November 7, 2018 - China Announces International Technology Cooperation Initiatives

On November 7, 2018, China announced a sweeping international technology cooperation push that went far beyond standard trade agreements. Twenty-four Belt and Road countries signed science and technology memorandums of understanding with China, covering regions from Central Asia to Sub-Saharan Africa. These deals prioritized capacity building, joint innovation, and local expertise development. China also advanced open science principles emphasizing equal access and mutual benefit. There's much more to unpack about what this initiative really means for global research cooperation.

Key Takeaways

• On November 7, 2018, twenty-four Belt and Road Initiative countries signed technology cooperation memorandums of understanding with China.
• Signatories spanned diverse regions, including Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Thailand, Kuwait, Laos, and Ethiopia, prioritizing capacity building and local expertise development.
• China simultaneously launched an APEC AI Initiative, proposing a new international organization for global AI cooperation with equal country access.
• Shanghai was proposed as headquarters for the new AI organization, with China positioning itself as a central coordinator for AI regulation.
• By late 2018, China had signed 123 Belt and Road cooperation documents with 105 countries, expanding beyond physical infrastructure into science and technology.

What Did China's November 7 Initiative Actually Propose?

At the APEC summit on November 7, Xi Jinping unveiled a sweeping initiative centered on global AI cooperation, proposing a new international organization that would give all countries and companies equal rights to access AI technology—with Shanghai as its potential headquarters.

The proposal frames AI as a public good, meaning you'd see China actively sharing its development experience and products, particularly with Global South nations.

Through tech diplomacy, Beijing positions itself as a central coordinator for AI regulation and standards harmonization across borders.

The initiative also targets bridging the digital divide within the Asia-Pacific region while boosting public AI literacy.

Essentially, China's pushing for a structured global governance framework where it leads pragmatic cooperation rather than simply participating in it. This ambition extends to bilateral engagements, as seen when Xi pledged closer cooperation with the UAE across cutting-edge technologies including artificial intelligence and the digital economy during a state visit by Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

China has further reinforced its global science and technology presence by establishing sci-tech cooperation relationships with more than 160 countries and regions, underscoring the broad reach of its international engagement strategy. This cooperative momentum runs parallel to the explosive domestic growth of Chinese tech platforms, where Tencent's WeChat has scaled to 1.427 billion monthly active users as of 2024, demonstrating China's capacity to develop and sustain technology ecosystems at a global scale.

The 24 Belt and Road Countries That Signed On

On November 7, 2018, 24 Belt and Road Initiative countries signed technology cooperation memorandums of understanding with China, formally expanding BRI's scope beyond physical infrastructure into science and tech collaboration. These signatories spanned diverse regions, including early adopters like Kyrgyzstan, Poland, and Thailand alongside 2018 joiners such as Kuwait, Laos, and Ethiopia. You'll notice the group reflected BRI's broad geographic reach, covering Europe, Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and East Asia.

The agreements prioritized capacity building, helping participating nations develop local expertise in joint innovation projects. Data sovereignty concerns shaped how countries approached these deals, particularly among developing nations seeking investment access without surrendering technological autonomy. Notably, the initiative excluded non-signatories like India and Brazil, reinforcing that participation remained voluntary and strategically calculated. Membership in the BRI is formalized through a memorandum of understanding with China, with the Chinese government maintaining the Belt and Road Portal to track and announce new signatories.

By late 2018, China had signed 123 cooperation documents with 105 countries, reflecting the rapid expansion of BRI's formal diplomatic and economic partnerships across the globe.

The Principles Driving China's Push for Open Science Cooperation

Beyond infrastructure and tech agreements, China's open science push rests on four core principles that you'll find shaping its broader cooperation agenda.

Equality Principles and Mutual Benefit sit at the foundation, ensuring governments, research institutions, enterprises, and NGOs all participate on even footing. No single actor dominates; everyone contributes and gains.

The initiative also upholds Respect Diversity in scientific practices, encouraging under-represented groups to engage and aligning with UNESCO's inclusive open science framework. This isn't symbolic — it directly shapes how partner nations structure their participation.

Universal Access ties everything together. You'll see it drive open data sharing, interoperable platforms, and shared research infrastructure that lets scientists worldwide tap into collective knowledge. Together, these principles frame cooperation as genuinely reciprocal rather than donor-driven or hierarchical. The Action Plan is structured as non-binding text, open to contributions from G20 members, observers, knowledge partners, and other endorsing parties who declare full acceptance of its terms.

China has promoted open science for more than 20 years, with the number of open access papers published by Chinese scholars increasing year by year, reflecting its long-standing commitment to advancing scientific knowledge sharing on the global stage. This commitment to shared infrastructure mirrors broader global technology trends, where companies like Samsung deploy AI-driven factories targeting full automation by 2030 to synchronize knowledge and production across international networks.

Why China's 13th Five-Year Plan Laid the Groundwork for This Push

When China released its 13th Five-Year Plan, it didn't just outline economic targets — it built the structural foundation for the open science and technology cooperation push you see today.

The industrial policy embedded in that plan targeted five major sectors, set measurable output goals, and identified strategic emerging industries as pillars for transformation.

Through tech localization mandates, China pushed domestic champions to capture over 50 percent of smart manufacturing markets by 2020.

Municipal governments established innovation hubs — Tianjin alone targeted 100 by end of 2016.

Internet of Things, cloud computing, and AI integration were mandated across industries.

These weren't aspirational statements; they were binding directives with ministry assignments, financing mechanisms, and procurement programs designed to systematically reduce foreign dependency while accelerating domestic capability. The plan explicitly directed China to leverage the Belt and Road initiative to access global innovation resources and enhance the internationalization of strategic emerging industries.

The 13th Five-Year Plan also set a GDP growth target of 6.5 percent annually for the period 2016 to 2020, underscoring the urgency of transitioning toward innovation-led industries to sustain that pace of expansion without relying on the heavy manufacturing models of the past. This drive toward mobile and connected technology ecosystems reflects a broader global shift that began decades earlier, when Martin Cooper's 1973 demonstration of the first handheld cell phone proved that untethered, person-centric communication was both possible and commercially inevitable.

Joint Research Centers, Innovation Hubs, and Shared Infrastructure

China has converted its technology cooperation ambitions into concrete infrastructure — joint research centers, shared labs, and innovation hubs that span over 160 countries and regions. Through the Belt and Road Initiative, China's built over 70 joint labs covering agriculture, energy, and health. You'll find examples like the China-Uruguay Soybean Joint Laboratory, launched in 2020, conducting field tests and genetic breeding research.

The ISA-China Joint Training and Research Centre in Qingdao, launched that same year, supports developing states in deep-sea technology. These shared platforms extend beyond bilateral ties — China's exported BeiDou navigation to 140+ countries and invites international scientists to its Space Station. Meanwhile, the China-Pakistan Joint Research Center on Earth Sciences reflects how joint labs are deepening cooperation across critical scientific disciplines. China has also signed 119 intergovernmental sci-tech cooperation agreements, further formalizing these international partnerships across a wide range of research and innovation fields.

Supporting these efforts, institutions like the International Cooperation Center have established themselves as long-standing strategic partners of the United Nations Coordination System in China, reinforcing the multilateral frameworks that underpin global scientific collaboration. Much like Canada's Silver Dart flights of 1909 demonstrated the viability of powered aviation and laid the groundwork for future aerospace development, China's cooperative science initiatives aim to establish foundational infrastructure that will support generations of international research.

How Foreign R&D Centers and Enterprises Plug Into Belt and Road S&T

The joint labs and innovation hubs described above don't operate in isolation — they're anchored to a broader institutional architecture that actively pulls foreign R&D centers and enterprises into Belt and Road science and technology cooperation.

Technology transfer centers serve as your entry points, connecting foreign labs and corporate partnerships to online-to-offline service platforms that move talents, technologies, and capital across borders. You'll find over 80 intergovernmental agreements providing the legal scaffolding that makes these connections enforceable and stable.

More than 70 joint laboratories expand that framework further, giving enterprises structured venues for collaborative research. Whether you're targeting green shipping, cell therapy, or low-carbon energy, the system channels your participation toward priority domains while ensuring mutual benefit remains the governing principle throughout. The plan also targets bringing 150,000 S&T personnel from Belt and Road countries to China for exchanges and training, deepening the human capital layer that sustains these enterprise and research connections over time.

Innovation partnership networks extend this reach across key countries along the routes, including nodes in Israel, Russia, Ukraine, Czech, Slovak, and India, giving enterprises direct access to a diverse set of national innovation ecosystems embedded within the broader Belt and Road framework. This cooperative model mirrors the logic behind initiatives like Project Loon, where broadband connectivity was expanded to underserved regions through structured international partnerships and shared technological infrastructure.

How Belt and Road S&T Cooperation Changes Global Research Access

Beyond access to specific labs or agreements, Belt and Road S&T cooperation reshapes how researchers and institutions worldwide connect to frontier science. You're seeing research accessibility expand as joint labs, training programs, and cooperation networks pull developing-country scientists into cutting-edge fields like AI, cell therapy, and high-intensity laser research. These aren't passive arrangements—they push joint R&D, personnel exchanges, and high-level publications that strengthen publication equity across Global South institutions.

China's Global Scientific Research Fund actively encourages BRI researcher participation, while the STI Partnership Program for Young People builds long-term capacity. The Chengdu Declaration reinforces this by committing to open, fair, non-discriminatory scientific cooperation and rejecting zero-sum competition. Together, these initiatives help align BRI research engagement with the UN 2030 Agenda's broader development goals. The cooperation framework also addresses pressing global issues, with the Belt and Road Special Cooperation Program for Sustainable Development Technology targeting shared challenges such as climate change, public health, environmental protection, and energy and food security. China has signed intergovernmental science and technology cooperation agreements with more than 80 BRI partners, establishing a formal diplomatic backbone that gives researchers across member states structured pathways to access collaborative opportunities. Unlike historical territorial frameworks such as the General Act of Berlin, which imposed top-down governance structures without consulting affected peoples, China's BRI cooperation model formally commits to inclusive, non-discriminatory participation from all partner nations.