In an attempt to chip away at the already shaky foundations of the China-US relationship, some Republican lawmakers on Tuesday urged the US State Department to not renew a decades-old bilateral agreement on scientific cooperation on the grounds that it would help China modernize its military.

In a letter sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the chair of the US House of Representatives' Select Committee on China Mike Gallagher and nine other Republican representatives alleged that the deal, set to expire on Aug 27, would enable Beijing to use "academic researchers, industrial espionage, forced technology transfers, and other tactics to gain an edge in critical technologies, which in turn fuels the People's Liberation Army modernization", and thus it should be scrapped.

The US-China Agreement on Cooperation in Science and Technology was the first bilateral accord signed by the two countries after relations were normalized in 1979. It has to be renewed about every five years and is seen as a symbol of robust government-to-government science and technology collaboration that continues to this day.

Moreover, over the past four decades, more than 30 protocols and deals in a wide range of areas — including health, engineering, climate change and environmental protection — have been signed, and hundreds of joint programs conducted under the framework of the agreement, laying solid common ground upon which the two countries could build mutual trust and broaden cooperation.

Those who call for an end to China-US cooperation in the fields of science and technology seem ignorant of the fact that the agreement is not a favor granted to China by the US, but a partnership that enables both Chinese and US scientists as well as scholars and students to learn from and share with each other research data, experience and expertise to the benefit and prosperity of both countries.

Any politically motivated setbacks in terms of China-US cooperation in science and technology will not only cause more damage to the already souring bilateral relations, but also compromise their joint efforts to address such global issues as climate change.

Washington has always said it has no intention to trigger a conflict with, or contain China, and wants to maintain a stable relationship that has "guardrails". But sincerity is subject to proof, and it is actions, not words, that really count. The outcome on the science and technology agreement — one of the few remaining fruits of Sino-US cooperation on the basis of equality, reciprocity and mutual benefit — will serve to show to what extent the US is willing to do damage control in terms of its relations with China.