The impact of Economic Sanctions towards China-US Scientific collaboration: Evidence from the Civil Universities in the Entity List

Abstract

China and the United States have enjoyed a long peroid of scientific col-laboration. However, the economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. govern-ment on China since 2018 appear to have disrupted this productive rela-tionship. This study examines the potential impact of these sanctions on China-U.S. scientific collaboration, using the seven civilian universities, commonly referred to as SSND, as a case study. Drawing on scientific pub-lication data from the Web of Science spanning more than 20 years, we as-sess how political tensions may have affected collaboration among indi-vidual researchers in both countries. Preliminary analysis of over 300,000 records suggests that, following China’s entry into the World Trade Organi-zation (WTO) and especially around the time of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, SSND universities formed increasingly strong partnerships with U.S. insti-tutions, benefiting researchers in both nations. However, after the U.S. gov-ernment issued the Entity List to restrict trade with Chinese companies and even civilian universities, SSND institutions—representative of many Chinese universities affected by the sanctions—showed a significant de-cline in collaborations with U.S. affiliations. Instead, they shifted toward partnerships with domestic organizations and institutions in other coun-tries. From a publication output perspective, these sanctions have negative-ly impacted not only Chinese researchers but also their close American col-laborators.