BEIJING, Feb. 26 -- China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian condemned some US defense agencies' claim that China uses the expertise of US universities to enhance its military and technological competitiveness when responding to a question at the regular press conference on February 25, 2020.
The question is that some officials from the US Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health said recently that China uses the expertise of US universities to enhance its military and technological competitiveness. They also accused China of stealing US scientific achievements by recruiting top US researchers, entrepreneurs and experts to China. What is China's comment?
FM Spokesperson Zhao Lijian answered that he has noted relevant reports and stressed three points correspondingly.
First, China's scientific and technological achievements are not made through theft or robbery. The Chinese people, including our intellectuals, made such achievements with our talent and hard work. Statistics show that between 2009 and 2019, Chinese scientists published 2.6 million papers on international journals, ranking the second in the world.
Second, the strengthening of science and technology exchange and cooperation between China and the US serves the common interests of both sides. Certain US officials, under the pretext of national security, have ulterior motives in cooking up so-called China's theft of US scientific & research outcomes. Some US university principals also believe those officials' concerns about national security are over-exaggerated and discriminatory, saying that cooperation with China is crucial to science and technology progress.
Third, cross-border flow of talents has advanced scientific and technological development across the world. All countries are actively engaging in talents' exchange and cooperation, and the US is especially so. The relevant measures taken by the Chinese side are aimed to facilitate the flow of talents between China and other countries and encourage international scientific and technological cooperation. It doesn't have any substantive difference from what other countries in the world have been doing.
Zhao emphasized that China urges certain US officials to abandon the obsolete Cold War mindset and zero-sum game mentality. They should fairly view and uphold China-US exchanges and cooperation in science, technology and people-to-people interaction instead, and need to do more to enhance mutual trust and cooperation between the two countries.
