CHINA and the United States have inked a protocol to amend their U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement (STA) and extend it for an additional five years.

The two countries penned the protocol Dec. 13, agreeing to extend the STA effective Aug. 27 this year, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology announced.

First signed in 1979, the STA was usually renewed every five years, but its last five-year update was in August 2018 because opinions within the U.S. about the pact have been divided since last year. Due to this, China and the U.S. inked one six-month extension in August last year and another in February.

The renewed agreement reflects the efforts of the Biden administration in pursuing a relatively balanced policy approach towards China, said Xiao He, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The scope of the STA has been adjusted and narrowed, focusing on foundational scientific cooperation between the two governments while alleviating concerns within the U.S. about potential threats to national security posed by the agreement, Xiao noted. The pact also keeps general economic ties with China in non-sensitive areas, Xiao pointed out.

In June last year, 10 Republican members of the House of Representatives wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to scrap the STA, citing concerns over its impact on innovation development and security issues. However, U.S. academic and business professionals continued to support maintaining cooperative ties with China. Around one-third of U.S. research on telecommunications and computer science was made in collaboration with China between 2017 and 2021, while one-fifth of published environmental science research was done with Chinese scientists, according to global data analytics service provider Clarivate.(SD-Agencies)