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00:00Tensions between the US and China, they've actually resulted in tech research collaboration falling to the lowest levels that we've seen in 20 years.
00:08So this chart here is put together by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Critical Technology, it's their tracker.
00:14And it shows that the collaboration intensity, which is essentially the ratio of co-authored publications between China and as well the listed country.
00:22But you can see here in 2024, you're sliding again all the way back to levels that we haven't seen since 2005.
00:28So it found, in essence, that only a quarter of China's collaborations involve US researchers.
00:35And again, you're down over half from what it was just a decade ago.
00:39Yeah, I mean, the world is certainly changing.
00:42This is a broader story with longer term implications.
00:45And the direction of the tide does seem to suggest that this divergence will continue.
00:54As Bell was just pointing out, right?
00:55The data shows it peaked in 2019, and we're really going the opposite way of that.
00:59Joining us now, in fact, is the author of the study.
01:02Stephen Robin is a data scientist at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute joining us now.
01:08Good morning, sir.
01:09Thank you for taking the time to, lots to unpack.
01:12We had a look at the report.
01:13Fantastic data, by the way.
01:14Thank you so much for bringing that to our attention.
01:18Give us the gist.
01:19Yeah, well, good morning, David and Annabelle.
01:22It's great to be with you.
01:24Thank you so much for having me on.
01:26So I think Annabelle really did a great summarization of the report and what it was really finding.
01:33So what we essentially looked at was how research collaboration between China and the United States evolved over the past 20 years,
01:41and in addition to China and several other countries as well.
01:43And really what we found is even though the volume of research collaboration is still predominantly between China and the U.S. and its allies,
01:55so China is still collaborating with the U.S. and its allies very heavily in the 74 critical technologies we tracked,
02:03the tide is shifting.
02:04And increasingly we're seeing that China is collaborating more deeply with countries like with Pakistan, Iran, and Russia
02:12that are more closely aligned with its geostrategic interests and a little bit away from the U.S. and its allies.
02:23Sorry, go ahead.
02:27The premise that you're making is that you need to see a recoupling, but how exactly does that work when it seems like everything,
02:38including the position of lawmakers, is to go in the opposite direction?
02:44Yeah, so that's a really great question, Annabelle.
02:46And I guess the key point that I'm sort of starting with this research and hoping that we can develop further
02:53is really identifying what areas, what are the essentially more critical areas that have closer links to supporting China's military modernization,
03:05and what are the sort of sensitive technologies where there is really a risk that deeper research collaboration
03:12could lead to sensitive technologies being leaked to China.
03:18This is something that we have seen happen, ASPI has done previous research on this,
03:24in addition to many other organizations.
03:27So there is a real risk there.
03:29And it's too simple, though, to say that all research collaboration is risky and needs to be curtailed.
03:38The challenge really is identifying in what areas are the benefits of research collaboration really worth the risk.
03:47And that's really what we're hoping to do with tools like ASPI's critical technology trackers,
03:51really drill down into specifically what technologies and what areas collaboration is a risk, essentially.
04:00Yeah, you know, the other side to that coin, as you also point out, Stephen, is despite the sort of the lack or the decreasing points of contact along the research lines,
04:12you know, China is still the U.S.'s largest research partner.
04:17Correct me if I'm wrong on that.
04:18But it wasn't, being able to identify what becomes sensitive, in hindsight, is easy to do.
04:26But as far as 10 years back, you come up, you look at the list of divergences now,
04:32and it would be anyone's best guess 10 years ago that those would be sensitive points.
04:37To you, when you look at the data right now, what seems to be,
04:41where do the benefits outweigh the costs as far as areas of cooperation are concerned?
04:46In other words, what likely doesn't change is my question.
04:50Yeah, I mean, that's another really good question.
04:54And look, I guess in terms of where the benefits lie,
04:58first and foremost, it is pretty well established in the Sinometrics community
05:04that research collaboration does deliver higher impact scientific research,
05:09especially when that collaboration is with research teams in other countries
05:13that maybe have access to unique data sets or just complementary strengths
05:19that maybe allow for higher quality research to be conducted.
05:24So a really good example of this, for instance, is going back to the 1990s,
05:29where American and Chinese scientists collaborated on conducting a large-scale clinical trial
05:36to reduce the prevalence of severe birth defects for newborn children.
05:43At that time, what they were really leveraging is some unique features in China's demographics
05:48that made it the ideal place to conduct this kind of study.
05:53And as a consequence of that research,
05:57the prevalence of this particular type of birth defect has come down quite significantly in the decades since,
06:04which had a really positive impact on saving hundreds of thousands of children worldwide since.
06:10So there are benefits to collaboration.
06:14And I think the challenge is really identifying the areas where these benefits are most pronounced.
06:23So, for instance, I mentioned a biomedical example,
06:25because that especially is one of those areas where access to data sets is a major challenge.
06:32High-quality data sets, I should say, is a major challenge.
06:35So being able to leverage these benefits across different countries is very useful.
06:42But as I mentioned before, there are genuine concerns and legitimate reasons to be concerned about these research collaborations.
06:52And so perhaps in other areas where there are fewer comparative advantages to working with other countries,
07:01then there might be a stronger case for the U.S. trying to restrict research collaboration in those areas.
07:07So to be a bit specific, quantum computing is one of those areas where the U.S. really has a lot of domestic capability.
07:16And especially when you include partnering with its allied countries like Australia, Canada, the U.K.,
07:22there's a real reason for the U.S. to feel confident in a technology like that.
07:27And so perhaps in an area like that,
07:30there's a stronger argument for being more restrictive about what sort of research collaborations the U.S. does with other countries.
07:39Yeah, but certainly an area where we've heard many calls saying that China's really not far behind when it comes to quantum technologies as well
07:46and the developments they're making.
07:48But talk to us then about the shifts in who China chooses to partner with,
07:54because this has been really notable out of your study as well.
07:56Countries like Belarus, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, they're climbing the leaderboards here.
08:02What does that actually mean in the longer term?
08:07Yeah, I mean, well, it's been mentioned by David already,
08:12but it is important to emphasize that the research collaboration by sheer volumes,
08:16it is still predominantly with the U.S. and its allies,
08:19and I think it's important not to forget that.
08:22But the direction, the trajectory is changing.
08:26So in the case of, for instance, Pakistan, if we go back to 2005,
08:31at least in our data set of over 7 million publications in our 74 critical technologies,
08:37we see that there was very little collaboration between Pakistan and China in 2005,
08:43at least in the unclassified domain.
08:45We do know that China and Pakistan have worked together on, for instance,
08:52Pakistan's nuclear program before that.
08:54But at least in the public domain,
08:56there appears to have been very little collaboration between the two countries going back to 2005.
09:00If we jump forward to 2024,
09:04we see that Pakistan,
09:06in the research collaboration intensity metric that the report goes through,
09:11we see that China and Pakistan actually have the seventh strongest research collaboration partnership
09:16with Pakistan having overtaken Japan for that place,
09:20for that position in 2019.
09:23In terms of why this is,
09:25I mean, obviously,
09:25it has a lot to do with specific factors in each bilateral relationship that China has.
09:31But as a general point,
09:33we can say that science diplomacy has historically been quite an important part of China's diplomatic outreach.
09:40If you look at, for instance,
09:41the agreements that China signed with multiple Western countries soon after relations were normalized,
09:49a lot of those initial agreements did have a particularly strong focus on science and technology cooperation.
09:57If we drill into the specific case of Pakistan,
10:00we can see that research from the two countries,
10:02sorry,
10:03the two countries have in recent years signed a number of research agreements to deepen cooperation in areas like quantum technologies,
10:11space technologies,
10:12AI,
10:13nuclear technologies.
10:14And I guess what's what what our report shows is that these these agreements are actually translating into to real tangible research,
10:23which is quite significant.
10:29Stephen,
10:29so as a final question,
10:31question,
10:32sorry,
10:32plural,
10:33the it,
10:35I don't know,
10:35is,
10:36is the decline in US China specifically?
10:40How reflective is that?
10:42And I don't know how to phrase this,
10:43but very,
10:44very simply,
10:44how reflective is that the China's simply gotten better at stuff that they won't need what used to be the frontier,
10:51the United States on many of the other fronts,
10:53right?
10:53And I think we've answered who's filled the gap as far as the US,
10:56that the China,
10:58others are concerned.
10:59But with China stepping back from the US,
11:01who is the US now dealing more with?
11:05Yeah,
11:05that's another really good question.
11:07And I think there's,
11:08there's a lot of truth in that,
11:09that if we go back to 2005,
11:13there was a bit of a sense that it was from the US perspective,
11:18that it was a win-win to uplift China's technological capability.
11:23So in that sense,
11:24it,
11:24it wasn't,
11:25you know,
11:26it wasn't necessarily an act of the US trying to support China's development.
11:31The US got plenty out of that arrangement as well.
11:33But in the two decades since you're right,
11:36the quality of Chinese science has,
11:38has improved dramatically.
11:40And it's probably true that there,
11:42there is a feeling that if,
11:44if Chinese researchers want to do cutting edge science,
11:47they don't necessarily need to be going to their counterparts in the US anymore.
11:51They,
11:52they can actually do that a lot more themselves.
11:54I think in terms of who the US is,
11:59is collaborating more with.
12:01So this,
12:02this report so much as has,
12:03our work so far has,
12:05has largely focused on,
12:06on China's collaborations,
12:07but I think that that's an excellent question.
12:09And it's very much where we're hoping to take this,
12:11this research is,
12:12is looking not just at the US China collaboration,
12:15but how US is collaborating with the EU,
12:18with Australia,
12:18and,
12:19and kind of all of the,
12:20the global research network,
12:22and how that's evolved over the past 20 years.
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