US-China tension fuels decoupling in tech research, study shows

Karoline Kan and Tanaz Meghjani, Bloomberg News on Nov 25, 2025

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U.S.-China collaboration in technology research has fallen steadily to the lowest in 20 years, a shift an Australian think tank warns could reshape global innovation vital to security and economic growth.

Only a quarter of China’s collaborations involve American researchers, down from over half a decade ago, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Critical Technology Tracker, which analyzed over 7 million papers across 74 critical fields. Collaboration intensity — the share of co-authored work relative to overall output — has dropped back to 2005 levels, according to the report released Wednesday.

The retreat comes at a time when China now generates almost 40% of global research output and dominates most critical technologies. Past collaborations between the world’s two largest economies have produced advances ranging from genomics and earthquake monitoring to energy efficiency and agricultural productivity.

The Tracker also shows declining collaboration between China and U.S. allies including Canada, Australia and the Netherlands, even as Chinese researchers deepen ties with partners including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Belarus.

Pakistan rose from virtually no collaboration in 2005 to become China’s seventh most significant research partner in 2019, driven by nanomaterials research. Saudi Arabia advanced to eighth place in 2024 from 46th in 2005, while Belarus climbed to 20th from 41st.

“The risk of bifurcation is not simply that democracies lose access to Chinese research; it is that they lose the ability to steer global technological development,” said Stephan Robin, the report’s author. “Avoiding that outcome, it demands recoupling on new terms, built around trusted networks.”

The decline in U.S.-China research collaborations began after the U.S. Justice Department launched the China Initiative in 2018, subjecting such work to national-security scrutiny aimed at curbing intellectual property theft and curbing technology transfer. Although the Biden Administration dismantled the China Initiative in 2022, restrictions have continued.

Congress is now weighing measures to revive the China Initiative and impose sweeping bans on joint research. That would further accelerate the decoupling trend, even as China consolidates its lead in 57 of the 64 tracked technologies, spanning advanced materials, manufacturing and telecommunications.

This disengagement extends beyond the U.S., as America’s allies also become cautious about working with China. In Australia, growing concerns prompted various initiatives between 2018 and 2024 to strengthen risk assessment frameworks and funding for research projects involving China-based collaborators declined from a peak of A$90 million ($58.2 million) in 2019 to A$33 million in 2024. In the UK, similar risk assessment has also led to significant funding cut to collaborative research projects with China.

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