Leading Russian scientist says Chinese have stopped cooperating after Ukraine invasion

The head of the Russian Academy of Sciences told an international conference that Chinese researchers have ‘pressed pause’ with no explanation
The two countries have been working to expand joint research and some Chinese scientists say they have not received any instructions to stop collaborating

Science

Stephen Chenin Beijing

Published: 7:00pm, 15 Apr 2022

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A leading Russian scientist has made a rare criticism of China, saying that cooperation between the two countries has been withheld by their Chinese counterparts “without explanation”.

Alexander Sergeev, president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said the situation had been going on for more than a month – coinciding with the invasion of Ukraine.

Sergeev said the war had completely frozen relations between Russian researchers and their counterparts in many countries, including France, Germany and the United States, which was not a surprise considering the unprecedented sanctions imposed by Western governments.

But “if we talk about the southern or eastern directions, unfortunately, I can say directly that our Chinese scientific colleagues have also pressed pause”, Sergeev told an international conference at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations on Thursday, according to Russian news agency Tass.

“Over the past month we have not been able to enter into serious discussions, despite the fact that we had excellent cooperation along with regular communication,” he added.

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According to the latest data from the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, China and Russia have set up more than 1,000 joint research and exchange programmes in the past year as their strategic partnership deepened in the face of mounting pressure from the West.

Beijing has so far declined to condemn the invasion, which it describes as a “military operation” or impose sanctions on Russia.

“I don’t think [Sergeev’s complaint] applies to the Chinese scientific community as a whole. There is no need or reason for China to stop scientific cooperation,” said a Beijing-based government researcher studying the nation’s scientific policy and international collaboration.

Some Chinese companies might have been concerned about the consequences of challenging Western sanctions “but there is no such a problem for scientists”, said the researcher who requested not to be named due to the political sensitivity of the issue.

An official overseeing international cooperation with the Chinese Academy of Sciences said they had not heard of or seen any formal documents requesting scientists to cease cooperation with Russia.

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The largest scientific cooperation projects between China and Russia are mainly in the fields of space, nuclear energy, mathematics, physics and smart manufacturing, according to publicly available information.

The two countries plan to build an international research station on the moon to counter the US-led lunar landing project.

Two scientists involved in China’s lunar programme said that they had not received an order to stop working with Russians.

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Russia has also provided some critical components, including cooling devices, to China’s fusion energy research programmes.

In return, China supplied high-quality superconducting cables for a large particle accelerator in Russia that is expected to start work this year.

An official at the Institute of Plasma Physics in Hefei, Anhui province, who is overseeing the cooperation, said they could not comment without authorisation.

In a joint statement in February, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin said scientific cooperation was a priority.

“Both sides call on the international community to create open, equal, fair and non-discriminatory conditions for scientific and technological development, to step up practical implementation of scientific and technological advances in order to identify new drivers of economic growth,” they said.

02:20

Heightened tensions in Taiwan amid Russian invasion of Ukraine

A Chinese representative from the Association of Scientific and Technical Cooperation of Russia and China said their work had not been affected by the Ukraine war.

“We will soon hold a bilateral conference on carbon material,” said the representative based in the northeastern city of Harbin.

“Our biggest headache is the pandemic. Due to travel restrictions, some activities have to be postponed or moved online.”