Editorial: When geopolitics does not make for great science

On Monday, the US House of Representatives passed the Biosecure Act, a big step toward making it law. The bill, introduced in January, prohibits federally funded pharmaceutical companies from collaborating with five Chinese firms, citing national security concerns.

The bill has bipartisan support in the Senate, and President Joe Biden is expected to sign it into law as early as the end of the year, according to an analysis from the law firm Foley and Lardner.

And in Tuesday night’s US presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, one of the few areas of agreement was that China poses a threat to the US. Trump was quick to point out that the stiff tariffs on many Chinese goods imposed by his administration were left in place by President Biden.

This week’s developments are part of a larger trend of anti-China sentiment in the US, one that underscores the escalating geopolitical tension between the world’s two largest economies.

The US-China relationship has been strained for decades, but the years after the COVID-19 pandemic have brought several new anti-China policies. In addition to keeping the tariffs, the Biden administration has called out China for unfair trade practices regarding technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation. Biden even increased tariffs across sectors such as steel and aluminum, semiconductors, electric vehicles, batteries, critical minerals, solar cells, and medical products.

Meanwhile, the US is spending large sums in an attempt to revive industries that have partly or completely left for China and other countries. For instance, the Department of Defense is looking to fund private industry projects to expand US production of chemicals important to the military, including propellants, dyes, fuel, and explosive formulations.

On an economic level, the prognosis is not good for many of the US government’s efforts. Tariffs, and restrictions like those in the Biosecure Act, don’t have a great track record of benefiting the industries and consumers they are meant to aid. And the Defense Department has a long road ahead in its effort to revive domestic production of chemicals for which the infrastructure and know-how disappeared years ago.

Politicians sell trade barriers on the idea that they can coerce other nations to behave by making it harder for them to access large and prosperous markets. Domestic jobs can be boosted in the process. But more and more, the actual result is that the nations that the US deems adversarial become a separate economic bloc—one that isn’t constrained by international norms and agreements.

Take helium, for example. Russia extracts a lot of the gas from its plentiful methane resources and is bringing on new lines that may make it the world’s leading producer. More western nations are adding helium to the trade embargoes that seek to force Russia to end its aggression in Ukraine, but China is happy to buy Russian helium. That supply gives China an advantage in helium-dependent industries such as semiconductor manufacturing and aerospace, even as the rest of the world struggles with shortages.

Of more existential concern, the increasing sentiment against China has the potential to strain international relationships and disrupt progress on key global issues. The rising animosity between the two countries could hinder strategic cooperation needed to combat climate change, food security, global health, and artificial intelligence regulation. It could also disrupt collaboration within scientific communities.

Pollutants and disease vectors floating through the air care little about lines on a map. It’s a bad time to raise the walls between the world’s economic and industrial powerhouses. Humanity’s comfortable stay on Earth faces multiple threats that cannot be solved without global cooperation.

This editorial is the result of collective deliberation in C&EN. For this week’s editorial, the lead contributors are Craig Bettenhausen and Aayushi Pratap.

.Views expressed on this page are not necessarily those of ACS.