As a scientist in China, I worry politics is unraveling my U.S. ties

From ScienceMag:

“Problem.” As soon as I saw the subject line on my collaborator’s email, I had a sinking feeling. We had been working together—I in China, my collaborator in the United States—to finalize a manuscript from a joint biomedical research project. For a moment, I thought the email might be about journal policies or additional experimental details. But I soon realized better controls or more data would not help. “I may have to be off the paper,” the email read, next to a link to a news article about proposed legislation that would prohibit U.S. researchers from receiving federal funding if they collaborate with Chinese scientists. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

I have worked with U.S. scientists for decades. About 20 years ago, after completing degrees in China and England, I moved to the U.S. to pursue my Ph.D. I was lucky to be trained by and collaborate with prominent American scientists, first in graduate school and later as a postdoc, at top U.S. institutions, where my professional identity was shaped. I was taught the universal values of science—the insistence on rigorous methods, open debate, and scientific integrity. I vividly remember one supervisor telling me, “Science is not private property and only grows through sharing.”

A few years ago, life pulled me back to China as my parents aged. I am the only child in the family and feel obliged to stay closer to them. I brought the scientific values I had cherished in the U.S. to my lab and continued to collaborate with my U.S. colleagues. Such ties matter because disease doesn’t stop at the border, and international collaboration is a key way to strengthen the conclusions in biomedical research. Reviewers sometimes want to see that clinical samples have been collected from multiple ethnic populations. And in my discipline, which relies on imaging devices, it’s important that centers around the world collaborate to ensure the data are comparable.

After reading the email from my colleague, I worried that if the legislation went through, it wouldn’t just mean I would lose my many U.S. co-authors on the paper we were finalizing. It could put a stop to all collaborations with those researchers moving forward. As it turned out, the legislation did not pass, and our manuscript was eventually accepted with the names of my U.S. collaborators on it. But the political climate that discourages U.S.-Chinese collaborations has not gone away.

As tensions between the two countries have grown and Chinese scientists working in the U.S. have been targeted by investigations, I have found myself hesitating to reach out to U.S. contacts for future collaboration. “Will our collaboration put them at risk?” I ask myself. Such ties now seem more like a danger than an opportunity. That’s been a hard pill to swallow, because I have spent most of my professional time in the U.S. Now, I must focus on rebuilding my network outside the U.S. from scratch.

I also see this breakdown affecting the younger generation of Chinese scientists, who no longer have equal opportunities to connect with researchers at U.S. universities. I am unsure whether I should even encourage my trainees to attend U.S. conferences. They may be denied visas and unable to present their findings. When they can participate, it is far less likely than before to foster any actual collaborations. Many are already reluctant to go. “What’s the point of attending?” some have asked me.

Over my career, I have found that the universal research language brings strangers together across disciplines and borders. I became the scientist I am because my supervisors and collaborators were willing to share ideas, resources, and mentorship.

It is a strange feeling for me to see that culture threatened. Given the current political situation, I worry about what the future holds for joint U.S.-Chinese research. Right now, it appears as though winter is coming.

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