Good evening. It’s not nearly as exciting as responding to a rogue balloon, but the U.S. is currently facing down one of its biggest China tests: whether or not to renew an agreement on science and technology cooperation that dates all the way back to 1979. Our cover story this week has everything you need to know about the Science and Technology Agreement — its biggest successes, its most abject failures and why, even if the agreement is renewed, we likely won’t return to the halcyon days of cooperation. Elsewhere, we have infographics on Hunter Biden’s China ties; an interview with Matt Sheehan on how China is shaping its AI world; a reported piece on the tie ups between Visa, Mastercard and Alipay; and an op-ed about how to stabilize U.S.-China climate cooperation. If you’re not already a paid subscriber to The Wire, please sign up here.
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The Science Split?
With a landmark, 44-year-old agreement set to expire at the end of this month, the U.S. is facing one of its biggest China tests: Can the two countries overcome their respective techno-nationalisms and cooperate on the most basic science? Eliot Chen reports.
The Big Picture: Hunting Biden’s China Ties
This week’s infographics by Aaron Mc Nicholas and Grady McGregor disentangle what is currently known about Hunter Biden’s dealings with Chinese entities, including those with a multimillion-dollar investment fund and a defunct Chinese energy conglomerate whose billionaire founder has not been seen in public in more than five years.
A Q&A with Matt Sheehan
Matt Sheehan is a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where his research focuses on China’s artificial intelligence ecosystem. He is the author of a recently published paper, “China’s AI Regulations and How They Get Made,” the first report in a three-part series that explores how the Chinese government is formulating rules to rein in the country’s burgeoning AI sector. In this week’s Q&A with Eliot Chen, he discusses Beijing’s approach to regulating artificial intelligence, and how competitive Chinese AI firms could be.
Matt Sheehan
Illustration by Lauren Crow
Paying the Price of Entry
It’s getting easier for visitors to China to pay for things, thanks to tie ups between Visa, Mastercard and Alipay. But as Isaiah Schrader reports, that could have implications for data security.
Climate Cooperation by Other Means
To stabilize U.S.-China climate cooperation, Edmund Downie argues in this week’s op-ed that we should look beyond bilateral partnerships to more creative modes of engagement.
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