After the U.S. Defense Department announced the results of a review of foreign research ties at 30 American universities, China's Ministry of Commerce said it opposes the overstretching of national security and urged Washington to stop discriminatory measures against Chinese research institutions. The U.S. side says the measures are meant to reduce the risk of research being misappropriated.
According to Huanqiu, a commerce ministry spokesperson on Oct. 23 answered a reporter's question about what Beijing called the so-called research security review results published by the Pentagon. The U.S. side said some universities had fully terminated cooperation with entities on the so-called 1286 list, which includes many Chinese research institutions.
광고 문의 · 300×250The spokesperson said the United States was overstretching the concept of national security, politicising, weaponising and instrumentalising scientific exchanges and unjustly stigmatising Chinese research institutions. The spokesperson said the move in effect coerces American research institutions into picking sides, damages normal China-U.S. research cooperation and will ultimately weaken America's own scientific progress.
Pentagon: all 30 universities resolved flagged ties
According to Military Times, the Pentagon announced on Oct. 19 that all 30 universities it had ordered in August to review their foreign relationships had fully mitigated the ties it identified. It said the reviews led to more than 80 termination-related actions, and that some schools also made precautionary terminations involving entities not on the list.
The 1286 list is a Defense Department list of foreign institutions of concern maintained under Section 1286 of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. Military Times said the list, updated in July, named 130 academic and research institutions in China, Russia and Iran that the department judged to raise the risk of misappropriation of U.S.-funded research. Joseph Jewell, assistant secretary of defense for science and technology, said the universities that cooperated closely had set the benchmark in domestic research security.
The commerce ministry stressed that stronger China-U.S. research cooperation serves both sides' interests and that restricting cooperation and decoupling would hurt others without benefiting oneself. It urged the United States to immediately stop discriminatory and restrictive measures against Chinese research institutions and said China would take necessary measures to protect their legitimate rights and interests. What specific measures are under consideration could not be confirmed.