The National Science Foundation has been stepping up partnerships and collaborative investments with allies around the world, one element of the Biden administration’s push to build a coalition of like-minded researchers in biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other areas.
The increased engagement is the administration’s way to use alliances and democracies to isolate and outcompete China. The White House said in its 2022 national security strategy that the science and technology spending would enable the U.S. to “anchor an allied techno-industrial base that will safeguard our shared security, prosperity and values.”
But despite the friction between the U.S. and China, some scientists are still trying to walk a fine line: working with Chinese colleagues without violating U.S. rules. The benefit of doing so is, at least in part, to keep Chinese scientists in the Western world’s publishing ecosystem even as Beijing tries to build its own.
