Scientific Isolation? The Consequences of Trump's China Initiative on Chinese Research

The 2018 China Initiative by the Trump administration complicated procedures and reduced funding for U.S.-China research collaborations. Using Scopus data, the authors analyze its impact on Chinese research. they find that it significantly lowered the quality of both publications and co-authors of Chinese researchers with prior U.S. collaborations compared to those with prior European collaborations, and reduced yearly citations for affected researchers by 6%. The effect was stronger for high-productivity Chinese researchers in U.S.-dominated fields. While China is at the forefront of the scientific frontier, it still depends more on the U.S. than the reverse.