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

ABSTRACT The 2018 China Initiative by the Trump administration complicated procedures and reduced funding for U.S.‐China research collaborations. Using Scopus data, we analyze its impact on Chinese research. We 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.