The United States Department of Defense has recently blacklisted some Chinese research institutions, a step that, contrary to safeguarding national security as Washington claims, would instead hamper scientific exchanges between the world's two largest economies and undermine global innovation, officials and experts said on Wednesday.
"Washington has continuously overstretched the concept of national security, erected discriminatory barriers and 'politicized, weaponized and instrumentalized' scientific research cooperation," a spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce said in a statement, expressing "strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition" to the US move.
These comments came after the Pentagon added several Chinese research institutions — including Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University — to its so-called "list of foreign institutions engaging in problematic activities" last Thursday.
The move hinders scientific research exchanges and collaboration between China and the US and runs counter to the global trend toward cooperation in scientific and technological innovation, the spokesperson added.
In unveiling the updated list of 130 academic and research institutions — 88 of which are Chinese — the Pentagon framed the move as an effort to curb what it described as unauthorized technology transfers to "foreign countries of concern".
