According to analysts, US-China medical cooperations were now heading in troubled waters as geopolitical tensions grew before the STA expired.
Dr. Reyes claimed that the US-China scientific collaborations have typically fallen and are now” cold-storage periods.”
This is supported by research results. According to a study by Professor Tang Li from the Fudan University’s School of International Relations and Public Affairs in February this year, the percentage of Sino-American combined papers reached a peak of 13.9 percent in 2019 before declining to 11.7 percent in 2023, in comparison to US analysis alone.
Also, the share of US-China creative study compared to all Chinese content saw a strong drop, falling from 12.2 per share in 2017 to 5.7 per cent in 2023.
This general pattern had already been highlighted by academics at Yangzhou University in China and Ohio State University in the US, who co-published a research paper in February 2022.
” The drop in China-USA cooperation can be seen beginning in 2019, before the ( COVID-19 ) pandemic… the patterns suggest that political tensions, more than the pandemic, influenced the drop in China-US cooperation”, the paper stated.  ,
A set point came in 2018 when the Trump presidency in the US launched the so-called China Initiative, say experts. The program sought to investigate possible breaches of regional security resulting from the leak of delicate scientific information to scientists who are suspected of having connections to Beijing.
According to a study conducted in 2022 by lawyer and law professor Andrew Chongseh Kim, scenarios involving Chinese academics who were subject to the Economic Espionage Act were more likely to be exposed and subject to harsher penalties than those involving non-Asians.
Additionally, according to the study, up to one in three Eastern scientists had false accusations, with the majority of those false accusations being dropped from juries and judges or dismissed by judges and juries.
The Biden presidency actually ended the China Initiative in early 2022. A senior US Justice Department official stated the focus on China had been” too narrow”, and the new approach would be a broader,” threat-driven” strategy targeting Russia, Iran and North Korea as well.
However, experts say there has been a lingering effects. Dr. Reyes, a researcher at HKU, claimed that institutions over the past two decades have been more cautious in their efforts to avoid breaking the law when working with Chinese scientists. He claimed that based on his relationships with academics in the US and internationally.
Because virtually every area of research has the potential to be viewed as a legitimate risk or used by China for unfriendly purposes, he said, “it’s a difficult position for institutions.”
Since the start of the China Initiative, a study by the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions in July revealed a 75 % increase in the number of Chinese-born scientists leaving the US, with the majority of them establishing new careers there.  ,
The federal government is the main one source of funding for simple studies in the US. However, according to the study, 44 % of researchers who are awarded federal grants choose to avoid applying for them.
Among those in this group, 84 percent expressed concerns about possible legal repercussions from errors in forms and disclosures, and 65 percent expressed concern that their collaborations with Taiwanese researchers or institutions does make them suspect.