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| Amina Mohammed, deputy secretary-general of the United Nations, speaks at the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. (PHOTO: XINHUA) |
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The CHIPS and Science Act, passed in August, seems to support U.S. domestic chip industry and scientific research. But in reality, it aims to politicize and marginalize the development issues, and to artificially create divisions and confrontations by setting restrictions on China's technology, investment and personnel communication, etc.
The act not only undermines sci-tech innovation cooperation between the two countries, but also impedes global economic recovery and sustainable development.
In the past decades, China and the U.S. have deepened their international cooperation in various fields such as scientific research, industry, investment and education, and established extensive relations.
Supporting economic development and people's well-being, the cooperation has driven globalization and the sustainable development goals (SDGs), which is in line with aspirations of the people worldwide for peace, development and cooperation.
Currently, sustainable development is facing historic challenges that can only be solved by sci-tech innovation cooperation.
On one hand, there is a structural imbalance between global supply and demand, which includes imbalances between different countries and regions, as well as imbalances between different stages of development.
China and the U.S. play the most important roles in global technology and industrial gradient transfer. That means, if the cooperation falls, it will further reduce the efficiency of the global economy and hinder its recovery.
On the other hand, the various sustainable development problems facing the world today can be traced back to the development gap and development deficit.
Facing a huge financing gap, there is a long way to achieve and implement the United Nation's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Issues such as cyber security, energy security, food security, climate change, and infectious diseases can only be solved through sci-tech innovation cooperation under a multilateral framework.
Take the chips act as an example, the U.S. has taken the initiative to carry on a series of actions in recent years to undermine China-U.S. technological innovation cooperation and exchanges.
These actions not only add additional costs to the global innovation system, but also disrupt the fundamental paradigms in science, and reduce other countries' voice on issues such as research integrity, ethical issues raised by new technologies, and sustainability of ecological environment.
Moreover, in the face of global problems, China and the U.S. are both major suppliers of capital, technology and infrastructure. The destruction of bilateral cooperation will inevitably have a very negative impact on various multilateral cooperation mechanisms.
As the developed country with the largest economy in the world, the U.S. has a huge impact on global sustainable development. Thus, the U.S. government should be fully aware of its responsibilities, and abandon the deglobalized cold war mentality and zero-sum thinking.
Only by actively carrying out different forms of sci-tech innovation cooperation with emerging markets and developing countries including China, can the U.S. solve its own problems and play an active role in the global development pattern of win-win cooperation and shared prosperity.
The authors are researchers at the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development.