China cooperation: 'We need a joint moonshot project'

Mr. Cramer, the Max Planck Society and the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) have maintained scientific-diplomatic relations for 50 years. A Chinese delegation recently visited Berlin to celebrate the anniversary. What was the meeting like?

Monday's meeting with 120 Chinese colleagues was not only productive and professional, but also cordial. A rapprochement after the pandemic. CAS President Hou Jiangou has invited me to visit China, which I am happy to do. It's easier to enter the country again. At the meeting, you could feel that many relationships and friendships have developed between researchers over the years and decades, enabling an exchange that goes beyond politics.

Science diplomacy was already relevant in 1974: As China considered the DFG's relations with Taiwan to be too close, the German government asked the MPG to organize scientific relations. What is the status in 2024?

The geopolitical situation is giving us a hard time because there is a lot of mistrust, especially in the USA, but also in Europe. I believe we have to find our own way. Regardless of the election's outcome, we must maintain our friendship and transatlantic cooperation with the USA, but we also need to cooperate with other countries such as China. We must take the risks involved seriously, take measures to contain them, and know which collaborations we can enter without risk.

You have announced a traffic light system for cooperation with China at the MPG. How are your Chinese partners reacting to this?

This system allows us to look at research projects and assess them for potential risks, such as proximity to the military. Two-thirds of the projects can simply continue because they are not suspicious. Other projects we look at in detail. A presidential commission, a "China Council," will provide consultation in problematic cases. It will vote on whether to recommend the projects. I have openly told our Chinese colleagues about this and communicated that all of this also serves to protect our cooperation so that we can maintain it. They very much liked the idea.

Where exactly do you draw the line in cooperation?

We reject the use of research findings for military purposes and for surveillance of the population. We are also concerned about the restrictions on scientific freedom in China and the tightening of regulations on the availability of research data. A major success of this week's meeting was that our Chinese colleagues ensured that research data that we receive in joint projects is also available to both sides at the same time. So, there is something to be gained from talking to each other instead of just talking about each other.

Only few German scientists are still working and researching in the People's Republic. What are you doing at the MPG to remedy the lack of expertise on China?

Indeed, only 120 German scientists were working on long-term research projects in China during the pandemic in 2021. That is completely insufficient. The Max Planck Society alone has 1,400 to 1,500 Chinese employees in Germany. In order to improve this balance, we have agreed on so-called summer schools. These are low-threshold offers of four to six weeks for researchers from Germany to travel to China and get to know themselves with the scientific system there.

You have already warned against decoupling in the past. What would be missing if we decoupled from China's scientific community?

We would lack access to unique research infrastructures, and long-standing research partnerships would collapse. We conducted a survey in the Max Planck Society in which 55 percent of respondents said that scientific cooperation with China is important or even essential for their own research. In the last five years, more than 3,700 joint publications have been published as part of cooperation projects between the MPG and CAS. This makes it our second most important international partner institution, after the French Center National de la Recherche Scientifique. In times of geopolitical conflict, we also need to keep a communication channel open that goes beyond politics.

The German government is sending out mixed signals: During his trip to China, the Federal Chancellor promises more research cooperation, while the Research Minister warns against it. What do you think is the right approach?

I thought it was right that Olaf Scholz made it clear during his visit to China in April that we want cooperation. It is difficult to rebuild structures once they have been lost. In general, the scientific community has to decide on collaborations itself, partly because you have to look into the details of the projects. Politics should provide support rather than intervene. Bettina Stark-Watzinger has also promised this. She also thanked us for our recommendations for China collaborations and for the fact that we are taking the issue seriously.

In your opinion, what political initiative would support the difficult task of building relationships?

First, outstanding Chinese researchers must be able to obtain visas for Germany more easily. We harm ourselves if we are too restrictive regarding entry permits. Then, I would like to pick up on what a Chinese colleague asked on Monday: "Where is our moonshot project anyway?" I would like to pass this question on to politicians as a wish: There are pressing human tasks that would be worth considering. For example, curing cancer, fighting the climate crisis, or switching to a sustainable economy. Specifically, we could imagine working on a global hydrogen infrastructure from chemistry to the economy, for example. After all, the government is already running such projects.

However, this was also the hope with Russia. ITER was a project that emerged after the Cold War. It is now under a lot of pressure since the start of the Russian war of aggression.

I believe that a moonshot project of this kind should pursue a bottom-up approach as well as a top-down one. We should find scientists who have a genuine interest in driving research projects forward and if we see potential for a sensible, efficient joint approach, then politicians should reinforce this. We will do everything in our power to promote such international collaborations, because I believe that they positively affect cultural understanding, the education of the next generations and global innovation.

In the end, however, we remain dependent on geopolitics. If China were to invade Taiwan in the near future, scientific relations would presumably also be severely affected. How impactful can science diplomacy actually be?

I would like to give you a concrete answer to that. CAS President Huo Jiangou has now visited us in Germany for the second time in one year, as well as European partners. After his last visit, he emphasized in interviews that we depend on mutual cooperation and also called on his government not to decouple. We have now talked extensively about how we benefit from exchange. But the reverse is also true. China benefits from our ideas, our approaches. Science diplomacy works well when both sides benefit.