological edge. Scientists, however, tend to follow a different logic, as scientific progress depends on openness, exchanges and collaboration. If science and technology are driven solely by competition and private capital, with the ultimate goal of maintaining technological monopolies, this could create greater risks and ultimately undermine US interests as well.”
